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Families face higher costs as back-to-school season nears

2026-07-28T15:08:02-0400 / CBS News

By Megan Cerullo Reporter, MoneyWatch

As back-to-school season approaches, families will face higher prices for supplies and other costs for the upcoming academic year, a new analysis found.

The cost of a typical basket of school items, including notebooks, lunch boxes and index cards, is up nearly 8% this year compared to 2025, according to research from The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, and Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive advocacy group. Americans will also pay 11% more for a typical school lunch, the groups found.

Families will spend roughly $4,000 per student on school supplies and lunches this year, including about $175 on school items and $3,800 on packed lunches, according to the analysis.

“It’s the second-biggest shopping event of the year after Christmas, and families are going to be facing a lot of pain this school year,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, told CBS News.

“Higher gas prices have filtered through to food and clothing, and tariffs are hitting these items heavily, too, because most school supplies are not made in the U.S. — they’re imported, ” she added.

Inflation across the U.S. slowed in June, easing to an annual rate of 3.5%, from 4.2% in May, as fuel costs fell. Yet gas prices have flared in July amid renewed conflict in the Middle East.

Among the products that are costlier this year, according to The Century Foundation and Groundwork:

School supplies

• One-subject notebook: $4.92 (up 23%)
• Index cards: $3.86 (up 22%)
• Glue sticks: $7.68 (up 7.6%)

Lunch box staples

• Lunch box: $18.91 (up 27% from 2025)
• Blueberries: $4.89 (up 48% from 2025)
• Sandwich bread: $4.36 (up 22%)
• Apple juice: $4.14 (up 20%)
• Animal crackers: $6.49 (up 15.7%)

What’s driving up costs?

Steeper U.S. tariffs on a range of imports have driven up the price of binders, pencils and other school supplies, the groups’ research shows. Many school essentials, such as pens, markers, notebooks and glue, are manufactured overseas, making them subject to higher tariffs.

For example, Newell Brands, the maker of Sharpie pens, Elmer’s glue and other classroom products, said in an earnings release earlier this year that it would hike prices to offset sharply higher tariff costs.

Matteo Anversa, the chief financial officer of Logitech, which makes electronics like headsets and keyboards, in May also cited stepped-up tariffs for a “sizable” increase in its U.S. prices.

Other school-supply companies also blame higher energy costs due to the Iran war for having to raise their prices. Acco Brands, the parent company of notebook and binder brands Mead, Five Star and Trapper Keeper, said in a May earnings call that higher oil prices stemming from the conflict have driven up the company’s costs and led to price hikes for consumers.

A recent survey of more than 1,000 parents by Credit Karma found that 45% expect to take on debt to cover back-to-school costs. Half of families plan to cut back on household expenses to cover those costs, according to Deloitte.

“Parents do what they can to try to get their kids to school with the essentials, so it’s not surprising folks are cutting back to make sure their kids have what they need,” Groundwork’s Owens said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/back-to-school-shopping-already-heres-how-to-save-on-the-essentials/

Back-to-school shopping already? Here’s how to save on the essentials

(02:56)

Blanche nomination uncertain as key GOP senator says DOJ ‘radio silent’ on demand to spike controversial fund

2026-07-28T18:00:48.058Z / CNN

Blanche nomination uncertain as key GOP senator says DOJ ‘radio silent’ on demand to spike controversial fund

By Morgan Rimmer

2 hr ago

PUBLISHED Jul 28, 2026, 2:00 PM ET

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Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche is sworn in before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination on Capitol Hill on July 15, 2026.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

The fate of Todd Blanche’s nomination to be President Donald Trump’s attorney general is up in the air, with a key GOP senator indicating Tuesday he has not yet received the assurances he needs to vote in support.

Sen. John Cornyn said he hasn’t received an update from the Justice Department on his and Sen. Thom Tillis’ demand that the “anti-weaponization” fund be formally killed before they vote in favor of advancing Blanche’s nomination.

Both Republicans sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to vote Thursday morning on whether to move forward on Blanche’s nomination. Without their backing, the vote will fail.

“They’ve been kind of radio silent for the last 24 hours,” Cornyn said of the DOJ. “I think my staff is talking to them, but we’re not — they know what they need to do. They just don’t want to do it.”

Blanche has insisted that the “anti-weaponization” fund — a controversial pool of money set aside to award people who claim to have been wronged by the Justice Department, including possibly January 6, 2021, rioters — is no longer happening.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month, the acting attorney general insisted bluntly that “the weaponization fund is dead,” and said that the tax addendum — which is the only part of the agreement between Trump’s personal attorneys and the Justice Department that still stands — “binds only the IRS and by extension the Treasury” from investigating the president for potential crimes, not other agencies. The administration had also previously asserted in a court filing that it had abandoned the “anti-weaponization” fund.

