China-linked green group training US judges draws fresh heat as foreign ties fuel pressure at home

State Armor says the nonprofit trained American judges while cultivating partnerships with Chinese government-linked entities

July 2, 2026 9:53am EDT / Fox News

By Robert Schmad

A new report is is suggesting potential Chinese interference in the U.S. AI race as the activist group Code Pink, reportedly funded by a Shanghai-based tech tycoon, is leading a campaign to block a massive data center in Utah.

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A national security group is urging Congress to investigate a prominent environmental-law nonprofit over past partnerships and programming ties with Chinese government-linked organizations, according to a report sent to lawmakers on Tuesday by State Armor, a national security organization.

The Environmental Law Institute, or ELI, has trained more than 2,000 American judges on environmental law through its Climate Judiciary Project since 2018, according to its website. During its decades of China-related work, the organization cultivated relationships with entities the report described as Chinese government-affiliated, CCP-linked or tied to China’s military research ecosystem, according to State Armor.

“Across three decades of engagement, ELI’s work has uniformly advanced Chinese strategic and national security interests while undermining American national security by constraining domestic energy producers and industrial expansion and simultaneously pushing America toward dependence upon energy sources dominated by the PRC,” a letter addressed to congressional leadership attached to the report reads.

LAWMAKERS PRESS ELI LILLY FOR CHINA DRUG TRIALS TIED TO MILITARY-LINKED HOSPITALS

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during an international business meeting at The Great Hall Of The People on March 28, 2025 in Beijing, China.(Ken Ishii – Pool/Getty Images)

State Armor, a national security organization focused on state-level policy responses to foreign threats, is raising concerns that the ties could have domestic implications.

The organization is run by Michael Lucci, a lobbyist, and keeps its donors private to shield them from being targeted by the Chinese government. Lucci said in an April 2025 Wall Street Journal profile that his group refuses funding from corporate and foreign sources to avoid perceptions of conflicting interests.

“The question is not whether judges should receive continuing education but rather whether any educational initiative funded, organized, or influenced by organizations with relationships with foreign entities, particularly a foreign adversary, could affect the perception or reality of judicial impartiality,” the congressional letter reads.

TRUMP ADMIN AXES TIES TO DOZENS OF PROGRESSIVE GROUPS IN ‘DIRECT OPPOSITION’ TO MISSION: ‘DECISIVE ACTION’

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and U.S. President Donald Trump meet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.(Kenny Holston/Pool Photo via AP)

ELI, when asked about its ties to China, told Fox News Digital that its programming in China ceased in 2024 and rejected criticism that its work advanced Chinese government interests specifically.

“For over 50 years, ELI has worked to strengthen environmental protections in dozens of countries,” an ELI spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Thursday. “Our programming in China concluded in 2024 but was no different than our typical work — sharing evidence-based best practices on environmental regulation, not advancing any government interests. The Climate Judiciary Project has not conducted any programming in China.”

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit was founded in 1969 and describes its mission as developing “innovative, just, and practical” environmental law and policy solutions across borders and sectors. ELI launched the Climate Judiciary Project in 2018, which is a judicial-education initiative focused on climate science, climate change and the ways climate science arises in the law.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump visited the Temple of Heaven on May 14, 2026, in Beijing, China, during a high-level summit between the two leaders. Xi warned that mishandling the issue of Taiwan could push the United States and China toward “conflict.”(Brendan Smialowski – Pool/Getty Images)

LAWMAKERS PRESS ELI LILLY FOR CHINA DRUG TRIALS TIED TO MILITARY-LINKED HOSPITALS

Though ELI says it has ceased its work in China, ELI has continued to advance China-related scholarship and partner with individuals linked to Chinese government ventures. Fox News Digital is not aware of any ELI programming that has taken place in China since 2024.

As recently as May, the nonprofit, through its journal, published an English-language paper written by two Chinese academics hailing from state-run universities detailing how China had made progress on environmental protection.

Then, in June, ELI hosted a Chinese legal scholar for a panel discussion with speakers from multiple other countries on global career pathways in environmental law. The scholar, who received training through an ELI fellowship in 2021, “participated in ministry-level projects on environmental legislation and policy of China,” according to her biography on ELI’s website.

She also “managed internationally funded programs” to train Chinese “judges” and “environmental law enforcement officers,” according to ELI.

ELI did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the paper by the Chinese academics or the panel featuring the Chinese legal scholar.

Members of the military honor guard hold American and Chinese flags before President Donald Trump is greeted by Chinese President Xi Jinping at a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday, May 14, 2026, in Beijing.(Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

TOP CALIFORNIA DEM RUNNING FOR OFFICE TIED TO CHINESE SCHOOL ACCUSED OF US DIPLOMA SCANDAL

ELI discloses on its website that it has “worked to improve environmental rule of law, enforcement, and compliance in China” since the “mid-1990s” in light of “the critical role that China, and its 1.4 billion people, has in global environmental protection.”

“ELI has worked to improve environmental rule of law, enforcement, and compliance in China in partnership with Chinese NGOs, universities, law firms, businesses, judges and environmental regulators,” the organization’s website reads. “ELI has held capacity-building workshops, high-level roundtables, seminars and panel discussions on Chinese policy issues, trained lawyers on environmental justice issues, and published articles and books on sustainability, environmental management, and constitutional environmental law in China.”

State Armor argued that this kind of knowledge sharing ultimately benefited the Chinese government, to the detriment of the United States. State Armor urged lawmakers to examine the scope of ELI’s cooperation with Chinese entities and review the funding, curriculum development, expert selection and governance structure of its judicial education programs.

