作者： root

Democrats’ DHS shutdown halts ICE oversight they demanded

DHS internal watchdog forced to pause immigration enforcement audits as partial shutdown hits 5th day

By Elizabeth Elkind
Fox News

Published February 18, 2026 11:40am EST

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) internal watchdog has been forced to pause a significant chunk of its oversight of immigration enforcement as Democrats continue to withhold support for funding the Cabinet-level agency.

A spokesperson for the DHS office of the inspector general (OIG) told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that most of its audits and inspections have had to be paused during the partial government shutdown, including many dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Democrats have called for stricter oversight of ICE since President Donald Trump surged federal law enforcement agents to blue cities across the country in a bid to crack down on illegal immigration.

But at least seven of the internal DHS probes into ICE conduct have been suspended after Democrats walked away from a bipartisan deal to fund the department, plunging it into a shutdown.

REPUBLICANS WARN DEMOCRATS’ ICE REFORM PUSH IS COVER TO DEFUND BORDER ENFORCEMENT

“Most of OIG’s audits, inspections, and similar reviews… are paused during the lapse in appropriations.A small number of OIG audits related to disaster relief continue because they are supported by an extant appropriation,” the spokesperson said.

“OIG’s Criminal Investigators are excepted from furlough and are continuing their work during the lapse.OIG does not publicly confirm or deny the existence of any particular criminal investigation.”

Probes that have been paused include determining “whether ICE investigates allegations of use of excessive force and holds personnel accountable” and conducting “unannounced inspections to assess compliance with ICE detention standards and ensure safe, secure, and humane conditions of confinement,” according to the spokesperson.

GOVERNMENT TO SHUT DOWN AT MIDNIGHT AFTER DEMS, WHITE HOUSE FAIL TO STRIKE DHS DEAL

An investigation into whether Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents are conducting domestic U.S. operations in accordance with DHS policies and federal law has also been halted.

The CBP probe is notable given it was CBP agents who shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen, during an anti-ICE demonstration in Minneapolis last month.

Democrats had called for investigations and stricter guardrails after the incident took place.

FEDERAL JUDGE TEMPORARILY LIFTS DHS RESTRICTIONS ON LAWMAKER VISITS TO DETENTION FACILITIES

But Pretti’s killing, along with the ICE-involved killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, were two of the main catalysts that Democrats said drove them away from an earlier bipartisan deal struck on funding DHS for the remainder of the fiscal year.

The original DHS funding bill, which passed the House but failed in the Senate, included new mandatory training requirements for ICE and a mandate for body cameras for federal law enforcement.

Democratic leaders have said that was not enough, however, and have rejected another compromise offer sent by the White House in recent days.

Democrats reportedly sent back their own counteroffer to Republicans this week, but there appears to be little movement on either side toward an agreement.

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Two of Democrats’ biggest demands, requiring judicial warrants to execute ICE enforcement action and banning masks for ICE agents while requiring clearly accessible identification, have been panned as non-starters by Republicans.

In addition to affecting ICE oversight, a lengthy DHS shutdown also threatens funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), among other offices within DHS.

Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.

Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com

Why the risks of requiring proof of citizenship to vote could outweigh the benefits

Analysis by Aaron Blake
34 min ago
PUBLISHED Feb 18, 2026, 2:25 PM ET

A voting booth at the Gates of Heaven Synagogue on November 8, 2022 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

As Republicans’ fortunes have dimmed ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, they’ve increasingly turned a panicked eye toward voting restrictions.

And to many GOP lawmakers, nothing is as urgent as passing the SAVE Act. It’s a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other provisions. The bill recently got its 50th Republican co-sponsor in the Senate — after already passing in the House — and some want party leaders to gut the filibuster to force it through.

It’s a push that makes logical and political sense for the GOP. Polls from 2024 showed support for requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote ranged from 67% to 83% of respondents. Some Republicans have argued that, even though it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote and there’s scant evidence of undocumented immigrants voting, it’s a worthwhile safeguard.

But recent data and history suggest there could be real danger that such restrictions will create bigger problems than they solve.

Specifically, the risk is that they disenfranche people who are legally allowed to vote but either can’t satisfy the restrictions (due to a lack of documentation) or decline to go to the trouble of doing so.

(Critics of the legislation have raised particular concerns about disenfranchising people who lack documents, including voters of color and young people, and women whose married names don’t appear on their birth certificates or passports.)

And given the lack of evidence that noncitizen voting amounts to a significant problem, the risk of doing more harm than good is pretty high.