But the two GOP senators have sought more assurances, including a written adjustment to the settlement agreement, according to Politico.

On Tuesday, Cornyn raised the possibility of postponing the committee vote until the issue of the fund is sorted out. “That’s being discussed. That’s being discussed, but hopefully it won’t be necessary,” the Texas Republican said, though he noted that he hasn’t discussed the idea with Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley yet.

The $1.8 billion fund has been controversial from the start, upending other Senate priorities as critics said it amounted to a slush fund to allow the president to pay out his supporters with taxpayer money. And even while the administration sought to convince lawmakers it was dead, Trump had refused himself to do so, exacerbating tensions on Capitol Hill.

Last week, Cornyn had said that he didn’t expect Grassley to postpone the vote. However, as the vote gets closer, that may change.

If the votes aren’t there to confirm him, Cornyn said Thursday, “then Sen. Grassley might decide to postpone it. But that’s not — I don’t think that’s the number one goal right now.”

Flock surveillance spreads across the South as red-state lawmakers seek to ax ‘1984’-style tracking tools

Lawmakers plan to reintroduce the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act to ban license plate readers, face recognition and drones

2026-07-28T12:04:50-04:00 / Fox News

By Robert McGreevy, Fox News

Published July 28, 2026 12:04pm EDT

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State lawmakers in West Virginia’s Freedom Caucus are seeking to ban AI-powered Flock surveillance cameras statewide, arguing the technology violates citizens’ Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

“The West Virginia Freedom Caucus strongly opposes the unchecked expansion of automated surveillance technologies, including Flock Safety camera systems, automated license plate readers (ALPRs), AI-powered facial recognition, multimodal vehicle recognition, and emerging ‘gun detection’ software that claims to identify armed citizens based on body shape or movement,” West Virginia Delegate Chris Anders, the chairman of West Virginia’s Freedom Caucus, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“These technologies represent a dramatic expansion of government surveillance that is fundamentally at odds with the Fourth Amendment,” Anders added.

THE SURVEILLANCE CAMERA ON YOUR STREET CORNER: LAWFUL SPYING OR CONSTITUTIONALLY PROBLEMATIC?

A West Virginia Freedom Caucus poster advocating for a ban on Flock cameras.(West Virginia Freedom Caucus)

“No state or local government should be mass tracking the daily movements of law-abiding citizens without a warrant. Mass surveillance has no place in a free society,” Anders also said in a statement posted to the caucus’ X account.

The caucus is calling on all state municipalities to immediately remove automated license plate readers such as the ones run by the security company Flock Safety.

“The Constitution does not disappear because technology advances,” Anders added.

The caucus plans on combating the cameras and surveillance technologies by reintroducing a previously failed legislative measure called the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act.

The bill would prohibit a series of AI-powered surveillance technologies from being used by law enforcement and other agencies in the state. The technologies it would ban include facial recognition software, surveillance drones, license plate readers and more.

Flock Safety cameras use AI to capture license plate images in real time, tracking vehicles as they move through neighborhoods.(Flock Safety)

“For two consecutive years, the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act has been introduced in the West Virginia Legislature, yet it has failed to reach the Governor’s desk. That must change,” Anders also said, placing blame for the bill’s previous failures at the feet of the state’s legislative leadership.

“Despite growing public concern over government surveillance, Speaker Roger Hanshaw and House Judiciary Chairman JB Akers declined to bring the bill forward for consideration. As a result, the House was never given the opportunity to debate or vote on this legislation,” Anders wrote in an email to Fox News Digital.

“If House leadership continues to deny the people’s elected representatives the opportunity to vote on this fundamental constitutional issue, the Freedom Caucus will use every parliamentary tool available to insist that the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act receive an up-or-down vote in both chambers. Constitutional rights should never be quietly buried in committee,” Anders added.

Chairman Akers, in a response to Anders’ comments, told Fox News Digital, “We actually passed a bill last session that limits the amount of surveillance law enforcement may engage in on private property. Unfortunately, Chris Anders submits sloppily drafted bills given to him by outside groups. In the 4th Amendment context, his proposals would prevent even normal law enforcement actions that conservatives support.”

“Last session, he tried to amend a bill in a way that would have prevented police from entering property even if a dead body were in plain view in the front yard. Bluntly, his idea was dumb,” Akers said of Anders’ proposal draft. “He left me no choice but to say that. If he’s going to blame others for failing to get his bills through, then he needs to do better work. Frankly, I think he’d rather see his bad bills fail so he can then scream RINO for clicks.”

The state Capitol of West Virginia is seen by the Kanawha River.(Visions of America/Joseph Sohm/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Other Freedom Caucus members also objected to the Flock cameras.