WALL STREET BANKS HELPED CHINESE MILITARY-LINKED FIRM RAISE BILLIONS DESPITE RED FLAGS, LAWMAKERS FIND

A climate protester scales the Wilson Building as part of an Earth Day rally against fossil fuels April 22, 2022.(Getty Images)

“Under the banner of ‘improv[ing] environmental rule of law,’ ELI’s China Program provides technical assistance, capacity building, and legal training to Chinese NGOs, judges, and environmental regulators,” the report reads.

While ELI has historically provided these services, Fox News Digital could not find evidence that ELI has provided any programming in China after 2024.

To support this assertion, State Armor cited public records showing that some of the organizations ELI worked with are tied to the Chinese Communist Party or the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

State Armor cited ELI’s own website, which states that the organization worked with the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy (PRCEE), a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, to improve China’s environmental regulatory system.

State Armor argued that PRCEE’s affiliation with China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment and its stated policy-support role place it within China’s government environmental-policy apparatus.

In 2013, PRCEE worked on a report jointly published by the Chinese government and the United Nations Environment Programme dubbed “China’s Green Long March” — an apparent reference to the CCP’s famous 1934 “Long March” where it strategically retreated inland during the Chinese Civil War.

ELI also states on its website that its China International Business Dialogue on Environmental Governance (CIBDEG) working group provided “information and analysis to the Chinese government regarding environmental regulations in the United States and Europe as well as the concerns of multinational business.”

“The working group is designed to facilitate and encourage dialogue between multinational businesses and Chinese environmental regulatory authorities regarding best practices in environmental regulation and performance by governments and industries,” the group’s website reads.

ELI joined forces with the PRCEE, the Chinese law firm JunHe and the prestigious American law firm Latham & Watkins to launch CIBDEG in 2018. A press release from JunHe claimed that China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment was also involved in founding the working group.

NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTS RAISE CONCERNS AFTER MICROSOFT PROGRAM EXPOSED AS POSSIBLE AVENUE FOR CHINESE SPYING

Xi Jinping, China’s president, center, Li Qiang, China’s premier, right, and Wang Huning, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, applaud during the closing session of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 12, 2026.(Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In addition to PRCEE and the CIBDEG, ELI has also worked with multiple universities that have been scrutinized by the United States government over their ties to China’s military.

ELI, for instance, “trained 265 environmental NGO workers, judges, prosecutors and attorneys from 26 provinces” at Tianjin University in 2018, only for the university to later land on the Commerce Department’s Entity List, an export-control list, over alleged trade-secret theft tied to military applications. ELI was not involved in the purported intellectual property theft.

ELI has drawn sustained scrutiny from Republican lawmakers and conservative activists over its China-related work, foreign partnerships and climate-focused judicial education programs. The critiques have been based on media reports alleging that ELI works closely with the Chinese government as well as with individuals linked to the CCP, not investigative findings produced by U.S. government bodies.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in particular has waged a prolonged campaign against ELI, alleging that the group has links to the Chinese government and that its operations materially harm the United States.

“We’re witnessing right now a systematic campaign against American energy. There is a coordinated assault by the radical left, backed and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party to seize control of our courts, to weaponize litigation against U.S. energy producers,” Cruz said during a June 2025 hearing. “The judiciary itself is being quietly captured and brainwashed as left wing nonprofits host closed door trainings that indoctrinate judges to adopt the ideological goals of the climate lawfare machine.”

“Perhaps the most insidious because it strikes at the very heart of the rule of law, judicial capture,” the senator continued. “It is being carried out by one organization with near total control over climate-related judicial training, the Environmental Law Institute, and its Climate Judiciary Project … They claim to be science driven but what they are doing is ex parte indoctrination, pressuring judges to set aside the rule of law and rule instead according to a predetermined political narrative.”

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In its letter to lawmakers, State Armor alleged that ELI promotes a policy agenda that disfavors American energy interests.

“The jurisprudential frameworks ELI promotes to American judges disproportionately favor regulatory constraints on U.S. domestic energy production, with no commensurate frameworks within China’s system,” State Armor’s report reads. “Consciously or not, this is an instance of ELI pushing for American unilateral disarmament in energy security and industrial production.”

Man who sold land for Kushner-backed Albania development probed over alleged money laundering, drug trafficking

2026-07-02 11:46 EDT / CBS News

By Emmet Lyons Producer
Emmet Lyons is a news desk editor at the CBS News London bureau, coordinating and producing stories for all CBS News platforms. Prior to joining CBS News, Emmet worked as a producer at CNN for four years.

Read Full Bio

Updated on: July 2, 2026 / 11:55 AM EDT / CBS News

An Albanian-American man who sold land for a possible luxury development backed by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is under investigation for alleged drug trafficking and money laundering, Albanian court records reviewed by CBS News show.

The controversial plans to build resorts in long-protected natural coastal areas have sparked mass protests in Albania’s capital Tirana.

Artur Shehu, a Miami resident with dual U.S. and Albanian nationality, is being investigated by Albanian prosecutors who allege there is “sufficient evidence” of his “involvement in drug trafficking criminal activity,” and “sufficient data” suggesting he falsified financial documents around other real estate and construction projects, according to court filings dated June 10, which were obtained by CBS News.

Environmental activists, families, members of the Albanian diaspora, tourists, and young people participate in a demonstration in Tirana, Albania, on June 14, 2026. Vlasov Sulaj/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Florida public records link Shehu to an address in Miami Beach.

Albania’s independent anti-corruption body SPAK said last month that it had issued arrest warrants for 15 Albanian citizens for alleged international drug trafficking and money laundering, but it had not identified the individuals involved.