We have a growing number of cautionary tales, including in a recent effort by some red states to use a federal database to root out noncitizens on their voter rolls.

ProPublica and the Texas Tribune over the weekend published an investigation into states that have sought to exclude noncitizen voters using a Department of Homeland Security tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE.

In Missouri, state officials told counties to make voters who were flagged as potential noncitizens by the tool temporarily unable to vote. But the investigation found hundreds of examples of people being incorrectly flagged.

CNN’s Fredreka Schouten found similar things earlier this month.

In Idaho, about 760 people were initially flagged, but only about a dozen cases were later referred to state police for possible criminal charges.

In Texas, state officials have given voters flagged by the system 30 days to verify their citizenship or be dropped from the voter rolls. In one county as of early February, 55 of 84 people flagged by the system hadn’t responded to notices. About half of the rest had been improperly added to voter rolls by administrators, while the other half proved their citizenship.

The numbers of mistakenly flagged voters, while not overwhelming, are quite notably more than the total number of known noncitizen voters in recent federal elections.

The pro-Trump Heritage Foundation keeps a database of voter fraud crimes. It includes fewer than 100 cases of noncitizen voting between 2002 and 2022.

And a study from the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice of the 2016 election likewise found just 30 suspected noncitizen votes out of 23 million votes studied.

The situations are dynamic, and voters have chances to verify their eligibility. But the situations in Missouri and Texas raise the prospect that the number of eligible voters who could be incorrectly excluded will be greater than the number of noncitizen voters in recent elections. That’s especially the case in Texas, where the burden falls on the voter to correct any errors.

And the experiences of states that have sought to require proof of citizenship in their elections also speaks to this potential problem.

New Hampshire lawmakers in 2024 passed one of the strictest proof-of-citizenship requirements in the country. A voting rights group later found that, during low-profile elections in the state in 2025, 244 people who tried to vote were turned away.

In Arizona, the state has a bifurcated system in which people who don’t provide proof of citizenship can register to vote in federal elections, but not state elections. A Brennan Center study last year found the resulting group of “federal-only” voters were disproportionately voters of color and significantly less likely to be Republican.

And perhaps the most pertinent example is Kansas.

A 2011 state law requiring proof of citizenship wound up blocking the voter registrations of more than 30,000 US citizens — about 12% of all people seeking to register for the first time.

The law was later struck down by the federal courts. In doing so, a US district court noted that the state had just 39 noncitizens who registered to vote between 1999 and 2013 – while qualifying that many or most of them might have been registered through administrative errors.

So that’s more than 30,000 blocked registrations – to fix a problem that the data pegged to be in the dozens, if that.

The defendant in the lawsuit that ultimately resulted in the law being blocked was Republican Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, who had supported it as a state legislator but has since cautioned states and the federal government about the potential risk of requiring proof of citizenship.

“Kansas did that 10 years ago,” Schwab told the Associated Press in 2024. “It didn’t work out so well.”

Months before death by suicide, aide texted colleague she had an affair with her boss, Rep. Tony Gonzales

February 18, 2026 / 2:45 PM EST / CBS News

Regina Santos-Aviles, an aide to Rep. Tony Gonzales, wrote a text message to a colleague that she had an affair with the Republican congressman. Months later, Santos-Aviles, 35, died after allegedly setting herself on fire.

“I had affair with our boss and I’m fine,” Santos-Aviles said in the text exchange, which was viewed by CBS News.

The news was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News.

Santos-Aviles died on Sept. 14, 2025, after she was found critically burned the night before near her home in Uvalde, according to the Uvalde Police Department. The Bexar County Medical Examiner ruled the death a suicide in November, according CBS San Antonio affiliate KENS.

In a statement on Wednesday, Gonzales would not comment on the allegations, saying he would not “engage in these personal smears and instead remain focused on helping President Trump secure the border and improve the lives of all Texans.”

In a November appearance on a panel, the 45-year-old congressman denied the affair, saying “the rumors are completely untruthful.” Gonzales is a married father of six, and Santos-Aviles was also married and had a son.

Gonzales called Santos-Aviles a “kind soul who devoted her life to making the community a better place. Her efforts led to improvements in school safety, healthcare, and rural water like never before.” He accused one of his primary opponents, Brandon Herrera, of “using a disgruntled former staffer to smear her memory and score political points.”

Gonzales’ office also alleged that the ex-staffer who reported the texts has moved to Los Angeles to work for Democratic campaigns. The ex-staffer denied to the Express-News that he was paid by any of Gonzales’ primary opponents.