“The Fourth Amendment was written specifically to stop the government from engaging in generalized surveillance and warrantless searches,” West Virginia Freedom Caucus Secretary Henry Dillon said in a statement. He argued that “Flock cameras don’t just identify criminals — they create a database documenting where law-abiding citizens worship, seek medical care, conduct business, and travel.”

“That is fundamentally incompatible with a free society,” he said.

JOHNSON FACES GOP REVOLT OVER WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE POWERS AHEAD OF KEY VOTE

Another Freedom Caucus member, state Sen. Craig Hart, pointed to a series of alleged police abuses involving Flock cameras in Georgia, including a 2025 incident in which Braselton Police Department Chief Michael Steffman was arrested for allegedly using automated license plate readers to stalk and harass people.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Atlas of Surveillance, at least five West Virginia municipalities incorporate Flock Safety license plate readers, while other municipalities like Wheeling and the state capital of Charleston operate drones, camera registries and intelligence fusion centers.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the West Virginia city of Huntington after its mayor and city council agreed to a $2.1 million deal with Flock for AI-powered surveillance equipment.

“If the Court allows the contract to proceed, Huntington would be blanketed in license plate recognition cameras with vehicle fingerprint technology, live video cameras, gunshot detection audio devices, and even automatically dispatched drones,” the ACLU wrote in a statement.

The ACLU said more than 50 citizens attended the city council meeting to voice their disapproval of the agreement.

Meanwhile, Huntington Mayor Patrick Farrell argued that Flock cameras in other states have already helped catch West Virginia suspects.

A Flock Safety-branded license plate reader camera sits on a lamppost near the intersection of Peacock Drive and Bristol Road in Ventura on Sept. 9, 2025.(Isaiah Murtaugh/The Star/USA Today Network via Imagn Images/Reuters)

Recounting a pursuit of a murder suspect who allegedly shot a woman in the head near Huntington, Farrell said,”He was going back to Michigan, and luckily for us, some other city had license plate reader cameras that caught the car.”

“That gave us the lead that led to his arrest in Michigan.So it helps our law enforcement do its work faster, more efficiently, and that’s the kind of success that I think we need more of,” the mayor said.

Despite the safety argument, Anders and his caucus insist the technology violates the Constitution.

“The Founders did not fight a revolution so government could monitor innocent citizens everywhere they travel,” Anders told Fox News Digital. “George Orwell’s 1984 was intended as a warning, not an instruction manual. We should be striving for more 1776, not more 1984.”

“The Fourth Amendment Restoration Act does not prevent police from investigating crime. It simply requires government to do what the Constitution has required for over two centuries: obtain a warrant based upon probable cause before engaging in targeted surveillance of Americans,” Anders concluded.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Flock Safety maintained that the company protects personal privacy and claimed to support legislation that sets guardrails for license plate readers.

“Flock strongly supports legislation that creates clear guardrails for how license plate recognition data is used and shared, while preserving the effectiveness of an important public safety tool,” a company spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement. “These systems play a critical role in helping law enforcement solve crimes, locate missing people, and keep communities safe. Taking away or weakening access to this technology would have real consequences for public safety. We believe the right approach is not to eliminate an effective tool, but to regulate it responsibly. State lawmakers should establish strong safeguards that ensure accountability, oversight, and responsible use, while preserving the ability of law enforcement to use these technologies in ways that communities expect and rely on. We stand ready to be a resource as lawmakers consider these important issues.”

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“Flock customers retain full ownership and control of their data. Flock does not sell data. Access is limited to authorized users, and agencies determine whether to share data with other law enforcement agencies through opt-in sharing relationships that they can change or revoke at any time. Data is automatically deleted after 30 days by default,” the company spokesperson concluded.

Fox News Digital also contacted Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Hanshaw for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Trump meets with Zelenskyy and Netanyahu separately amid wars in Iran, Ukraine

July 28, 2026 / 2:54 PM EDT / CBS News

Washington— President Trump met with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu separately at the White House Tuesday amid the war with Iran and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Neither meeting was open to reporters. Zelenskyy and Netanyahu are attending the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of both Ukraine and Israel. Graham had just returned from a trip to Ukraine before his sudden death at 71. His last public words were in Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said his meeting with Mr. Trump was “good” and that they discussed the licenses for the production of Patriot missile interceptors, critical in Ukraine’s efforts to combat Moscow. Mr. Trump and Zelenskyy most recently met earlier this month on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Turkey, where Mr. Trump announced the U.S. would allow Ukraine to build its own Patriot missiles.

