This year could produce the largest loss of Black political representation ever. Here’s why

2026-05-24T10:00:08.522Z / CNN

• Republican-controlled Southern states are moving to eliminate congressional districts currently held by Black Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
• The redistricting push could erase as many as six held by Congressional Black Caucus members, marking the largest single-election loss in absolute numbers since Reconstruction.
• Minorities account for most population growth in these states, yet their political representation faces historic decline through new district maps.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

The redistricting frenzy across Republican-controlled Southern states threatens to resurrect some of the gravest racial injustices in American political history.

Red states across the region are rushing to replace districts now held by Black Democrats with seats likely to be won by White Republicans even as minority voters account for all, or nearly all, of those states’ population growth. That divergence carries uncomfortable echoes of the structural inequities that allowed the South, for most of American history, to boost its congressional representation and electoral votes with its large populations of slaves and later free Black citizens — while denying them the right to vote.

The stampede to erase Black-majority districts marks a striking reversal from the widespread GOP claims after 2024 that President Donald Trump was leading the party to historic breakthroughs among minority voters.

These actions, as opposed to those words, suggests that many in the party still view the continuing diversification of the electorate as a political threat. “From the very beginning the largest threat to their movement is in fact Black and brown political and economic power,” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster.

Like many GOP strategists, CNN commentator Shermichael Singleton says the party’s motivation in these gerrymanders is partisan, not racial. “The average Republican in office, they are not looking at this (through the lens) of race,” he said. “They are looking at, ‘How can we maximize our political power?’”

But critics see the redistricting offensive as just one element of a broader Trump agenda to constrain the political power of the nation’s growing minority population. That agenda includes the attempt to end birthright citizenship and ongoing discussion of penalizing states with large immigrant populations in the 2030 congressional reapportionment. In a recent social media post, Stephen Miller, Trump’s hardline immigration adviser, explicitly linked changes in the Census with attacks on majority-minority Congressional districts, and argued that together they could strip away as many as 40 House seats Democrats now hold .

“There are dividing lines that are being created that I think will have impacts for generations and will have the effect of making people in so many communities feel as though they don’t have an equal say in how this country will move forward,” said Nicole Austin-Hillery, president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. “And that really is a tragedy, especially given that this is the 250th anniversary of the founding of this country. This outcome is antithetical to what this moment should mean for all of us.”

The redistricting battle across the South amounts to a new front in a very old conflict.

For the nation’s first 175 years, the South tangibly benefited from suppressing Black voting rights and political representation.

Until the Civil War, slaves, of course, were denied the right to vote. For a few years after the war, the presence of Union troops across the South guaranteed the vote to former slaves, albeit frequently in the face of horrific violence from White Southerners. But as the North’s willingness to enforce Reconstruction ebbed after the early 1870s, Southern states rebuilt dense layers of legal barriers that prevented generations of their Black residents from casting a ballot. That only changed with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

And yet while Southern Black Americans could not vote, they were counted in the population tallies that determined the apportionment of congressional seats and electoral votes. One of the Constitution’s most odious compromises between North and South was the three-fifths rule that counted each enslaved person, despite their exclusion from the political process, as three-fifths of a free White person for allocating congressional seats and electoral votes. After the Civil War, the South benefited even more from its Black residents because they were counted as the full equivalent of a free White person in apportionment — even though they remained excluded from the political process.

Progressive political strategist Michael Podhorzer, the former political director of the AFL-CIO, recently quantified how much White Southerners benefited from this structural inequity. He’s calculated that before the Civil War, Southern states received about 1.5 times as many congressional seats per vote cast in their elections as states outside the South. During the near century of Southern voter suppression from the 1870s to the 1960s, that advantage for the South — what might be called the discrimination premium — grew to a ratio of around 2:1. But after the VRA’s passage, that gap gradually narrowed, before virtually disappearing by 2020.

The rapid moves now by Republican-controlled Southern states to eliminate congressional districts held by Black Democrats is resurfacing this inequity in a new form, Podhorzer argued. Using data from the voter files maintained by Catalist, a Democratic targeting firm, he’s calculated that in 2024, a Black voter in one of the seven Deep South states had a 50% chance that the House candidate they supported would win and ultimately represent them in Washington. Even then, White voters in those states had a better chance (70%) that the candidate they supported would win, but the balance was close.

After the Supreme Court’s Callais decision gutting the VRA, though, the racial mismatch may reopen. On this new landscape, Podhorzer projects that a Deep South White voter in 2026 will have a 71% chance that the candidate they support for the House will win and represent them in Washington. But for Black voters in those states, the chance that their preferred House candidate will win falls to 25%.

“This is how we headed right back to the kind of free but not fair elections that were the hallmark of the three-fifths rule and the Jim Crow exclusions,” Podhorzer said on a livestream last week. “Whites get all the value of the full count (of their states’ Black population) for their representation, but they are able to prevent that from actually meaning anything.”