Thousands of Albanians have taken to the streets of the country’s capital Tirana for over a month in protests sparked by concerns over the luxury tourism development — and a law permitting it — in a natural beauty area.

Kushner, who is married to Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka, is among a group of investors seeking to build a luxury tourism complex along the country’s Adriatic coastline.

Kushner announced his involvement in the project in 2024, and Ivanka referenced her and her husband’s plans for the resort while speaking to the “Founders” podcast last month.

The anger over the plans for Zvërnec, a historically protected area rich in wildlife, grew quickly into a wider movement against alleged corruption in the Albanian government and the country’s ruling elite. Activists have dubbed the protests “the flamingo revolution,” in reference to some of the wildlife they say the tourism development would threaten.

Shehu sold some of the land earmarked for the project to the Albania Land Development LLC, a company linked to investors including Kushner.

In addition to the investigations revealed by the court documents, he’s also facing scrutiny from Albanian authorities related to that transaction.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP), a global non-profit investigative news outlet, reported last month that it had obtained an Albanian court order noting a frozen bank account containing more than $127 million originating from the sale of land “between parties Artur Shehu and Albanian Land Development.”

CBS News sought to obtain that court order this week, and a spokesperson for Albania’s Special Court Against Corruption and Organized Crime acknowledged its existence, but said the court could not release the document as the case “is currently at the stage of preliminary investigations.”

The OCCRP also reported last month that SPAK prosecutors were investigating whether the land earmarked for the development had been acquired by Shehu fraudulently.

A spokesperson for SPAK confirmed to CBS News in June that it had opened an investigation into the planned development, but the agency said the probe “does not concern any company associated with Mr. Kushner.”

2013 court records reviewed by CBS News show Shehu’s previous ownership of the land had been disputed by residents in Zvërnec, who claimed they had rights to the area. Those residents are still actively legally challenging Shehu’s right to sell the land, according to the Albanian prime minister’s office.

Shehu told an Albanian TV show last month that his claim on the land was “undisputed” and that he sold it to investors through a middleman, whom he did not name. He said he did not know who had purchased the land, Reuters reported last month.

Artur Shehu speaks to an Albanian broadcaster remotely last month. The Miami based Albanian-American is facing multiple investigations by Albanian authorities. TV Klan

Public filings show Albania Land Development, the company Shehu sold the land to, is owned by a complicated structure of shell companies, including Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, a firm incorporated in Qatar.

Last month, CBS News contacted Kushner’s investment firm Affinity Partners for comment on the development. The company referred CBS News to Sazan Real Estate Development, and a spokesperson for that firm said it represented all investors in the project “who are involved in their personal capacity.”

CBS News has sought comment from both Shehu and Sazan Real Estate Development LLC regarding the investigations and they had not responded by time of publication.

Employers added 57,000 jobs in June, far below forecasts as hiring slowed

2026-07-02 08:38:00-0400 / CBS News

By

Updated on: July 2, 2026 / 12:02 PM EDT / CBS News

U.S. employers added 57,000 jobs in June, far below analysts’ forecasts and signaling that hiring may be losing momentum.

By the numbers

Economists polled by FactSet had predicted the economy would add 100,000 jobs last month.

The unemployment rate was 4.2% in June, down from 4.3% in May.

June’s payroll report marked a slowdown after a string of strong reports from March through May, each of which topped 100,000 jobs. On Thursday, the Labor Department revised down job growth for April and May by a combined 74,000, indicating hiring was weaker than previously reported.

By sector, the professional and business services industry saw the largest gains in June, adding 36,000 jobs. Healthcare also continued to add workers, though at a slower pace than in prior months. The sector added 22,000 jobs in June, below the average monthly gain of 38,000 over the prior 12 months, the Labor Department said.

Leisure and hospitality shed 61,000 jobs, surprising some economists who had expected stronger hiring in the industry because of the World Cup and July 4 celebrations.

Capital Economics said the main culprit behind the lackluster job report was a 55,000 decline in accommodation and food services employment — part of the overall leisure and hospitality sector — a reversal from May that dragged down June’s job growth.

However, some experts expressed doubts about the numbers.

“There is zero chance leisure and hospitality posts a negative print in the midst of the World Cup,” Jamie Cox, Managing Partner for Harris Financial Group, said in an email. “Revisions higher in the next few months are coming.”

What experts are saying

Despite weaker-than-expected hiring in June, analysts noted that overall labor market conditions have improved since earlier in the year, with employment continuing to grow at a healthy pace. Employers added an average of roughly 111,000 jobs a month from April to June, compared with about 73,000 jobs a month from January to March.

Jerry Tempelman, vice president of economic and fixed income research at Mutual of America Capital Management, pointed to the labor market’s resilience.

“Geopolitical and inflationary headwinds have had only a minimal effect on slowing or preventing hiring to this point, and payroll growth has already surpassed last year’s pace,” he said in an email.

Still, economists said the report could hint at underlying issues in the labor market. The hiring rate has remained depressed in recent months, weighing on consumers’ confidence about finding a new job.

What does this mean for Fed rate cuts?

Thursday’s underwhelming jobs report could give the Federal Reserve some breathing room in dealing with inflation, which has jumped to its highest levels in more than three years.

Although the Fed signaled last month that it is open to raising interest rates later this year, a stretch of softer job growth could ease inflation by reducing the pressure on employers to raise worker wages, according to economists.

At the same time, solid payroll gains this year and low unemployment could forestall any immediate need for the Fed to lower its benchmark rate to boost hiring.