Gonzales, who represents Uvalde and parts of San Antonio and the Texas-Mexico border, is currently running for his fourth term. It’s considered a safe Republican seat, and Gonzales won the last election with a 24–point margin, although the district boundaries have been changed since then. The primary was much closer — Herrera lost to Gonzales by just 400 votes. He’s challenging Gonzales again this year and on Tuesday called on Gonzales to exit the race. Early voting started Tuesday in the March 3 primary.

“This is completely unacceptable behavior for anyone, let along a sitting member of Congress,” Herrera posted on social media. “Tony must step down.”

Republican state Rep. Wes Vidrell, who represents part of Texas’ 23rd congressional district also called on Gonzales to resign amid the rising scandal

“If this is true, and it does appear credible, Tony should step down,” Vidrell said in a statement. “The family deserves to heal and get past this terrible tragedy. That will be impossible to do if they have to see the person who did it show no remorse for the situation and get re-elected to represent them in Congress.”

Another former staffer told the Express-News about the alleged affair between Santos-Aviles and Gonzales. The former staffer told the newspaper that she spiraled into depression after her husband discovered the alleged affair and Gonzales cut her off.

The Express-News on Tuesday night pulled its endorsement of Gonzales in the race, and said it would not make not make a recommendation in the race.

Trump administration restricts new FEMA disaster deployments during DHS shutdown

By Gabe Cohen
28 min ago
PUBLISHED Feb 18, 2026, 2:00 PM ET

People work at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington, on January 24.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

The Trump administration has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to suspend the deployment of hundreds of aid workers to disaster-torn areas around the US while the Department of Homeland Security is shut down, according to sources and internal messages obtained by CNN.

The new edict comes even though most deployments are paid for through a Disaster Relief Fund that isn’t affected by the shutdown.

One internal message to FEMA leaders on Tuesday said DHS, which oversees the agency, has “directed FEMA to stop all travel.” The order took effect Wednesday.

Any travel to areas still recovering from severe storms will now require sign-off from leaders at DHS, which oversees FEMA.

More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments but told to stand down, including some who are currently at a training facility, according to the agency messages.

FEMA staffers already working on major recovery efforts — like the one that’s still happening in southern states hit by Hurricane Helene two years ago — will stay in the field and can’t return home unless their assignment is ending, according to the messages. For now, no new personnel can join or relieve them without explicit approval from DHS.

“If we can’t get people to Florida or North Carolina to help validate damages from Helene, we can’t approve funding for those projects,” one FEMA official, who asked not to be identified, told CNN. “If we can’t staff a Disaster Recovery Center in Washington State or Alaska, how can people get help with their assistance applications?”

DHS and FEMA did not respond to requests for comment.

Weeks before the shutdown, amid efforts to overhaul FEMA and cut costs, DHS leaders had been discussing travel restrictions, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Disaster recovery work and travel are typically funded through FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which is a separate pool of money appropriated by Congress and not affected by the current lapse in DHS funding, multiple sources said. As of December, the DRF had roughly $7 billion available.

“So it’s not because the money isn’t there,” a FEMA source told CNN.

It remains unclear how much the travel freeze could disrupt disaster recovery efforts across the country.

One senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, doubted the order would prevent FEMA from responding to a sudden, catastrophic disaster because DHS has the flexibility to reauthorize these deployments.

“Ultimately it’s not a huge blow yet, but just another measure that makes it harder for survivors to get the help they need,” another high-ranking FEMA official told CNN. “It’s yet another way they continue to bleed us out and kill the mission.”

The travel restrictions are similar to another strict policy put in place by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last year, which requires her personal approval for any spending over $100,000. That rule has led to a huge backlog of FEMA disaster and emergency preparedness funding that’s still awaiting her approval, causing widespread frustration among members of Congress and state officials.

A recently placed warning sign is seen at the sight of a massive pipe rupture as sewage flows into the Potomac River in Glen Echo, Maryland, on January 23.

Cliff Owen/AP

FEMA and the sewage spill

The travel freeze comes after President Donald Trump pledged that FEMA would play a “key role” in a federal response to the massive sewage spill in the Potomac River, while criticizing Maryland Democrats, particularly Gov. Wes Moore.

Following the president’s remarks, Noem tweeted that “Democrats in Congress have shut down @FEMA funding — leaving our hard working employees to work without pay — yet FEMA is now stepping in to coordinate cleanup of one of the largest raw sewage spills in U.S. history.”