This year’s red-state redistricting moves could eliminate at least six members of the Congressional Black Caucus, with losses possible in Missouri, Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina, and, in a slightly different situation, Florida.During the violent dismantling of Reconstruction and suppression of Black voting rights in the late 19th century, the highest number of Black House Members who lost their seats in any single election was four (in 1876. In percentage terms, Black representation fell faster then (from seven seats to three), but in absolute numbers, this year could produce the largest retrogression of Black political representation in American history.

Even more losses are likely for the 2028 cycle. Other Southern states, including Georgia and Mississippi, are planning to redraw their lines before that election. And at a little-noticed Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing last week, Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt, along with an analyst from The Article III Project, a conservative advocacy group, argued that, under the Callais decision, the Justice Department should sue blue states, including California and Illinois, to dissolve congressional districts where minorities constitute most of the population.

Today’s exclusion isn’t as total as in those earlier eras. Black residents in Southern states can still register and cast ballots, and can affect the outcomes of elections for Senate, the presidency and statewide offices. But in the House, the prospect that Black (and other minority) voters will swell their state’s total representation but then be denied meaningful opportunities to elect representatives who will advocate for their views, uncomfortably echoes the three-fifths rule and Jim Crow voter suppression, as Podhorzer and other critics note.

That echo is especially powerful because minorities are providing the vast majority — and in some instances the entirety — of population growth in the Southern states that are moving to erase minority political representation.

From 2010 to 2023, people of color accounted for 92% of the total population growth in Texas and Alabama; 87% in Florida; 81% in North Carolina; 66% in Tennessee and 52% in South Carolina, according to an analysis of Census data by the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California. Since 2010, the White population has declined in Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, while all their population growth has come from minorities. And yet all these states have already moved or are planning to eliminate congressional seats held by minority Democrats, while increasing the number likely to be won by White Republicans.

“The gain in political power and political voice for these states comes from a population whose voices they are seeking to suppress through these tools of gerrymandering,” said Manuel Pastor, a USC professor of sociology and director of the Equity Research Institute. “What we are seeing is a full-fledged push for minoritarian rule within these states.”

The rapid elimination of Black-majority House districts across the South is the most visible move by Trump and his GOP allies to suppress the political influence of racial minorities. But it’s not alone.

The administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship — which is now awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court — would prevent the children of undocumented immigrants from becoming citizens and eventually voters. And both Trump and Miller have signaled interest in excluding either undocumented immigrants or the larger population of all non-citizens from the population counts that will be used to divvy up Congressional seats and electoral votes after the 2030 Census.

Such a policy would reduce representation for states with large immigrant populations. As the Equity Research Institute has calculated, states with large immigration populations also tend to have large concentrations of minority US citizens. That means removing immigrants from the apportionment counts also would inevitably reduce representation for most racially diverse states as well.

All these efforts suggest at best ambivalence among many Republicans about their ability to compete in diverse communities. That’s a stark contrast from the heady days immediately after Trump’s 2024 victory. At that point, exuberant Republican strategists saw signs of a lasting trans-racial working class realignment in Trump’s historically strong performance among Latinos, the gains most data sources recorded for him among Black men, and his overall advance among all working-class voters of color.

Those inroads look much shakier today. In CNN’s first measure of Trump’s second-term job approval in February of 2025, 36% of non-college, nonwhite adults approved of the way Trump was handling the presidency. In the most recent CNN poll, that same figure stood at just 21%. Even many Democratic strategists acknowledge Trump has likely raised the floor for the GOP with voters of color (especially Latinos), but the Republican hope that his strong 2024 performance established an elevated new baseline for the party now seems wildly premature.

Eric Schickler, a University of California at Berkeley political scientist who has written on the evolution of each party’s policies on race, said the GOP’s willingness to move so forcefully against Black political representation demonstrates how thoroughly the short-term goal of maintaining control of the House in 2026 is eclipsing any long-term considerations. “What we’re seeing is the desperation to get to 218 in the House trumps everything else,” Schickler said.

Schickler is skeptical that a Trump-style agenda could ever consolidate inroads into the Black community as large as some Republicans predicted. But, he said, whatever that potential ceiling was, this overt turn to dilute Black political power is likely to lower it.

“Just layering in this hostility to Black representation … makes it extremely hard to imagine the kind of gains among Black voters that at least some Republicans were hoping to leverage,” Schickler said.

Though Singleton argued that Republicans are erasing these districts for partisan rather than racial reasons, he agreed that the GOP could face losses among Black voters unless it makes greater efforts to nominate viable Black conservatives in the new seats.

“If we don’t prioritize that,” Singleton said, “then I absolutely think the party could” face a backlash by 2028 among “gettable Black voters, specifically Black men.”

One early test case Singleton pointed to is the new Republican-leaning congressional district Tennessee Republicans created around Memphis, where Black conservative Charlotte Bergmann faces an uphill challenge in a crowded field headlined by two White GOP state legislators.