“From a Federal Reserve point of view, there is not enough job strength to suggest the Fed should hike to slow job growth, but neither is there enough weakness to justify cuts,” Chris Low, chief economist at investment firm FHN Financial, said in a report.

Edited by Aimee Picchi

曼市官宣英格兰中场安德森加盟 创英国球员转会费纪录

2026年7月2日 23:11 / 联合早报

曼市正式宣布英格兰中场安德森下赛季加盟球队。图为安德森（左）在英格兰国家队2比1逆转刚果（金）的32强赛中与前锋维萨（Wissa）争抢。 （路透社）

（路透电）英超豪门曼市（Manchester City）星期四（7月2日）正式宣布，从诺丁汉森林（Nottingham Forest）签下英格兰国家队中场埃利奥特·安德森（Elliot Anderson）。据各大媒体报道，这笔交易已刷新了英国本土球员的历史最高转会费纪录。

据报道交易总价高达2亿新元

虽然两家球会都未公开具体的财政细节，但据英国媒体报道，这笔交易的总价高达1.16亿英镑（约2亿新元），打破了皇家马德里（Real Madrid）在2023年为引进贝林厄姆（Bellingham）向多特蒙德（Dortmund）支付的1.15亿英镑的纪录。

曼市在官方声明中说：“现年23岁的安德森目前正随英格兰国家队征战世界杯，他已在堪萨斯城完成了体检。转会的所有正式手续将在他返回英格兰后最终敲定。”

这个重磅交易也让安德森超越了曼市在2021年花费1亿英镑，从阿斯顿维拉（Aston Villa）签下边锋格雷利什（Grealish）的球会纪录。

安德森出自纽卡斯尔（Newcastle）青训体系，于2024年以3500万英镑的身价转投诺丁汉森林。在效力森林期间，他在各项赛事中共出场92次，贡献了6个进球和11次助攻。

作为一名中场多面手，安德森不仅防守拦截稳健，还具备极强的插上进攻能力。他的到来将进一步充实曼市的豪华中场阵容配置。

球队在中场位置上已坐拥罗德里（Rodri）、冈萨雷斯（Gonzalez）、科瓦契奇（Kovacic）、赖因德斯（Reijnders）、切尔基（Cherki）、努内斯（Nunes），以及他的英格兰国家队队友福登（Foden）。

在上赛季英超联赛中屈居阿申纳（Arsenal）之后获得亚军的曼市，随着功勋主帅瓜迪奥拉（Guardiola）结束辉煌的10年执教生涯后，将在前切尔西（Chelsea）主帅马雷斯卡（Maresca）的率领下开启崭新时代。

点击《联合早报》世界杯专页，获 知世界杯比分、赛程和最新新闻等资讯。

Dads of Camp Mystic victims still pushing for safety laws 1 year after deadly Texas floods

July 2, 2026 / 10:40 AM EDT / CBS News

The fathers of a camper and a counselor who were killed during last year’s deadly floods at Camp Mystic in Texas said they’ll keep advocating for improved summer camp safety to help prevent other families from experiencing a similar tragedy.

Saturday, July 4, marks one year since the catastrophic floods killed more than 130 people, including 25 girls and two teenage counselors at the all-girls private Christian camp in Hunt, Texas. Matthew Childress’ 18-year-old daughter, Chloe, and Ryan DeWitt’s 9-year-old daughter, Molly, were in the same cabin when they died in the floods.

That night now connects the two fathers – forever.

“We all began to be driven by understanding the truth. What happened that night? What happened leading up to that night? What happened following that night?” Childress told “CBS Mornings.”

“At that time, even though I knew it was irrational, I felt that if I could put that timeline together, that I could save my daughter, that I could save these girls,” he added.

Childress, DeWitt and other families of the victims have since helped drive legislative changes regarding camp safety nationwide.

They’ve also sued the camp, accusing its owners of gross negligence. “These young girls died because a for-profit camp put profit over safety,” their lawsuit alleges.

The camp is not the only entity being blamed, with the tragedy being attributed to multiple missteps, including that communities did not have outdoor warning sirens in much of the affected area.

Push to change camp safety laws

Investigators who looked into the camp’s evacuation response during the floods concluded in a state report – released last month – that the camp did not prepare for the storm or have a plan to evacuate. It also faulted Kerr County officials, saying alerts and warnings issued by Texas’ emergency management division were disregarded, and that county officials were “substantially absent from duty” and failed to effectively coordinate with summer camps before the storm.

Childress said the families “could physically feel the weight on our shoulders being lifted, that that truth was being told to the public.”

“Make no mistake about it, that doesn’t mean that the road ahead is not still really, really difficult for us to be able to be at the leading edge of meaningful change,” DeWitt said. “That keeps our daughters’ purpose and their spirit alive.”

That purpose led them to speak with legislators and advocate for camp safety — ultimately helping change laws in three states: Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama. In September, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed two new campground safety laws, including the Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act. “Heaven’s 27” refers to the 27 campers and counselors who died in the flooding.

The Texas legislation requires summer camps to install warning systems, provide training for emergencies and strengthen communications for when there is no power or cell service. Cabins will also no longer be allowed to be built in flood zones.

DeWitt told “CBS Mornings” he and Childress couldn’t sit back and do nothing because if “this happened again for another father, another mother, … we would be reliving the pain with them.”

In a statement ahead of the one-year mark of the tragedy, the family that owns and operates Camp Mystic said “the unforeseeable surge of floodwaters last July 4 far exceeded any previous flood by several orders of magnitude, and the state of Texas repeatedly failed to fund an adequate early warning flood system in the area.”

“Camp Mystic remains committed to enhancing flood safety for the Kerr County community and for youth camps across the state,” the Eastland family said.