“A good meeting with President Trump at the Oval Office,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. “Thank you for everything we do together to protect the lives of Ukrainians and advance peace. First and foremost, I offered President Trump our condolences on the passing of Lindsey Graham. He was a true friend of Ukraine.

“The president and I discussed licenses for Patriot interceptor production and several other ideas that could help. We also spoke about diplomacy – it’s important that the diplomatic process be reinvigorated. Our teams will arrange the details of their further communication. I am grateful to the United States for its firm support.”

Immediately following the Zelenskyy meeting, Mr. Trump met with Netanyahu behind closed doors. Neither the White House nor the Israelis have yet released a readout of that meeting. It was their first known face-to-face meeting since the U.S. and Israel launched the war with Iran.

ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו נפגש כעת עם נשיא ארה״ב דונלד טראמפ בבית הלבן.

>

— ראש ממשלת ישראל (@IsraeliPM_heb) July 28, 2026

Mr. Trump, who has typically been one of Netanyahu’s staunchest supporters, has put distance between himself and the Israeli prime minister of late. Although he’s called Netanyahu a good wartime president, Mr. Trump hasn’t said whether Netanyahu should continue as prime minister in the future. Netanyahu, Mr. Trump has said, needs to apply a “softer touch” and “be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.”

In an interview with Fox News Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump pushed back when he was asked about reports that Netanyahu planned to discuss information related to Pickaxe Mountain in Iran, an underground nuclear site. Mr. Trump said he doesn’t need someone else to tell him what’s happening there.

“I don’t need Bibi to tell me that,” Mr. Trump responded, adding that Netanyahu is “telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.”

Why the Trump administration altering the US troop death toll in Iran is so suspicious

2026-07-28T18:01:50.849Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/28/politics/trump-iran-war-military-deaths

When the New York Times first reported last week that four recent US deaths in the Iran war had suddenly disappeared from the Defense Department’s casualty-reporting website, the Pentagon was adamant that this was a mere “temporary data disruption.”

But it’s become increasingly clear that wasn’t the full story. And it’s merely the latest episode in President Donald Trump’s chaotic and often callous handling of military deaths.

The deaths have not only now been reclassified in a more convenient and politically expedient manner for the administration — namely, it makes the total number of deaths due to Trump’s Iran war look lower and plays into his claims about his war authority — but it also turns out the deaths have actually been classified three separate ways on the Pentagon’s website in the last week alone.

The four deaths had suddenly returned to the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System over the weekend. But rather than being re-added under Operation Epic Fury (the Iran war mission) — which one would expect if this were indeed just a data glitch — they were instead added to a whole new category on the site: the broadly named “Overseas Operations.”

The Pentagon also recorded more than 140 additional wounded service members in the system as part of that update.

This newly created category is described as accounting for “casualties starting July 7th 2026,” which is the date the administration has claimed it began a new conflict with Iran (more on that in a bit).

That’s not the only time the Pentagon’s website has changed how these deaths were classified.

In a press release early last week, the Pentagon announced the deaths of two of the four soldiers, saying they “were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.”

Operation Inherent Resolve is the mission started in 2014 to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but the service members were killed by Iranian attacks. Soon, the language was changed to say the fallen troops “were supporting overseas operations in Jordan.”

In other words, these service members have now been linked on the Pentagon website to three different operations — two of which, it bears emphasizing, allow the administration to claim the casualties weren’t part of Operation Epic Fury.

And while it’s not clear precisely why this was done, it is clear that’s politically and legally convenient for the administration in a couple of ways.

First, it could conceivably allow Trump to claim there were fewer US deaths in the Iran war.

Last week, Trump continued to cite 18 deaths — the number including the most recent four — rather than 14 deaths. But he’s also made it abundantly clear that he is quite concerned about the politics of the troop deaths and the death toll. He also regularly attacked then-President Joe Biden for 13 American deaths in the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.

The second reason it’s convenient is that it bolsters Trump’s legal claim to the authority to continue the war without the required congressional approval.

The War Powers Act gives presidents 60 to 90 days to launch military action without congressional authorization. So to get around this, the administration has claimed the first conflict ended during the ceasefire that started in April, and that a new one began on July 7. (Even some Republicans have cast doubt on this gambit.)

It’s problematic for that argument to list the four latest deaths as occurring in Operation Epic Fury, given that’s purportedly over. And lo, the administration has instead moved to suggest they were part of another operation, whether that’s Operation Inherent Resolve or “Overseas Operations.”

But it’s difficult to comprehend this as anything other than effectively playing accounting games with the deaths of troops.

These four soldiers were, for all intents and purposes, killed as part of the same war the first 14 soldiers were killed in. There was just a three-month lull in fighting in between, as the administration and Iran’s leaders tried to hold together a patchwork pair of ceasefires.