Belcher, the Democratic pollster, said “the million-dollar question” for 2026 and 2028 is how much of a response these GOP moves will trigger in the Black community. Turnout among eligible Black voters, after soaring to roughly equal White participation during Barack Obama’s two elections, has again fallen significantly below White participation, Belcher noted. In 2024, Census figures analyzed by demographer William Frey showed that just 60% of eligible Black Americans voted, compared with 71% of White Americans that year and 66% of Black Americans during Obama’s 2012 reelection.

“Because of sheer demographics, if Black turnout is within 4 or 5 points of White turnout, it’s a completely different kind of election,” Belcher said.

However the partisan implications shake out, the civic cost could be substantial for reducing minority representation so rapidly even as the country irreversibly diversifies. “What we are really seeing is an effort underway to diminish the power of these increased and diverse populations to have their voices heard just like every American,” said Austin-Hillery.

Many critics have described the gerrymandering surge as a threat to “multiracial democracy.” But that framing understates the potential consequence of erasing so much Black representation. “This is about the future of America, period,” Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey told journalist Roland Martin at last weekend’s voting rights rally in Montgomery, Alabama. “Because there is no democracy for some and not for others.”

Republican-controlled Southern states are testing the boundaries of what qualifies as genuine democracy for minority voters more profoundly than at any time since the fall of segregation.

美国国务卿鲁比奥（左）与印度外长苏杰生（右）会谈后，一同举行记者会。 （法新社）

美国国务卿鲁比奥与印度外长苏杰生举行会谈，双方讨论了中东局势、贸易、签证、海上安全和能源供应等议题。

路透社报道，鲁比奥星期六（5月23日）到访印度，与苏杰生会面。鲁比奥称，印度是具有全球影响力的国家之一，而美国和印度在反恐和能源问题上立场一致。

鲁比奥也强调新德里和华盛顿之间的关系非常广泛，并称双方讨论的诸多议题凸显了印度是“美国重要的战略伙伴，也是我们在世界上最重要的战略伙伴之一”。

鲁比奥星期六也与印度总理莫迪就贸易和能源问题进行了会谈，鲁比奥也代表美国总统特朗普邀请莫迪访问白宫。

这次会谈也正值中东局势高度紧张之际，双方对途经霍尔木兹海峡的航道和能源供应表示担忧。

苏杰生说，印度和美国拥有共同利益和共同挑战，印度支持海上安全通行。

他也说，双方讨论了尽早达成双边贸易协议的努力，以及印度工人面临的签证相关挑战，而美国已成为印度可靠的能源来源。

历届美国政府，包括特朗普总统的第一任期，都试图拉近历史上不结盟的印度与美国的关系，以制衡中国在印太地区日益增长的影响力。然而，去年华盛顿对印度商品加征高额关税后，两国关系一度紧张。

最近，由于对华盛顿的地区优先事项感到担忧，新德里密切关注美国为稳定与中国的关系，以及改善与巴基斯坦的接触所做的努力。

鲁比奥访印度 称印度是“美国重要的战略伙伴”

2026年5月24日 18:11 / 联合早报

美国国务卿鲁比奥（左）与印度外长苏杰生（右）会谈后，一同举行记者会。 （法新社）

美国国务卿鲁比奥与印度外长苏杰生举行会谈，双方讨论了中东局势、贸易、签证、海上安全和能源供应等议题。

路透社报道，鲁比奥星期六（5月23日）到访印度，与苏杰生会面。鲁比奥称，印度是具有全球影响力的国家之一，而美国和印度在反恐和能源问题上立场一致。

鲁比奥也强调新德里和华盛顿之间的关系非常广泛，并称双方讨论的诸多议题凸显了印度是“美国重要的战略伙伴，也是我们在世界上最重要的战略伙伴之一”。

鲁比奥星期六也与印度总理莫迪就贸易和能源问题进行了会谈，鲁比奥也代表美国总统特朗普邀请莫迪访问白宫。

这次会谈也正值中东局势高度紧张之际，双方对途经霍尔木兹海峡的航道和能源供应表示担忧。

苏杰生说，印度和美国拥有共同利益和共同挑战，印度支持海上安全通行。

他也说，双方讨论了尽早达成双边贸易协议的努力，以及印度工人面临的签证相关挑战，而美国已成为印度可靠的能源来源。

历届美国政府，包括特朗普总统的第一任期，都试图拉近历史上不结盟的印度与美国的关系，以制衡中国在印太地区日益增长的影响力。然而，去年华盛顿对印度商品加征高额关税后，两国关系一度紧张。

最近，由于对华盛顿的地区优先事项感到担忧，新德里密切关注美国为稳定与中国的关系，以及改善与巴基斯坦的接触所做的努力。

No English content available

Second Ebola treatment center set on fire in epicenter of disease’s outbreak

May 24, 2026 / 6:55 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week.

No one was hurt in the attack, according to initial reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections left the facility and are now unaccounted for, a local hospital director said.

The angry residents had arrived at the clinic in the town of Mongbwalu on Friday night and set fire to a tent set up for suspected and confirmed Ebola cases by the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian group, Dr. Richard Lokudi, director of the Mongbwalu hospital, told The Associated Press.