New foundation seeks to prevent another tragedy

This week, the families of “Heaven’s 27” launched the Safe Summers Foundation. It says it aims, in part, to get 27,000 parents to take a pledge to ask camps questions about how they are keeping kids safe. They’re also raising money to fund safety upgrades and promote new safety laws.

Childress and DeWitt are on the organization’s advisory board.

Childress said the “Heaven’s 27” families lean on each other. “In the good and the bad, and it really truly helps us all to be able to get through,” he said.

He said he will keep pushing for safety laws as long as he can.

“A couple of nights ago, my wife asked me, ‘How do I think this is all going to end?’ I just paused and said, ‘I hope this never ends,’” Childress said.

“This job of safety is never done. So my hope is that what we’ve started will continue not only with our group but with a larger group nationally over time,” he added.

Social media erupts over socialist’s 9/11 comments after House primary win: ‘Radical lunatic’

July 2, 2026 8:55am EDT / Fox News

Kiros argued US foreign policy made the 9/11 attacks ‘inevitable’ and declined to call a Boulder firebombing antisemitic

By Leo Briceno Fox News

The ‘Outnumbered’ panel, led by Kayleigh McEnany, raises alarms about the growing influence of socialist candidates like Melat Kiros, who won a Colorado primary. The discussion emphasizes former President Ronald Reagan’s historic warnings against socialism and communism, drawing parallels to current progressive political trends.

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In the wake of her primary victory on Tuesday evening in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, conservatives and social media users expressed alarm at Melat Kiros’s comments about the 9/11 terror attacks.

“This is light-years worse than AOC beating 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley,” Steve Guest, a GOP strategist, said in a post to X, referring to the rise of progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

“This is the Democrat party,” Guest added.

Kiros has suggested the U.S. invited the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 that left nearly 3,000 Americans dead. Those views, compounded with other statements that have seemed to rationalize acts of violence, have sparked backlash as she looks poised to capture a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and further cement the momentum of the far-left flank of the Democratic Party.

MUSLIM MAMDANI-BACKED SOCIALIST PRIMARY WINNER SUGGESTED AMERICA DESERVED 9/11 IN UNEARTHED VIDEO

Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros speaks to supporters at an election-night watch party after winning the Colorado primary on June 30, 2026, in Denver.(Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

When asked if the 9/11 attacks had been avoidable, Kiros said she believed the U.S. had made them “inevitable” through its foreign policy.

“Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East. That forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response,” Kiros said in an interview.

“SICK!” the Republican National Committee (RNC) wrote online, highlighting the comments.

Benny Johnson, a conservative media personality, pointed to Kiros’ win as evidence that the Democratic Party had conceded to candidates with extreme positions.

“She is a socialist who was born in Ethiopia. Melat also thinks America deserved 9/11. It isn’t just happening in New York; Democrats are losing their entire party,” Johnson said in a post, alluding to the victory of other socialist candidates with similar views.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., also echoed Johnson’s thinking.

“One radical lunatic after the next is coming to Washington. Why would we ever want to empower someone who believes 9/11 is America’s fault?”

MELAT KIROS BECOMES 28TH FAR-LEFT CANDIDATE TO WIN A DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY THIS YEAR AS SOCIALISTS AMASS POWER

Mamdani, AOC and socialism gain ground, while Schumer and Jeffries take a hit after NYC’s primaries.(Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images; Fox News Digital; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

On her website, Kiros shares platform items that are commonly held by many radical progressives: “Medicare-for-all,” ending “all wars,” abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and universal childcare.

“As someone who’s working as a barista to pay for school and health care, I know what it’s like to work so hard to get ahead while Washington is so far behind,” Kiros said in a campaign video.

But it’s her views on Israel and U.S. foreign relations that have set her apart from many other candidates, including her primary opponent, Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Kiros, a Ph.D. student and lawyer, was fired from a New York firm in 2023 after publishing an open letter, arguing that anti-Israel student protesters calling for the elimination of Israel were not antisemitic and appearing to defend Hamas.

She has also described the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against the Jewish state as the “inevitable consequence of apartheid” and declined to characterize the deadly firebombing of protesters in Boulder last year who were urging the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza as antisemitic.

“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” Kiros told Colorado’s 9News in a recent television interview. “All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed.”

Like other onlookers, Clay Travis, the conservative founder of OutKick, a sports and pop culture website, said he feared that Kiros’ victory would only lead to more far-left momentum elsewhere.

SOCIALISM GOES WEST AS DSA-BACKED CHALLENGER OUSTS LONGTIME DEMOCRAT

Melat Kiros participated in a League of Women Voters Congressional District 1 candidate forum at Montview Presbyterian Church on May 28, 2026, in Denver, Colorado.(RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

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“That’s four incumbents losing primaries to socialists in a week. Every state now has a Mamdani [and] the Democrat Party is on a rapid descent to Communism,” Travis wrote.

Kiros will face Republican Christy Peterson, a local accountant, in the state’s general election on Nov. 3.

Leo Briceno is a politics reporter for the congressional team at Fox News Digital. He was previously a reporter with World Magazine.

Remains of World War II pilot killed during spy mission identified 82 years after plane disappeared

July 2, 2026 / 11:16 AM EDT / CBS News

By Kerry Breen
Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.

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A 21-year-old airman who disappeared during a World War II spy mission over Thailand and Burma has been accounted for, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Franklin H. McKinney was a pilot from Rhode Island and part of the 35th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron, 14th Air Force, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The squadron was nicknamed the “Redhawks.”