So far, however, FEMA has deployed few, if any, resources to assist with the sewage spill, according to three agency officials. FEMA’s daily briefing on Wednesday indicated it was still “monitoring” the situation.

Trump seemed to clarify his comments on Truth Social Tuesday, urging local officials in Maryland, Virginia, and DC to “get to work, IMMEDIATELY,” adding “if they can’t do the job, they have to call me and ask, politely, to get it fixed.”

Moore on Wednesday accused Trump of lying and putting people’s health at risk, saying, “This sewage pipe that he is talking about is on federal land and over these past four weeks the Trump-Vance administration has failed to act.”

Moore said blaming Maryland is “asinine. It is disingenuous, absurd, and politically motivated.”

尼日利亚矿井瓦斯爆炸 近40名矿工遇难 | 联合早报

发布/2026年2月18日 22:36

尼日利亚中部一处矿井发生瓦斯爆炸，至少38名铅矿工人丧生，27人受伤。

法新社报道，这起事故发生于当地时间星期三（2月18日）早上，地点是位于高原州巴沙尔区的坎帕宁祖拉克矿场（Kampanin Zurak）。

附近矿坑的矿工说，事故发生时，遇难工人正在地下矿井作业。“我们距离现场很近，工人正在矿坑作业时，突然发生了气体爆炸。”

尼日利亚过去也曾发生类似致命矿难。去年9月西北部赞法拉州暴雨期间，一块巨石砸中非法矿场，造成至少18人死亡。

节点运行失败

节点运行失败

法国重启爱泼斯坦案调查 涉人口贩运金融欺诈

发布时间 / 来源：2026年2月18日 23:05 / 联合早报

法国对与美国已故性犯罪者爱泼斯坦有关联的人展开了广泛调查，以查明他们是否涉及人口贩运和金融欺诈等罪行。

巴黎检察官贝库奥（Laure Beccuau）星期三（2月18日）接受电台采访时说，调查将根据公开资料以及儿童保护组织提交的投诉展开。

其中一项调查将重点关注人口贩运行为，另一项调查则涵盖洗钱、腐败和税务欺诈等犯罪活动。

贝库奥的办公室在一份声明中表示，希望舆论对爱泼斯坦案的关注能鼓励更多受害者站出来。

爱泼斯坦（Jeffrey Epstein）与多名政商名流交往密切，因涉嫌性犯罪被捕入狱，2019年8月死在美国狱中，被判定为自杀。他的同谋麦克斯韦（Ghislaine Maxwell）也因性交易罪名被判处20年监禁。

美国当局已公开大量爱泼斯坦案的文件。法国的五名检察官将审视这些文件，寻找任何法国公民可能涉嫌性犯罪或金融犯罪的线索。

这些文件中包括飞行记录和电子邮件，显示爱泼斯坦经常到巴黎，并在凯旋门附近拥有一套豪华公寓。

法国当局早前已启动几项与爱泼斯坦案有关的调查，其中一项涉及前文化部长雅克·朗与他的女儿卡罗琳，两人涉嫌税务欺诈。法国资深外交官艾丹（Fabrice Aidan）也因涉嫌向爱泼斯坦泄露联合国文件而遭调查。

法国检察官曾于2019年对与爱泼斯坦有关联的人展开调查，但随着关键嫌疑人布鲁内尔（Jean-Luc Brunel）在狱中去世，调查也于2023年结束。当局当时说，他们掌握的数据仍不完整，并形容调查工作“极其艰巨，结果尚未可知”。

呼吁法国重启调查的儿童保护组织Innocence en danger负责人塞利耶（Homayra Sellier）说：“作为爱泼斯坦在美国以外唯一拥有房产的国家，法国在这件事中起着关键作用。”

联合国人权理事会独立专家小组周二说，已公开的文件显示，可能存在一个与爱泼斯坦网络有关的“全球犯罪集团”，而这个集团的行为可能构成反人类罪。

马克龙抨击社媒：捍卫言论自由是“胡扯”

2026年2月18日 23:11 / 联合早报

对于社媒平台捍卫言论自由的说法，法国总统马克龙称这是“彻头彻尾的胡扯”。 （法新社）

欧洲多国正在考虑禁止未成年人使用社交媒体，称这些服务有害且令人上瘾，但美国批评此类禁令是在审查言论自由。对于社媒平台捍卫言论自由的说法，法国总统马克龙称这是“彻头彻尾的胡扯”。