“We strongly condemn this act, as it caused panic among the staff and also resulted in the escape of 18 suspected cases into the community,” he said.

On Thursday, another treatment center, in the town of Rwampara, was burned down after family members were banned from retrieving the body of a local man suspected to have died of Ebola.

Burials of Ebola-victims stir anger, frustration

The bodies of those who died of Ebola can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when people prepare them for burial and gather for funerals. The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed wherever possible by authorities, which can be met by protests from families and friends.

A communal burial for Ebola patients in Rwampara took place on Saturday under tight security as tensions between health workers and the local community ran high, said David Basima, a team leader with the Red Cross overseeing burials.

Armed soldiers and police monitored the burials as Red Cross workers clad in white protective suits lowered sealed coffins into the ground. Crying family members stood at a distance.

Basima said his team, after arriving at the scene, “experienced a lot of difficulties, including resistance from young people and the community.”

“We were forced to alert the authorities so that they could come to our aid, just for safety,” said Basima.

Authorities in northeastern Congo on Friday banned funeral wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.

The outbreak is a high risk to Congo, WHO says

The World Health Organization has said that the outbreak now poses a “very high” risk for Congo — up from a previous categorization of “high” — but that the risk of the disease spreading globally remains low.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that 82 cases and seven deaths have been confirmed in Congo, but that the outbreak is believed to be “much larger.”

There is no available vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus, a rare type of Ebola, which spread undetected for weeks in Congo’s Ituri province following the first known death, while authorities tested for another, more common, Ebola virus and came up negative. There are now 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, though more are expected as surveillance expands.

One American doctor working with a missionary group in Congo has tested positive, and several others are believed to have been exposed.

Dr. Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said a response to the outbreak must include building trust with communities.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Saturday that three of its volunteers had died from the outbreak in Mongbwalu. The agency said it believed the three healthcare workers contracted the virus on March 27 while handling dead bodies as part of a humanitarian mission unrelated to Ebola.

If confirmed, this would significantly push back the timeline of the outbreak from the previous first confirmed death in late April in the town of Bunia, the capital of Ituri.

The US bars green-card holders from Ebola-stricken countries

U.S. federal health officials said on Friday night that they are banning green card holders who have been in Ebola-affected countries from returning to the U.S.

Green card holders are people who are not U.S. citizens but have been granted authorization to live and work permanently in the United States.

According to a Federal Register notice on Friday, the U.S. government is enacting a rule that restricts green card holders who have recently been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan from reentering the United States.

It’s unclear why South Sudan was on the list as the country has not confirmed any Ebola cases so far in this outbreak.

Such a ban will help ensure that Ebola screening, contact tracing, quarantine monitoring, and medical monitoring will be available to U.S. citizens, according to the notice.

Federal law provides for a period before such decisions become final but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can argue that the order can take effect immediately in certain circumstances.

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. tightens Ebola travel restrictions as new cases emerge abroad https://www.cbsnews.com/video/us-tightens-ebola-travel-restrictions-as-new-cases-emerge-abroad/

U.S. tightens Ebola travel restrictions as new cases emerge abroad
(02:51)

美加州化学品大型储罐泄漏不断升温 当地进入紧急状态

2026年5月24日 18:20 / 联合早报

航拍照片显示，美国消防员周六在加州南部奥兰治县加登格罗夫市一家航空航天制造厂向一个过热的大型储罐喷水。 （法新社）

（洛杉矶综合电）美国加利福尼亚州南部奥兰治县官员说，上周四开始泄漏的有毒化学品大型储罐正不断升温，面临爆炸风险。加州州长纽森周六（23日）宣布奥兰治县进入紧急状态，以协调资源应对危机。

消防局发言人科维说，储罐内部升温情况比先前判断的更严重，目前已达32.22摄氏度，而一天前为25摄氏度，且温度持续上升。“我们召集了各领域专家来解决问题，以预防发生灾难。”

他说，救援团队曾认为能通过持续喷水等措施维持储罐温度，但无人机未能准确测量储罐内部液体温度。22日晚，现场应急人员检查一个持续被水覆盖的仪表后，才确认储罐实际温度。

事故现场位于距离洛杉矶市中心约50公里的奥兰治县（Orange County）加登格罗夫市一家航空航天制造厂。据报道，现场一共有三个大型储罐。发生异常的是1号储罐，内有2万6500公升的甲基丙烯酸甲酯（methyl methacrylate），因阀门故障无法被中和或控制。这种工业化学品易燃，对皮肤和眼睛有刺激，可导致呼吸系统和神经系统损伤。

应急人员也正检查2号储罐情况，该储罐内装有与受损罐相同的化学物质，应急人员已向2号罐中加入中和剂。该储罐目前结构完好。

据报道，周边地区强制疏散范围正在扩大，预计受影响人数从约4万人增至5万人。

Agitators united by Chinese money, hate for America target data centers, experts warn

2026-05-24T06:28:33-04:00 / Fox News

The growing overlap has been described as a modern ‘ed-green-green alliance’ linking environmental, Islamist and far-left activist movements.