The situation looks even worse given the Pentagon’s indignant initial response claiming the removed troops deaths were merely “temporary data disruptions.” The New York Times had cited unnamed military officials who said that the change was intentional, though at the time it was unclear how the Pentagon planned to recategorize the deaths.

It’s a hell of a way to deal with something as serious and sensitive as troop deaths. These are the kinds of things you want to make sure you get right from the start.

But it’s also kind of par for course for Trump and his administration.

Trump has for years struggled to speak empathetically about dead and injured service members. That spans from the late Sen. John McCain to “suckers” and “losers” to downplaying traumatic brain injuries to off-color comments about awards for injured service members and NATO troops who served in Afghanistan.

The Iran war has given him more cause to talk about the topic, and it’s clearly still something he struggles with. Both he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made awkward comments about the initial troop deaths back in March. And, increasingly, Trump has set about comparing the lower death toll so far to other recent wars and even claiming that the fallen troops and all their families supported his Iran war effort — despite at least one family member saying something quite different.

But little is sacred to Trump so, like everything else, the troop deaths quickly become part of a political calculation to be minded and massaged.

Mike Pence: Graham’s ‘clarity’ and ‘vision’ at times moved Trump on issues, including Ukraine

1:30 PM EDT, Tue July 28, 2026 / CNN

By Dana Bash, CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/28/politics/video/former-vp-mike-pence-funeral-lindsey-graham-ip

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Mike Pence: Graham’s ‘clarity’ and ‘vision’ at times moved Trump on issues, including Ukraine

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Former Vice President Mike Pence joins Dana Bash to reflect on his relationship with Sen. Lindsey Graham ahead of his funeral service in Washington. Graham was “maybe the greatest champion of American leadership on the world stage that we had in Washington DC over the decades,” Pence says.

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Fetterman strongly supports the filibuster as Trump urges Senate Republicans to scrap it

Fetterman admitted that he has done an about-face on the issue since his 2022 campaign

July 28, 2026 10:27am EDT / Fox News

By Alex Nitzberg

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., expressed strong support for the filibuster in a Monday opinion piece, acknowledging that he has reversed his position on the issue since his 2022 campaign.

President Donald Trump on Monday was pressuring Senate Republicans to nix the filibuster.

“When Democrats had the presidency and a majority in both chambers, they were frustrated with the 60-vote threshold needed to advance legislation. Senate Democrats attempted to end the filibuster to push through President Joe Biden’s agenda — an effort I fully supported during my 2022 campaign,” Fetterman wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece.

“Halfway through my first term, I now recognize how important the filibuster is and the state our country would be in without it,” he noted.

FETTERMAN TROLLS THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA AS ISRAEL KILLS HAMAS TERRORISTS: ‘CRY HARDER’

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., gives thumbs up in an elevator while departing a Senate vote at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 15, 2026.(Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“The rule is a critical line of defense that prevents President Donald Trump from having a fill-in-the-blank government with new laws, deregulation or procedures of its choosing,” he wrote.

The president issued Truth Social posts on Monday advocating for Republicans to scrap the filibuster.

“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of, including a full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT, the Budget, and the ever looming Debt Ceiling disaster, 1929! The Dumocrats will do it on day one, and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership. Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!” Trump wrote.

DEMS CLASH OVER AIPAC MONEY, ‘OGRE’ ATTACK AND ELECTABILITY DURING CRUCIAL SENATE DEBATE

President Donald Trump speaks during the re-scheduled White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C.(Eric Lee/Getty Images)

In another post, he declared, “Whichever Party Terminates the Filibuster FIRST will be the Party that survives and thrives. If the Dumocrats win this race, however, America will rapidly become nothing more than a Third World Nation!”

The three-fifths threshold required for cloture to end a filibuster means that Senate Republicans, even with their 53-seat majority, cannot get to 60 votes without Democrats — the procedural hurdle prevents advancing most legislation with a simple majority.

REPUBLICANS SAY THEY’D WELCOME FETTERMAN AS GOP EYES BIGGER SENATE MAJORITY

The west front of the U.S. Capitol is reflected in the reflecting pool at dusk on July 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C.(J. David Ake/Getty Images)

“The one thing that has stopped many unpopular policies since the beginning of 2025 isn’t the Democrats — it is the filibuster,” Fetterman wrote in his opinion piece.

Alex Nitzberg is a writer for Fox News Digital.

GOP senator unveils BOASBERG Act to stop ‘rogue’ judges from handpicking Trump cases

July 28, 2026 10:09am EDT / Fox News

Sen Schmitt’s BOASBERG Act would require random assignment of federal cases and bar chief judges from influencing who hears them

By Alex Miller Fox News

Sen. Eric Schmitt calls for Judge Boasberg impeachment, details GOP budget reconciliation

Sen. Eric Schmitt, Republican from Missouri, joins Maria Bartiromo to advocate for the impeachment of Judge James Boasberg, labeling him a “rogue judge” due to alleged partisan actions and past rulings.