On November 5, 1944, McKinney took off from a U.S. base in Yunnanyi, China to fly a reconnaissance mission over Burma and Thailand. The DPAA did not specify the goal of McKinney’s mission, but the squadron was known for daring spy missions that “helped turn the tide of the war in China,” according to the Air Force.

No contact was made with McKinney’s F5E-2-LO Lightning aircraft after it left the base, the DPAA said, and he never returned from the mission. No evidence of a crash was discovered among his route, and his remains could not be found immediately after the war. McKinney’s name was engraved on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Franklin H. McKinney. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

Decades later, new efforts to find his remains began. A wartime report from the Royal Thai Air Force Museum indicated that on the day McKinney disappeared, a plane was struck by lightning, according to the DPAA. The aircraft exploded and crashed in a wooded area in Thailand’s Lampang Province, according to the report. In 2018, third-party researchers found a crash site in a rice paddy in the region that they were able to associate with McKinney’s aircraft. DPAA teams investigated the site in 2019 and 2021.

A recovery team excavated the site and found possible human remains there in 2022. Those remains were transported to the DPAA laboratory, where “modern forensic techniques” were used to identify them as belonging to McKinney.

Now that McKinney has been accounted for, his family will receive a briefing from the DPAA. A rosette will be engraved next to his name on the Walls of the Missing. The DPAA will also arrange for him to be laid to rest with full military honors.

学者：小型疗养院资源有限 监管机构可给予业者更多灵活度

2026年7月2日 23:13 / 联合早报

本地约有10%疗养院的床位少过100个。保健卫生部强调，所有疗养院无论规模大小，都必须符合相同的监管要求。因临床与护理和感染预防与控制措施等方面出现严重系统疏漏，东海岸路上段一带的LC疗养院服务执照11月23日起吊销。 （谢智扬摄）

本地过去两周有两家疗养院因违规被撤销服务执照，引发公众对这类小型疗养院运营情况的关注。

保健卫生部星期四（7月2日）答复《联合早报》询问时透露，本地约有10%疗养院经营少过100个床位。发言人强调，所有疗养院无论规模大小，都必须符合相同的监管要求。为确保服务水平达标，当局会定期对疗养院进行稽查；如有需要，也会展开不定期稽查。

根据护联局（Agency for Integrated Care）官方网站上的资料，本地目前共有96家疗养院。

学者：任何机构出现问题 管理层都责无旁贷

接受《联合早报》访问的学者指出，任何机构出现问题，管理层都责无旁贷。不过，小型疗养院在资源上相对更受局限，为了更好地保障长期的运营，当局在政策监管上或可给予业者多点灵活度。

新加坡社科大学纳丹人力发展学院（老年学课程）副教授马学嘉受访时，对连续两起吊照事件感到惊讶。她指出，当局监管准则向来严格，但涉事疗养院仍出现多项疏漏，暴露出院方的内部通报系统急需检讨，管理层或未能及时察觉并纠正问题。

她说：“我们还不清楚到底发生什么，但疗养院长期面临人手问题，它不仅局限于护理人员的流动，也会出现管理层职员退休或离职等情况，影响管理运营的稳定和危机应变能力。”

温馨之家（Windsor Convalescent Home）和LC疗养院，是《医疗服务法令》自2020年生效以来，首两家被吊销服务执照的疗养院。该法令旨在保障病患安全和福祉，同时推动新颖医疗服务的发展。

由于涉及的疏漏和违规行为性质极其严重，健卫部将调查温馨之家疗养院和人员是否违反法令；若发现相关人员存在疏失或违反职业义务，将移交相关专业委员会进一步调查。

马学嘉认为，两家涉事疗养院暴露出问题之后，如今关键的是举一反三，不但要审视其他疗养院是否也面临相同困境，更需要政府与业者携手提升护理质量。

健卫部发言人受询时指出，当局通过护联局，为疗养院包括私人疗养院提供各种支援，协助业者提升护理水平。

这些支援包括人力及培训相关资助，以协助业者维持适当护理水平，并提升员工技能，确保符合护理标准。当局也会视情况，通过综合护理机构进一步加强对业界的支援。

马学嘉经常到访不同国家，了解当地的护老设施和服务。她分享海外考察经验说：“在中国，一些护老设施将院内服务与社区活动结合起来。例如，他们开放就餐区并收取费用来增加收入。”

她鼓励业者打破常规思维，探索自负盈亏的商业模式，但坦言这种模式或需要监管机构在政策法规上赋予一定的灵活度。

两起吊照事件中，来自健卫部控股旗下的先锋保健集团与护联局将通知所有受影响住户和他们的家人，并优先安排住户转移到其他疗养院。（谢智扬摄）

专家：健卫部或考虑引导业者 协助行业整合

公共卫生专家林方源副教授受访时则认为，小型疗养院某种程度上背负着一些历史使命 ，在当前环境下要维持长期运营的话，挑战只会越来越多。

“与其在遇到状况时才介入‘救场’，健卫部或许可以考虑提前规划，主动引导业者，协助整个行业实现平稳、有序的整合。”

林方源说，住户和家属最需要的是安稳，除了可靠的医疗护理，更要尽可能避免因临时通知搬迁而影响他们的生活。

在两起吊照事件中，健卫部已派遣旗下先锋保健集团（Vanguard Healthcare）提供临时护理团队。该集团与护联局将通知所有受影响住户和他们的家人，并优先安排住户转移到其他疗养院。

护联局星期三（1日）答复本报询问时说，受影响的疗养院住户，在新申请获津贴护理服务时，将根据他们的需求和经济状况，以及现有经济状况调查标准进行评估。

符合条件者，可获得必要的经济援助。护联局将为住户及家人提供指引和相关协助。

Mamdani gets roasted after telling sweltering New Yorkers to set ACs to 78 degrees: ‘Commie’

July 2, 2026 9:41am EDT / Fox News

Republican Gov Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Rep Brandon Gill were among those linking the AC advice to socialism

By Andrew Mark Miller, Kiera McDonald

Bill Maher calls Mamdani a ‘straight up communist,’ warns Dems will ‘lose more elections’ if they deny it

On Friday’s episode of “Real Time,” host Bill Maher called New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani a “straight up communist” and warned Democrats will “lose more elections” if they try to deny it.