By Michael Dorgan Fox News

Published May 24, 2026 6:28am EDT

Hudson Institute fellow Zineb Riboua explains how climate activists, anti-Israel protesters and other movements are increasingly converging around anti-Americanism — with AI data centers becoming the latest battleground in the growing U.S.-China race.

NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

blob:https://www.foxnews.com/0cbbd7fa-25a2-45f2-838f-e2faeb50b73d

Listen to this article

7 min

In 2024, climate activists in New York City protested alongside anti-Israel protesters at a rally headlined “Climate Justice Means Free Palestine.” Last year, climate change celebrity icon Greta Thunberg tried to storm Israel by sea on a flotilla protesting the country’s war in Gaza, yelling “Free! Free! Palestine!” when she was refused entry.

And, last week, activists from CodePink, a far-left feminist activist group that has received funds from an American expatriate, Neville Roy Singham, living in Shanghai, took a break from their rallies supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Cuba Communist Party to circulate a video on Instagram, attacking a Utah data center project backed by investor Kevin O’Leary.

What connects these causes?

Climate activists, anti-Israel protesters and other activist movements with very different agendas have become strange bedfellows united by a shared disdain for America and funding from China, according to experts who warn the trend is weakening the United States amid a rapidly accelerating AI race.

Critics say the same activist ecosystem is now targeting America’s AI infrastructure and industrial power, in a development that experts warn could undermine the United States in its technological competition with China.

The growing convergence increasingly includes communist and Islamist activist movements, and it recently extended into campaigns targeting America’s artificial intelligence data centers, with activist and environmental groups helping delay or block dozens of such projects worth billions of dollars over concerns about energy use, water consumption and environmental impact amid rising power demand.

Fox News Digital has observed many of the movements protesting side-by-side at demonstrations across the country despite their otherwise stark ideological differences.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg, while wearing a keffiyeh scarf, speaks alongside pro-Palestinian activists in Catania, Italy, ahead of a Gaza flotilla-related event.(The Associated Press/Salvatore Cavalli))

REVOLUTIONARY TOURISM:: INSIDE THE $600M MARRIAGE OF DARK MONEY AND FAR-LEFT AGITPROP

“What all of these protests have in common — the protests against AI data centers or the environmental protests or the protest against Israel — is that anti-American trend within them,” Hudson Institute fellow Zineb Riboua told Fox News Digital.

“Climate change was also one of those very trendy causes to protest for or against, and now there’s always this quest to find what is the next thing to revolutionize,” Riboua added. “And this revolution against the United States is always welcome, no matter what type of forms and shapes it takes.”

Same network, new issue

Fox News Digital has previously reported that Singham, a U.S.-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai, funneled roughly $285 million into six activist nonprofits accused by lawmakers and analysts of promoting pro-China narratives and anti-American protest movements.

O’Leary accused local groups opposing the Utah project of being tied to China-linked funding networks and argued the backlash reflected a broader nationwide trend of activist campaigns targeting AI infrastructure, though Fox News Digital has not independently verified the Utah-related allegations.

Protesters react as the Box Elder County Commission approves a large AI data center project in Tremonton, Utah, on May 4, 2026. Activists opposed the proposed 40,000-acre development over concerns about water use, energy demand and environmental impact.(Natalie Behring/Getty Images)

‘Red-green-green alliance’

Riboua, who specializes in anti-West ideological movements and China’s influence in the Middle East, warned that the overlap between climate activists, anti-Israel protesters, communists and Islamists is being driven by a broader anti-American worldview she described as “Third Worldism,” an ideology that divides the world into “oppressors” and “oppressed” and casts the United States and the West as the primary source of global problems.

The ideology unites otherwise unrelated activist causes under a shared anti-Western framework, she said.

“Third Worldism drives anti-Americanism because the goal of Third Worldism is basically dismantling a cohesive Western society or Western country,” Riboua said.

WATCH: Expert warns ‘red-green-green alliance’ helping China gain AI edge

Video

Energy expert Brenda Shaffer, a research faculty member at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, described the broader activist convergence as part of a “red-green-green alliance,” an ideological overlap between three elements: communist movements, characterized by the color red; Islamist activism, described as green; and environmental protest groups, symbolized as green.

They increasingly unite around anti-West and anti-American causes, she said.

Riboua said the alliance has become increasingly visible as activist groups move rapidly from one issue to another — from climate protests to anti-Israel demonstrations and now toward campaigns targeting AI infrastructure and data centers.

The overlap has also become increasingly visible on the streets. At a 2024 “Climate Justice Means Free Palestine” rally in New York City, climate activists and pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested side-by-side.

“There’s always this quest to find what is the next thing to revolutionize,” she said.

People participate in a “Climate Justice Means Free Palestine” rally outside Citibank headquarters in New York City on June 18, 2024. Protesters carried pro-Palestinian signs and climate justice messaging during the demonstration.(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Riboua pointed to Thunberg’s evolution into a vocal anti-Israel activist as an example of the growing ideological overlap between climate activism and broader anti-West protest movements.