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FIRST ON FOX: A Senate Republican is planning to curb so-called “rogue” judges, and he is using one of President Donald Trump’s greatest foils in the judicial branch as the launching point.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is planning to introduce the Blocking Overt Attempts at Shopping By Enforcing Randomization Guidelines Act in an attempt to curb judge shopping in federal cases. The bill, shortened to the BOASBERG Act, is named after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, one of Trump’s main antagonists on the bench.

Schmitt’s legislation, first obtained by Fox News Digital, would broadly require that federal cases be randomly assigned in a bid to limit the ability of judges and litigants to influence who gets to hear and oversee a case.

OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP’S ELECTION ORDER AS SAVE AMERICA ACT FIGHT INTENSIFIES

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is dropping legislation that would require federal cases to be doled out to federal judges at random to prevent so-called “rogue” judges in the Judicial Branch, and it’s named after Judge James Boasberg — the GOP’s “poster child” for political forces in the judiciary, according to Schmitt.(Getty Images)

“Judge Boasberg is the poster child for a rogue judge and exposed serious loopholes in our judicial system,” Schmitt said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Randomly assigning cases among judges ensures the American people can have confidence in the impartiality of our courts.”

Schmitt’s legislation adds several guardrails to the selection process for federal cases and gives courts 120 days after enactment to implement them.

It would require the random assignment of federal civil cases, prohibit chief judges from influencing case assignments, require courts to publicly disclose their case assignment practices, create penalties for meddling with or manipulating the assignment process, and require the random reassignment of a case if the Supreme Court intervenes in a ruling.

DC APPEALS COURT ORDERS JUDGE BOASBERG TO HALT TRUMP CONTEMPT PROBE OVER DEPORTATION FLIGHTS

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Boasberg, who was first appointed to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama in 2010, has become a flashpoint for Republicans and the White House for his role in several high-profile cases against Trump and his administration during his two non-consecutive stints at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

It’s caused Trump to call for his impeachment and the Justice Department to file a misconduct claim against him.

Boasberg most recently blocked the State Department from restricting visas for foreign officials and other foreign nationals that the administration has accused of suppressing or helping suppress American free speech.

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

President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 16, 2026.(Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

That latest move is just the tip of the iceberg in a long-running set of clashes between Boasberg and Trump.

Boasberg has been a key player in the administration’s attempt to deport Venezuelan migrants. He tried to temporarily block the administration’s fast-paced deportation of Venezuelan migrants that the White House alleged were Tren de Aragua gang members.

He later ordered the administration that the men had to be returned to the U.S. for violating due process in their removal.

Boasberg also landed the case surrounding “Signalgate,” where top members of Trump’s Cabinet, including Vice President JD Vance, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and then-National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, among others, accidentally included a journalist in their encrypted group message discussing strikes in Yemen.

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He ordered the administration to preserve any of the messages related to the group chat, but stopped short of requiring that the administration salvage any that may have been deleted.

Schmitt hopes that his legislation will create a new operating standard moving forward.

“The BOASBERG Act prevents judges from forcing their way onto cases and is an important piece of court transparency legislation that will help restore the American people’s confidence in our judiciary,” Schmitt said.

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

Russia exposes NATO weapons gap as top commander warns ‘the math is not in favor of the West’

2026-07-28 09:08am EDT / Fox News

Adm Pierre Vandier said the alliance needs cheaper mass-produced defenses alongside advanced interceptors like Patriots

By Morgan Phillips Fox News

Days after NATO allies committed tens of billions of dollars to new air and missile defenses, the alliance’s top transformation commander warned that the West must fundamentally redesign its weapons and industrial base to withstand attacks at the scale now being demonstrated in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“Today, the math is not in favor of the West,” Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview following the alliance’s summit in Ankara, Turkey, in early July.

A U.S.-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile is launched during a live-fire exercise at the Chiupeng missile base in Pingtung County on Aug. 20, 2024, Adm. Pierre Vandier()

The summit produced commitments to acquire 900 Patriot missiles and invest more than $40 billion in counter-drone capabilities throughout five years.

But Vandier argued that simply buying more of the West’s existing weapons will not solve the underlying problem.

TRUMP ENTERS FINAL NATO SUMMIT DAY AS UKRAINE, DEFENSE SPENDING TAKE CENTER STAGE

Russia’s nightly barrages against Ukraine have exposed an air-defense model designed for smaller numbers of incoming threats. The U.S.-Iran conflict has simultaneously intensified demand for the high-end interceptors needed to defeat ballistic missiles, including Patriots and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) that cannot quickly be replaced.