彭博社报道，如果英国和德国等欧洲国家最终决定禁止未成年人使用社媒，可能会对Meta旗下的Instagram和脸书、Snap、马斯克的X、TikTok以及谷歌旗下的YouTube的广告收入造成影响。

美国最近对一名欧洲前官员和一些活动人士实施了签证禁令，理由是他们试图监管网络仇恨言论。国务卿鲁比奥辩称，此举是为了反击“全球审查产业复合体”。

马克龙周三（2月18日）在新德里说：“完全不了解他们的算法是如何制作、测试、训练的，以及它会引导你走向何方——这种偏见对民主的后果可能是巨大的。”

马克龙说：“他们中有些人声称支持言论自由——好吧，我们支持算法自由——完全透明。如果没人知道所谓的言论自由是如何被引导的，尤其是当这种引导是从一条仇恨言论转向另一条仇恨言论时，那么言论自由就是彻头彻尾的胡扯。”

中国冬奥赛场成绩低迷 场外“赢麻了”？

发布时间：2026年2月18日 22:40 / 来源：联合早报 记者：黎康

当地时间星期三（2月18日），米兰冬奥会单板滑雪男子坡面障碍技巧决赛在利维尼奥雪上公园展开，中国队选手苏翊鸣凭借第一轮比赛得到的82.41分获得金牌，这也是中国体育代表团在本届冬奥会上获得的第一枚金牌。图为苏翊鸣在颁奖仪式上。 （中新社）

中国在上届北京冬奥会主场创下最佳成绩，但今年米兰冬奥会赛程过半，中国队才刚完成金牌零的突破。与赛场成绩的低迷形成对比的是，中国互联网上出现对“赢”的新阐释，还形成一套中国技术、品牌、文化元素在赛场之外“赢麻了”的叙事。

截至星期三（2月18日）傍晚，中国代表团在本届冬奥会上仅取得三枚银牌、三枚铜牌，在奖牌榜上排名第19位。星期三晚，中国运动员苏翊鸣、徐梦桃先后在单板滑雪男子坡面障碍技巧赛、自由式滑雪女子空中技巧决赛中夺冠，将中国队的奖牌榜排名提升至14位，但整体成绩仍落后于上届的9金4银2铜。

尽管赛场前半程表现欠佳，中国舆论场今年罕见未给运动员施压，反而是淡化奖牌压力。苏翊鸣在单板大跳台项目摘得铜牌后，官方媒体评论“这枚铜牌，或许比金牌更重”。

星期二（17日）获得本届冬奥会第二枚银牌的谷爱凌，在被问到是“赢得两枚银牌，还是丢掉两枚金牌”时，直接回应“这种想法很荒谬”。不少中国网民也表达支持，认为“无论拿什么牌都是为国争光”。

中国央视新闻则是在评论中重新定义“赢”，称赢有时候意味着战胜并排的对手，但“更多时候意味着战胜自己”。对此，中国网民评论称：“虽然没得金牌，但是我们赢了”，“我们就没输过”。

云南网络广播电视台则公布一段2022年中国冰壶运动员夺冠的视频。一部分网民调侃“2022年的比赛赢在2026年”，也有人感慨“咱们一定要赢吗”。

在官媒对“赢”的解释之外，中国网民还总结出多种“赢法”。例如这届的奖牌没有北京奥运会结实，美国记者背北京冬奥会背包、德国记者戴四年前的丝绒帽等等。

围绕“赢”的叙事，也从体育本身扩展至赛场之外。英文的《中国日报》星期一（16日）一则报道，就以米兰的泡泡玛特门店为切入点，称“中国流行偶像征服2026年冬奥会”。

新华社的报道则聚焦中国技术和文化在本届冬奥会“大放异彩”。例如，国际奥委会基于阿里千问大模型打造了首个官方大模型，中国品牌TCL为场馆提供智能基础设施，“为全球体育注入新活力”。冬奥会中国馆展示的剪纸、糖艺制作等，也吸引许多国际游客和当地居民。

体育赛事激发爱国动能减弱

旅居台湾的时事评论人徐全接受《联合早报》采访时说，东亚社会因历史原因向来重视体育赛事，但举国体制近年来也受到不少反思与批评。官方此时再以国家意识形态包装体育赛事，同样可能受到批判。

但与此同时，他指出，金牌情结的惯性依然存在，这就使得舆论呈现出一种“动态的平衡”：“拿到金牌，就侧重金牌的荣耀；拿不到金牌，就强调奖牌同样宝贵”。

徐全也观察到，体育竞技赛事所能激发的爱国主义动能已有所削减。一方面，中国民众更能用平常心看待体育赛事；另一方面，当赛场上成绩不好时，舆论便将注意力转向赛场之外，通过技术、品牌或文化议题重新激发大众的民族自豪感。