“Greta is not an Islamist, and I think that she never read Karl Marx, but she has all the good instincts of a revolutionary against the evil oppressor, Westerner, and the United States,” Riboua said.

China, energy and the AI race

Shaffer warned the growing convergence is increasingly affecting industries critical to America’s economic and technological competition with China.

“Energy is crucial to the AI race, to the data centers,” Shaffer told Fox News Digital via a Zoom interview.

Shaffer argued that while activist groups in the West target fossil fuels, AI infrastructure and industrial development, China continues rapidly expanding coal production, manufacturing capacity and energy generation.

“So we’re truly by adopting international climate policies, we’re weakening the West,” Shaffer said.

“China really benefits from these policies that we adopt and we just let them keep forging ahead with coal.”

Shaffer compared the trend to Soviet-backed anti-nuclear activism during the Cold War, arguing that adversarial powers have historically benefited from anti-energy movements in the West.

Racks of servers with colorful wires are seen in a data center as AI expansion strains the power grid, prompting a proposal for tech firms to fund their own energy needs.(Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images)

EXILED MUSLIM SCHOLAR WARNS FAR-LEFT–ISLAMIST ALLIANCE BEHIND ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS ECHOES IRAN’S RISE

“You saw traditionally the Soviet Union funding movements against nuclear energy in Europe so that Europe would remain dependent on Soviet and later Russian gas,” Shaffer said.

She also warned that increasing Western dependence on Chinese renewable-energy supply chains could create new strategic vulnerabilities because China dominates major parts of the global solar and inverter market.

Shaffer argued many activist campaigns focus on delaying or blocking energy and infrastructure projects in the United States while China rapidly expands coal consumption and industrial production.

Riboua added that many ordinary protesters are not necessarily driven by ideology, but by simplified narratives amplified through social media clickbait and activist messaging.

“Some people are generally good people and they want to have a moral position,” she said. “They know headlines … there’s a lot of ignorance.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Shaffer warned that artificial intelligence infrastructure requires enormous amounts of reliable electricity and said the West risks falling behind China if energy costs continue rising and infrastructure projects continue facing activist opposition.

“You can’t have an arms industry built on solar energy,” she said.

Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.

You can send tips to michael.dorgan@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan.

美加州化学品大型储罐泄漏不断升温 当地进入紧急状态

2026年5月24日 18:20 / 联合早报

航拍照片显示，美国消防员周六在加州南部奥兰治县加登格罗夫市一家航空航天制造厂向一个过热的大型储罐喷水。 （法新社）

（洛杉矶综合电）美国加利福尼亚州南部奥兰治县官员说，上周四开始泄漏的有毒化学品大型储罐正不断升温，面临爆炸风险。加州州长纽森周六（23日）宣布奥兰治县进入紧急状态，以协调资源应对危机。

消防局发言人科维说，储罐内部升温情况比先前判断的更严重，目前已达32.22摄氏度，而一天前为25摄氏度，且温度持续上升。“我们召集了各领域专家来解决问题，以预防发生灾难。”

他说，救援团队曾认为能通过持续喷水等措施维持储罐温度，但无人机未能准确测量储罐内部液体温度。22日晚，现场应急人员检查一个持续被水覆盖的仪表后，才确认储罐实际温度。

事故现场位于距离洛杉矶市中心约50公里的奥兰治县（Orange County）加登格罗夫市一家航空航天制造厂。据报道，现场一共有三个大型储罐。发生异常的是1号储罐，内有2万6500公升的甲基丙烯酸甲酯（methyl methacrylate），因阀门故障无法被中和或控制。这种工业化学品易燃，对皮肤和眼睛有刺激，可导致呼吸系统和神经系统损伤。

应急人员也正检查2号储罐情况，该储罐内装有与受损罐相同的化学物质，应急人员已向2号罐中加入中和剂。该储罐目前结构完好。

据报道，周边地区强制疏散范围正在扩大，预计受影响人数从约4万人增至5万人。

What happened to the Trump administration’s in-your-face mass deportations?

2026-05-24T09:00:08.249Z / CNN

• The Trump administration has shifted its deportation strategy to a more low-profile approach after confrontations in Minneapolis sparked national outrage.
• Immigration enforcement operations continue with masked agents and arrests of people without criminal records, but the flashy social media videos have largely disappeared.
• The administration has not reached its goal of deporting one million people in a year, but it has touted the number of people who have chosen to self-deport.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

The White House has intentionally retreated from its in-your-face deportation approach after confrontations between federal and state officials in multiple states erupted in Minneapolis earlier this year, when video of masked agents killing protesters sparked outrage and protest.

The officials, beyond Trump, most associated with those tactics are gone. US Border Patrol official Greg Bovino has retired. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was fired.

I went to CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, who has covered immigration for years, to understand what has and has not changed in the Trump administration’s efforts.

WOLF: In the months since Minneapolis, it seems like there’s been a real change in how the administration is pursuing its mass deportation policy. What has happened?