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New York City’s socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani sparked viral outrage on Thursday when he responded to a heat wave affecting the city by instructing residents how to set their air conditioners.

The blowback came as New York City expanded emergency heat measures during a historic holiday weekend heat wave, with officials warning temperatures could feel as hot as 112 degrees.

“New York: it’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool,” Mamdani posted on X as the city dealt with sweltering temperatures.

“Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can. Our City is doing its part too: maintaining the 78 degrees rule in our buildings, dimming/turning off our lights during peak electricity demand, asking private partners to do the same, and powering down non-essential equipment. A stable grid means the AC stays on, and lives are saved. Let’s ease demand — and get through the heat — together.”

FAMOUS LANDMARKS SLASH VISITING HOURS AS DEADLY HEAT WAVE THREATENS TOURISTS

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani delivers a speech at Gracie Mansion to celebrate Juneteenth in New York on June 16, 2026.(Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Mamdani’s post quickly went viral and was seen over 36.5 million times as conservatives and pundits blasted the mayor over his instructions on what temperature to set their air conditioning units.

“Show us your thermostat, commie,” reality TV star and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt posted on X.

STEVE FORBES: MAMDANI’S SOCIALIST RENT-CONTROL PUTS NEW YORK ON THE ROAD TO HOUSING RUIN

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“78 degrees???” Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy posted on X. “Welcome to communism people! Hope you enjoy! “

“Welcome to socialism, where the government demands you turn your house into a sauna because they can’t plan for the super unpredictable fact that it tends to get hot in the summer,” Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, posted on X.

“78 degrees?” conservative commentator Matt Walsh posted on X. “My AC does not go above 68 in the summer. This is America for God’s sake.”

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was elected in November 2025 and sworn in on Jan. 1, 2026.(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

“Turns out socialism actually isn’t free,” Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted on X.

“Do you feel the warmth of collectivism yet?” Red State writer Bonchie posted on X.

Manhattan Institute fellow Daniel Di Martino responded to the post on X with a meme riffing on the 19th-century flag showing American defiance but swapping an AC unit for a cannon with the words “come and take it.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment.

While Mamdani faced accusations of being a communist on social media, his political power is on the rise in New York City, highlighted by last week’s primary elections where his slate of endorsed socialist-linked candidates were all victorious.

After those elections, former Vice President Kamala Harris reached out to Mamdani and the two connected by phone, Fox News Digital reported, sending a signal that Mamdani’s base will be critical in deciding who becomes the next Democratic presidential nominee in 2028.

Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.

America 500? 3 futurists predict what the U.S. will be like in the centuries ahead

July 2, 2026 / 11:24 AM EDT / CBS News

By Mark Osborne

Just four years after he signed the Declaration of Independence, but before the colonies would win the war that granted their freedom, Benjamin Franklin was already thinking about the future.

Franklin wrote a letter in 1780 to his close friend Joseph Priestley, the scientist who discovered oxygen, lamenting being born at the beginning of the scientific revolution. He dreamed not just of what the United States and the world would look like in 250 years but 1,000 years.

“The rapid Progress true Science now makes, occasions my Regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried in a 1000 Years the Power of Man over Matter,” Franklin wrote.

Maybe no man in the country’s 250 years was more of a multi-hyphenate than Franklin: politician, diplomat, inventor, journalist, postmaster-general and even the originator of the pros and cons list.

But his predictions of what could happen 1,000 years from when he jotted them down in a letter to a friend showed he was also something of a futurist — even if the term didn’t yet exist.

In the letter, he presaged maglev trains, writing, “We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity & give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport.” He also believed all diseases would be “prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age.”

That being said, artificial intelligence, genetically engineered humans and a battle for the control of space were not on his menu like they are now, 250 years into the country Franklin helped form.

Like Franklin over two centuries ago, CBS News spoke to three futurists about what they think the U.S. will look like in the centuries ahead.

But conversations about the future often also discuss the past. It was George Santayana, a teen living in Boston at the time of the American centennial, who later wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

With the U.S. in one of its most fractured time periods in recent memory, it might be easy to use the current climate to portend the future.

“When you live during a time, it makes you feel that this is an extraordinary event in the United States as a nation,” said George Friedman, the founder of Geopolitical Futures and author of “The Next 100 Years” and “The Storm Before the Calm.” “When you look back in history and take a look at the other times, this isn’t anything much worse than Richard Nixon. So yeah, we get strange presidents, but the idea that we are in a uniquely divided position at this point is false.”

Health

Franklin wrote about people living for 1,000 years — specifically, surpassing the ages of Biblical figures like Methuselah and Noah. While that hasn’t come to pass yet (to be fair, we still have 750 years left on Franklin’s timeline), advances in medical technology have come a long way since the 1770s.

The fast development of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020 is a prime example of that, said Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Strategy Group and author of “The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology.”

“The genetic sequence for the first COVID vaccine was designed on a computer in about two days,” she told CBS News via email. “This was just mindbogglingly incredible. We crossed a threshold – biology was something we had read-edit-write access to, and mRNA worked!”