不过，徐全认为，中国品牌走向海外、扩大知名度，本质上是国际贸易与全球化进程中的自然现象，是互惠交易的结果，并非“谁恩赐谁”。“这种经济活动未必要上升到民族主义层面，更谈不上所谓‘赢麻了’。”

高市早苗高票蝉联日本第105任首相

发布/2026年2月18日 23:42

日本首相高市早苗上周在众议院选举中打了漂亮一战，不但奠定自民党在众院一党独大的地位，更给自己在星期三（2月18日）召开的国会首相指名选举以高票蝉联第105任首相。

在众议院首相指名选举中，高市在464张有效选票中获得354票蝉联首相。鉴于去年10月上台后仅做了四个月首相，高市此次用回内阁原班人马。总务部长、外长、防长、内阁秘书长依然分别由林芳正、茂木敏充、小泉进次郎、木原稔担任。

执政联盟日本维新会此次也未入阁，但高市允诺今年秋季（10月）进行内阁改组时，将让维新会党首出任部长。

在组阁后的记者会上，高市表明将大胆推行刺激内需的投资措施，争取经济增长。同时，将在今年夏季编制《日本增长战略》支持日本企业研发和转型。她也要力争尽快通过2026财年预算案和税制改革法案，以及实现消费税减免等民生政策。

高市希望日本央行与政府密切合作，在实现2%通胀目标的同时，切实提高工资水平，从而实现持久增长。

她说，她星期一与央行行长上田一夫的会晤是一次例行的经济和金融形势交流。但她拒绝透露会谈内容，仅说：“我希望央行继续实施适当的货币政策，从而可持续、稳定地实现2%的通胀目标，同时促进工资增长，而不是由成本推动因素导致的物价上涨。”

她说：“我们要扶持受生活费上涨影响的家庭，力争在夏季之前达成协议。我将努力尽快通过这些法案，以确保国民安心，并建设强劲的经济，创造充满希望的未来。”

她也呼吁超党派合作，以“全国会议”的方式商讨减免消费税的相关法案，

高市倡导的“大胆财政”被外界指将扩大日本的财政压力。《日经新闻》发表国际货币基金组织（IMF）对日本财政政策的看法，督促当局避免削减消费税，大范围的减税会增加财政风险。日本财政赤字占国内生产总值（GDP）的266%，在主要七个发达国家中位居榜首。

对于削减消费税引发的担忧，高市在记者会上表示，债务增长率控制在增长区间内，并降低政府债务占GDP的比重。“我们也将以发展经济，拉高国内生产总值，扩大税收作为财政来源。”

高市星期三敲定3月访美，她强调将落实5500亿美元（约6950亿新元）的对美投资。她强调说：“日美将通过共同构建供应链来加强联系，这有助于日本企业增加销售额、拓展业务。 日本企业也将迎来业务扩张。这符合促进日美互利、保障经济安全、推动经济增长的重要意义。”

她重申要加强国防和推动修宪，公布盟友古谷圭司出任众议院宪法审查委员会主席。对修宪，她星期三的自民党总会内告诉议员们，“今年我们能兑现多少竞选承诺，能否让自民党获得更大的信任。修改日本宪法和皇室法，取决于我们竞选承诺的进展，让我们迎难而上“。

分析认为，这一人事任命是在亮剑，显示她要在任期内大力推进宪法改革，以及改写和平宪法。自民党众院拥有超过三分之二的席位，即便目前执政党在参议院仍处于少数地位，但也可以重新在众院通过被参议院否决的法案。

不过，修宪门槛对高市而言还是存在挑战，因为这必须获得两院三分之二议员赞成，而后举行公投。因此，后年的参议院选举自民党要夺回之前失去的议席十分关键。

自民党在众院选战中赢得316个议席，引进了66位新人，他们都被指将可能成为高市派成员。党人事上，这次也露出高市色彩，重用一直支持她的安倍派人马。例如，之前被打入冷宫的前经济产业部长西村康稔接任党内选举战略委员会主席。

《产经新闻》和富士新闻网于2月14日和15日联合进行的一项民调结果显示，高市的支持率较上次调查上升1.2个百分点，达到72%，是高市内阁执政以来连续第五个月支持率保持在七成以上。另外，调查也显示，日本民众有67.1%支持高市推进宪法改革。

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