ALVAREZ: To best answer your question, I think it’s good to revisit Minneapolis for one reason in particular, which is the arrival of Tom Homan.

Recall that after the death of the two US citizens by federal agents, the president dispatched Tom Homan, his border czar, to Minneapolis to course correct. When Homan arrived, there was a noticeable shift in the way that immigration enforcement operations were happening. Whereas before you had Gregory Bovino, then a top Border Patrol official with his aggressive approach to enforcement, you had Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was ultimately the one who backed and approved Bovino’s style — all of it was quite flashy and in your face.

When Homan came in, the noticeable shift was that suddenly immigration enforcement, while still happening, was happening far more under the radar. What occurred there has been happening now across the country.

Bovino left the US Border Patrol, and at DHS, Secretary Kristi Noem was fired by President Donald Trump, and that led to Markwayne Mullin taking that position.

The substance of the policies has not changed. They are still being aggressive in arresting undocumented immigrants nationwide, but the way in which it’s done and the way that they showcase it has changed. Before, you had very flashy, in-your-face videos across all social media of these operations. Now, you don’t necessarily have that. It’s much more quiet, as Secretary Mullin describes it.

WOLF: Is Homan effectively setting the policy, or has Mullin put his own mark on things?

ALVAREZ: The way to think about this is, first of all, Tom Homan is a veteran law enforcement official. He worked at Immigration and Customs Enforcement for many, many years, for Republican and Democratic administrations. Now, he’s in this unique position of White House Border Czar. Under Secretary Noem, the two of them did not talk to one another. They had a quite tense relationship. With Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Homan does talk to him. They actually regularly say publicly how often they are talking with one another.

What we’re seeing now is the sort of staple Tom Homan approach to immigration enforcement. He calls it a targeted approach, which is to say targeting people with criminal histories, but not foreclosing that if they come across other undocumented immigrants who perhaps have no criminal history, that they too can be swept up in those operations.

But when we’re talking big picture, which is to say the administration’s or the president’s immigration agenda, that is also dictated by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff. He also has his mark on all of this. I think the difference, and where people may be confused, is that Homan is very enforcement-minded. That is the slice of things that he is focused on. Miller has generally led the charge on the big picture immigration agenda, which is driving policy and policy changes across multiple departments that touch immigration.

WOLF: Are immigration and border officials still doing the things that were so controversial months ago, like wearing masks, targeting people near schools, things that rubbed Americans the wrong way in the lead up to Minneapolis. Is that still going on?

ALVAREZ: The short answer is yes. And I do want to be clear, Homan has been around this whole time. The difference was that Homan and Noem were not on the same page about how immigration enforcement was carried out, and now Homan and Mullin are, and so they’re more in lockstep in terms of how immigration enforcement is done.

But yes, agents are still wearing masks.

There are still people who are being arrested who do not have a criminal history, but are in the United States illegally. So, it’s not always just the worst of the worst, which is what we hear from this administration. They themselves have similarly said that there are people that they are arresting who don’t have criminal history.

They are still placing them in detention and still deporting them, and they’re still deporting them to far-flung countries that they may not have any connection to.

I would say one difference that certainly made a splash now is the use of warrants. Recall, there was a time where there was an interpretation that ICE was making that administrative warrants (warrants issued without a judge) could be used to go onto private property. Mullin said during his confirmation hearing that that should be an authority under a judicial warrant, not an administrative warrant, which is the one used for immigration arrests. That change has happened on the ground, but otherwise a lot of it remains the same.

WOLF: The Trump administration wanted to deport a million people or more. Is that still a goal? Are they on track to reach that number?

ALVAREZ: That’s absolutely a goal for them. I think there’s nuance here. They did not reach a million deportations in a year, which was their stated goal at the start of the Trump administration last year. What they often say — they being the Department of Homeland Security — is that millions of people have self-deported, and so they sort of lump that into their overarching goal that that they have deported a million people.

We don’t have the data that backs up the number of self deportations that the administration often talks about. We know from our own reporting that tens of thousands of people have opted to use their CBP Home program, as they call it, to facilitate their self-deportation and take advantage of the financial incentives that the administration has often talked about. But we do not have anything or any evidence to show that millions of people have decided to self-deport.

I will note that I have reported on self-deportations, and there are certainly cases where people do not wish to use the program, or even publicize that they are self-deported from the US. So it is just a very hard number to quantify.

We have also heard from Tom Homan this year that mass deportations are certainly on track, and they are very much moving forward with their aggressive campaign.

WOLF: What do we know about whether people are taking money from the administration to self-deport?

ALVAREZ: I’ve done some reporting on this, and I have spoken to people who did get the money, the financial incentives, which are up to $2,600. There is a program which the administration set up for people to opt into self-deportation. They could opt in, they would go to their origin country, and that is where they would collect the financial incentive. I have talked to people who have done that and have collected the money. There are still people that I have spoken with, and one that a family we profiled last year that decided to self-deport to Mexico, but never told the government. They did not want the government to know what they were doing. They had no interest in collecting the financial incentive. That was their choice, and they decided to leave.