“There is no way to produce 50,000 Patriots a year,” Vandier said. “We don’t have the supply chain, and it’s not worth doing that given the cost of the weapon.”

Instead, Vandier said NATO needs a layered mix of defenses: cheaper weapons that can be mass-produced to counter waves of drones, while preserving advanced interceptors for ballistic missiles and other sophisticated threats.

A U.S.-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile is launched during a live-fire exercise at the Chiupeng missile base in Pingtung County Aug. 20, 2024.(Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

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“You need to have attritable, low-cost, mass-produced weapons to just kill the low-cost weapons that are coming by big waves,” Vandier said. “And then you need still the exquisite, complex weapons to kill the most complex weapons, as ballistic missiles.”

Trump announced at the summit that the United States would grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot interceptors, potentially allowing Kyiv to build more of the weapons it urgently needs to defend against Russian ballistic missiles.

But asked whether the announcement changed his assessment that Patriots alone could not protect Europe throughout the next five years, Vandier pointed to a deeper obstacle: Western weapons were designed around an industrial base that no longer exists.

UKRAINE’S BATTLEFIELD IS TRANSFORMING THE FUTURE OF NATO

“The design needs to change,” Vandier said. “We are at a moment where some stuff will be redesigned under pressure to be mass-produced.”

NATO also is attempting to transform against a threat that is changing in real time. Asked about a recent Russian live-fire exercise on Lake Peipus, between Estonia and Russia, which Estonia’s defense minister assessed was likely practice against Ukrainian-style naval drones, Vandier said Russia has demonstrated an ability to absorb battlefield lessons and adjust “on a weekly basis.”

“War — if you do not adapt, you die,” Vandier said. “All your brain is about how you outmatch, outpace, outrun the enemy. And so Russia is not that bad at that.”

“For NATO now, it’s a question of speed of adaptation,” Vandier said. “It’s a mind game.”

Ukraine’s defense industry, meanwhile, is increasingly setting the pace for the larger Western manufacturers that once supplied most of its weapons, Vandier said. Ukrainian companies have been able to develop, field and modify systems quickly in response to changes on the battlefield.

President Donald Trump said the United States would send more Patriot missiles to Ukraine during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on July 14, 2025.(Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

“The very agile and fast-evolving industrial base in Ukraine is now giving the pace to the European and Western industry,” Vandier said.

But the technological competition is not confined to drones and air defenses. Vandier warned that the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty has reopened a broader race over long-range missiles in Europe, as Russia and NATO allies seek weapons capable of holding targets farther behind enemy lines at risk.

The 1987 treaty prohibited the United States and Russia from possessing ground-launched missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The first Trump administration withdrew from the agreement in 2019 after accusing Moscow of violating it, an allegation Russia denied.

Rescuers conduct search and rescue operations at a multi-storey residential building damaged in a massive Russian missile and drone attack in the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 2, 2026. Russian forces launched a large-scale attack on the city using strike drones and various types of missiles. Private homes, apartment buildings, an emergency medical substation, and a hotel building were damaged(Kyrylo Chubotin/Ukrinform)

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Vandier said the disappearance of those limits has produced a period of “complete strategic instability,” with both sides under pressure to develop new capabilities to preserve deterrence.

“The Pandora’s box is open again,” Vandier said, “and we’ll try to close it down one day.”

Golden Dome could leave US vulnerable to drone attacks without Israeli systems

2026-07-28T11:20:17-04:00 / Fox News

Israeli-designed interceptors, launchers and radars are 19% to 97% cheaper than comparable US systems, the analysis finds

By Efrat Lachter Fox News

Published July 28, 2026 11:20am EDT

Jewish Institute for National Security of America analyst argues Washington should integrate lower-cost Israeli air defense systems into its homeland missile shield

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EXCLUSIVE: As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets President Donald Trump in Washington for talks expected to center on Iran and regional security, a new report is urging the administration to expand U.S.–Israel defense cooperation by making Israeli air-defense technology a central component of Golden Dome, the planned layered missile shield intended to detect, track and intercept ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons and drones before they can strike the United States.

The report warns that the planned American missile shield could leave U.S. cities, military installations and critical infrastructure exposed to increasingly common drone and cruise-missile threats if Washington directs too much money toward costly space-based systems that could take years to become operational.

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) report, titled “The Missing Shield: Acquiring Israeli Air Defenses Makes Golden Dome Sustainable,” argues that the initiative’s current funding priorities favor strategic and space-based capabilities that could take years to develop while giving insufficient attention to more frequent, lower-altitude threats such as drones, cruise missiles and shorter-range projectiles.