Despite the promise of mRNA vaccines, they have come under the scrutiny of the current administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who canceled about $500 million in grants for research on mRNA vaccines in August 2025. Kennedy said the vaccines caused “more risk than benefits,” an argument not supported by the scientific community.

A vial of Comirnaty LP.8.1 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine sits on the counter of a pharmacy in Saint-Julien-l-Ars near Poitiers, in the Vienne department in west-central France, on Dec. 19, 2025. Jean-François FORT/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

Regardless, Webb called the promise of the developing blend of technology and healthcare “extraordinary.”

“Imagine a system that detects disease before symptoms appear, where your bathroom doubles as a diagnostic lab, and therapies are tailored to your genome rather than the statistical average,” she said.

Webb described the future of biology as “an engineering discipline.”

“We will grow materials, manufacture drugs, and produce food the way we now write software. Think: programmable, iterative, decentralized,” she said. “That moves whole swaths of business from extraction to cultivation, and it rewrites supply chains that have been stable since the industrial era.”

If you’re thinking this is starting to sound like the genetically engineered future from the 1997 sci-fi film “Gattaca,” you’re not far off.

“One of the things that I’ve been looking at for a long time, which is when the wall between biology and technology begins to fall,” said Brian David Johnson, an author and futurist professor at Arizona State University. “Sometimes we call it synthetic biology, some would call it gene engineering, but it’s that idea of being able to move back and forth between the digital realm and the physical realm with very little friction.”

“What does it mean to model life and then be able to build life?” Johnson asked. “What does it mean from a material standpoint to be able to do that? … I think those moments are things all of a sudden where it really changes how we think about human life and our daily life. And to me, that’s one of those big things and it is coming.”

Space

Founding father John Adams, hardly known for his boundless enthusiasm, famously wrote on the future of America in 1787, saying, “A prospect into futurity in America, is like contemplating the heavens through the telescopes of Herschell. Objects stupendous in their magnitudes and motions strike us from all quarters, and fill us with amazement!”

Adams used astronomer William Herschel’s groundbreaking telescopes, with which he discovered Uranus the same year the colonies won their independence (1781), as a metaphor for just how amazing the future of America could be. Even as an amateur astronomer himself, Adams probably didn’t know how much space would play a role in the country’s future.

The U.S. is currently in a new type of space race, even though it has been happening largely in the background — with thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.

“You look at 6G (mobile phone technology), you look at edge computing, you look at space-based communications as well,” Johnson said. “And we’re going through and building this out, we’re building a much more robust network.”

SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, carrying the Viasat 3-F3 satellite into geostationary transfer orbit, on April 29, 2026. Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images

SpaceX currently has more than 10,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, and launches more just about every week. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Leo operation plans to launch thousands in the coming years and fellow American companies like Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies are doing the same.

“As we start to see the privatization of space with the (low Earth orbit) satellites … that becomes a really really interesting little frontier of what does that mean when we’ve got this sort of 360 (degree) connectivity all around, right?” Johnson said.

It’s also changed warfare, Freidman said.

“The Ukraine war demonstrated that war is not fought as it was in World War II,” he said. “The fundamental basis of all warfare is intelligence, so satellites in low Earth orbit can identify targets, send data down to things like a weapon called (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) … and trigger an attack. So it used to be the question, ‘Who controlled the oceans?’ Now, it’s the question, ‘Who controls low-Earth orbit?’”

Artificial intelligence

Hardly a day goes by in 2026 when you don’t hear something about artificial intelligence and how it will transform the world. Whether that will be for the good or bad is still a hotly debated topic, but there’s no one left arguing it won’t overmake America in the next several centuries.

“What AI is pushing us to do is to fundamentally revalue how we think about human labor and how we value human labor,” Johnson, who previously worked as a futurist for IBM, said. “And I mean labor in the economic sense, but I also just mean who we are as humans and what we do.”

Johnson and Friedman both believe AI will fundamentally change American society. But they don’t believe it’s anything more than a familiar cycle.

“We’ve done it before. Assembly lines did that, the internet did that … and the impact is quite large,” Johnson said. “I’m an optimist, right? So I’m like, well, let’s value what it means to be human. … Because if the robots and AI can do it, well, let the robots and AI go do it. … Then you sort of reorient around how we value human beings.”

Apple iPhone screen with Artificial Intelligence icons ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, Claude, etc., in London, May 3, 2025. alexsl/Getty Images

It’s not so simple for Webb, who believes “this cycle doesn’t map cleanly onto the old ones.”

“The comforting story we tell ourselves is that humans always adapt, that every technological revolution looks scary at first and then we all come out better on the other side,” she said. “That’s a cherished belief, and it’s a dangerous one.”

In the year 2276

On the 500th anniversary of the United States, there will at least be a few items that look the same.

That’s because the U.S. government is burying a time capsule under Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia with items from all 50 states as well as Congress, the Supreme Court and sports leagues like the NFL, NBA and MLB. By order of Congress, it will not be reopened until 2276.

But, the challenge now is preparing for a long-term future in a rapidly changing society, Webb said.

“The core issue in 2026 is that how can a society plan for its next 50, 100, or 250 years when our current leaders plan only 18-24 months out? On a 50-year horizon, that means they are optimizing for a world that will no longer exist,” Webb said.

Friedman says America is in a period of reinventing government, “but our culture does it in ugly ways.”

“First, you bust it down, then you build it up, but that’s it. All layers of our culture, something we do, so when I look at that, I don’t see a crisis going on. I see the norm of the American system,” he said.

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