My point is that it is a very hard number to quantify in terms of how many people are self-deporting. The administration has come out with their number repeatedly — it’s over 2.2 million. We just don’t have any evidence to back that up.

WOLF: The administration has also removed temporary protective status (TPS) for various communities of people who sought refuge in the US (Haiti, Syria, Afghanistan and more). How are those efforts working at this point?

ALVAREZ: Well, I think what you’re getting at is something that I’ve heard from multiple Homeland Security officials, which is to make it so hard for undocumented immigrants and some immigrants in the US legally to be in the United States that they choose to leave the country. Deporting someone is hard. There is a reason that previous administrations have not been able to get to a million deportations in a year. It’s a process. And so to reach the numbers they want to reach, they do have to depend in part on people deciding to leave on their own, and they can get people to do that by making them feel the squeeze.

Yes, the administration has rescinded temporary protected status, which is a form of humanitarian relief for people already in the US to live and work here legally for a period of time. This happened under the first Trump administration as well. Republicans generally don’t like this program because they feel that something that is meant to be temporary gets extended over and over again, and it loses sort of the temporary aspect, which is true.

Some of these statuses have gone on for a very long time. They get renewed over multiple administrations, so that makes someone who was living here with the protection they have, protections to be here, to live and work here. You strip that away, then they are here illegally, right? And that makes your life much more difficult. So, you were able to work legally, now you’re not able to work legally.

All of this is the subject of lawsuits that are still ongoing in the courts, but I think what this really boils down to is make it so hard to be in the US that you choose to leave, you being the person that is the subject of this crackdown.

They do that by tightening the screws across the immigration system for those who are undocumented and for those who are trying to be trying to be here legally or already are here legally and are trying to obtain green cards, and the rest.

WOLF: Trump has bragged that the border is effectively secure now, and that nobody is crossing the border. Do we believe that to be true?

ALVAREZ: No, people are always crossing the border. I think it’s just a numbers game. There are fewer crossing the border than there used to be. There are fewer releases than there used to be. What does that mean? Under, for example, the Biden administration, they were so overwhelmed by the number of people crossing that after screening and vetting individuals, they would release them into the United States to continue on with their immigration proceedings.

That is happening far less under the Trump administration. They are being apprehended and then they may be detained, or they may be immediately sent back to their origin country. But people are always crossing the border, it’s just a matter of how many, and certainly there are far fewer that are crossing now than were under the previous administration, when there was a crisis along the US Southern border.

WOLF: Do we think that the message that the administration has tried to put out there, that essentially the US is not hospitable to immigration, and particularly undocumented immigration, has that had the effect of making fewer people want to come here?

ALVAREZ: The US has generally leaned on deterrence policy over the years to keep people from illegally migrating to the United States. I think that is a fragile thing. For example, there was the zero-tolerance policy, otherwise known as the family separation policy, under the first Trump administration in 2018 and certainly that was jarring and meant as a deterrent for people to not legally migrate. Yet a year later I was covering a crisis on the border under the first Trump administration. The pandemic happened, and that led to massive migratory flows in the Western Hemisphere that couldn’t have been anticipated prior to the pandemic.

Certainly people are seeing what’s happening in the US and they feel discouraged or not interested in coming here and migrating here, but there is a world of possibilities of things that can happen around the globe that are outside of the policymakers’ control that could lead to people coming here in bigger numbers, and I think that’s always something that the Department of Homeland Security is watching for.

WOLF: As somebody who covers this every day, what is the thing that you wish more people understood about the mass deportation effort in the last couple of months?

ALVAREZ: We often use the term mass deportation because that is what President Trump campaigned on. It is what we hear from his officials when talking about his immigration agenda, but the administration’s immigration agenda is not solely focused on people who are in the United States illegally, nor people who are in the United States illegally and have committed crimes.

The agenda is broader than that. It is a tightening of the screws of the entire US immigration system that not only has consequences for people in the US illegally, but also for people who are here legally, who are, or who are trying to come to the US legally, and I think that that part of this often gets missed. It’s not just about deporting undocumented immigrants, it is a wholesale rethinking of the US immigration system, and who is allowed to be here or not be here.

4月28日，在德黑兰革命广场，一块巨大的广告牌上描绘着伊朗军队用网捕捉美国战斗机的场景。 （法新社档案照片）

在伊朗与美国可能达成协议之际，伊朗军队在霍尔木兹甘省击落一架以色列间谍侦察无人机。

伊朗梅尔通讯社星期天（5月24日）报道，伊朗发现这架以色列制造的“轨道飞行器”（Orbiter）无人机的残骸。

美国总统特朗普星期六（23日）在社媒发文称，美伊已基本谈成一份协议，协议内容包括开放霍尔木兹海峡，具体细节即将公布。

不过，据以色列媒体报道，以色列总理内坦亚胡认为这些协议条款“糟糕透顶”，星期六晚上召集执政联盟及安全部门紧急协商。