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Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, as seen from the city of Ashkelon, Israel, Oct. 9, 2023.(Amir Cohen/Reuters)

Ari Cicurel, the report’s author, told Fox News Digital that long-range defenses remain necessary but should not come at the expense of systems capable of stopping threats that could reach the United States now.

“Right now the current approach is spending the time and money primarily on space, long range threats, which are absolutely needed,” Cicurel said. “But the most frequent and immediate threats are actually short range projectiles, particularly drones.”

Cicurel pointed to recent drone activity over American cities, including Washington, D.C., as evidence that the danger is not confined to overseas battlefields.

“We’ve seen several drone overflights of cities, including in Washington, D.C., over the past few months,” he said. “And that’s certainly the most frequent threat that the U.S. needs to be addressing.”

The report estimates that the Israeli-designed launchers it examined are 58% to 88% less expensive, interceptors 19% to 97% less expensive and radars 32% to 87% less expensive than the U.S. systems used for comparison. JINSA argues those savings could allow the Pentagon to purchase more launchers, expand interceptor stockpiles and preserve funding for expensive strategic and space-based technologies.

The Pentagon told Fox News Digital that Golden Dome is being designed as a layered system capable of addressing a broad range of threats.

“Golden Dome for America continues to focus its efforts on protecting America and delivering on President Trump’s vision for homeland defense,” a Pentagon official said.

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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks in the Oval Office after President Trump announced his plans for the Golden Dome.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The official said the implementation plan remains “dynamic” and is intended to defend against “the full spectrum of evolving threats,” including hypersonic and ballistic missiles, advanced cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems.

The scale of the choices ahead was underscored by a May 12 Congressional Budget Office analysis. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a notional national missile-defense system broadly consistent with Trump’s executive order could cost approximately $1.2 trillion throughout 20 years to develop, deploy and operate.

The office stressed that the estimate was not a projection of the Pentagon’s actual Golden Dome plan because the department had not released sufficient details about its intended architecture.

The Congressional Budget Office modeled four interceptor layers, including a space-based layer, two wide-area surface layers and a regional surface-defense layer.

The JINSA report proposes making Israeli-designed defenses a central part of those lower layers. It recommends Iron Dome for short-range threats, David’s Sling for medium-range threats, Arrow for ballistic missiles and Iron Beam for lower-cost laser interception.

[JETBLUE FLIGHT REPORTS DRONE STRIKE DURING APPROACH TO NEW YORK AIRPORT: FAA]

TOPSHOT – This long exposure shows trails and explosions from projectile interceptions by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system over Tel Aviv on February 28, 2026. The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28, with Israel’s public broadcaster reporting that the Iranian supreme leader had been targeted, as the Islamic republic retaliated with barrages of missiles at Gulf states and Israel.(JACK GUEZ / AFP via Getty Images)

Cicurel said the proposal should not be seen simply as buying foreign weapons because Washington helped finance their development and American companies already participate in their production.

“What we’re really talking about is finally leveraging American tax dollars that have gone to help produce, help develop these Israeli systems,” he said.

One hundred and two companies across 34 states participate in producing Israeli air-defense systems.

Asked specifically whether the Pentagon is evaluating Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow or Iron Beam for purchase, integration or expanded co-production, the official declined to say.

“We have nothing new to announce at this time,” the official said. “Due to operational security and the need to protect our competitive advantages, we will not provide further details.”

The report also argues that recent fighting with Iran demonstrated how high interception rates can obscure vulnerabilities, including rapid depletion of interceptor inventories, strained production lines and attacks against radar systems anchoring defensive networks.

“Both the U.S. and the Israeli defense industrial bases were not well equipped to handle the amount of production that either country needed,” Cicurel said.

The report calls for dedicated Golden Dome funding for short- and medium-range defenses, expanded joint production, and the inclusion of Golden Dome cooperation in the next U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding. It also recommends updating export-control and technology-sharing rules, while acknowledging challenges involving interoperability, classified data and intellectual property.

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Digitized concept design of Golden Dome(Lockheed Martin)

Trump repeatedly has described Golden Dome as a defining homeland-defense project, saying it would create a shield capable of protecting the United States from advanced missile threats. Whether Israeli systems become part of that architecture remains unclear, but Netanyahu’s visit gives both governments an opportunity to push the issue higher on the bilateral defense agenda.

Efrat (Effie) Lachter is an investigative journalist, filmmaker and war correspondent. She has directed and produced over 200 documentary segments across more than 40 countries. Recipient of the 2022 Peres Center for Peace Award, Lachter is also a 2023-24 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communication and a master’s degree in political science.