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Trump leaves China with breakthroughs — and unfinished business on Xi’s biggest fights

Jimmy Lai’s daughter said she remains ‘extremely confident’ Trump will secure her father’s freedom from China

2026-05-15 2:17pm EDT / Fox News

By Ashley J. DiMella

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6395633452112
‘Fox News Live’ panelists Lisa Daftari and Kiron Skinner discuss the historic meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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President Donald Trump returned from his high-stakes summit in China with President Xi Jinping touting trade progress and warmer ties, but several of the biggest pressure points in the U.S.-China relationship — from trade and Taiwan, to AI and human rights — appeared to end without firm public breakthroughs.

“We had a great stay. It was an amazing period of time. President Xi’s an incredible guy. We’ve made a lot of great trade deals,” Trump said Friday aboard Air Force One while returning to the White House.

The trip gave Trump several economic talking points, including potential Chinese purchases of Boeing aircraft, U.S. soybeans and American energy, but public readouts and Trump’s recent remarks show some major questions went unresolved.

WHAT XI WANTS FROM TRUMP AS BEIJING SEEKS LEVERAGE IN HIGH-STAKES SUMMIT

Trump said the summit produced “fantastic trade deals.”(Evan Vucci/Pool Reuters via AP)

Taiwan

During the summit, Xi warned that mishandling the Taiwan issue could lead to “clashes and even conflicts” between the two countries.

Trump said “he heard [Xi] out” on Taiwan, adding, “He does not want to see a fight for independence because that would be a very strong confrontation.”

There was no pledge from Beijing to reduce military pressure or any visible easing of the core Taiwan dispute.

TRUMP WARNS TAIWAN NOT TO EXPECT BLANK CHECK FROM US MILITARY AFTER INTENSE XI SUMMIT

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping after visiting the Zhongnanhai Garden in Beijing on May 15, 2026.(Evan Vucci/Pool Photo via AP)

Lawmakers have pressed Trump over Taiwan’s security and U.S. arms sales to the island, though Washington does not formally recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state and maintains a longstanding “One China” policy.

“We’ve had it for thousands of years. And then, at a certain period of time, they left that they were going to get it back. They had the Korean War. A lot of things happened and all this. But no, yeah — Taiwan, he feels very strongly. I made no commitment either way,” Trump said, referring to Xi’s view of Taiwan and Beijing’s historical claim to the island.

A White House official said Trump is expected to decide soon whether to move forward with a new Taiwan arms package, pointing to his December 2025 approval of $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan and arguing that his record remains consistent with decades of U.S. policy.

The official also noted that Trump approved more Taiwan arms sales during his first term than any previous president, and said his first-year total in the second term exceeded the full amount approved during former President Biden’s four years in office.

TRUMP SPEAKS WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI, WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL CONFIRMS

Human Rights

The cases of jailed Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai and detained house-church pastor Ezra Jin loomed over the summit, with Trump saying Xi is “giving very serious consideration” to releasing Pastor Jin, though Lai’s future may be less certain.

“That’s a tougher one. I did bring it up. It’s a tough one for him. It’s a tough one,” Trump said. “He said Jimmy Lai is a tough one for him to do. You know, he went through a lot — right and wrong, he went through a lot. So he told me that would be a tough one. He said he’s going to strongly consider the pastor.”

President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2026.(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Jin, also known as Ezra Jin Mingri, is a Chinese house church pastor whose family and advocates have urged Washington to press Beijing for his release. Lai is a British citizen, Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy activist who has been jailed under Hong Kong’s national security law.

The two are often linked in coverage focused on human rights, freedom of the press, and China’s crackdown on dissent.

Neither case appeared to produce a public release commitment before Trump departed Beijing.

Lai’s daughter, Claire, commended Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for their “continuous commitment to freeing my father and securing his freedom” during an appearance on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” Friday.

“Of course, the dream was that he would fly back with my father this time, but I am still extremely confident that he is the president and this is the administration that will secure my father’s freedom,” Lai said.

AI and Tech Race

China’s AI advances remain a major concern for U.S. policymakers and technology leaders as Washington weighs how to preserve its edge in advanced chips, computing power and export controls without accelerating Beijing’s push to build domestic alternatives.

DONALD TRUMP DETAILS ‘MOST EXCITING PART’ OF CHINA TRADE AGREEMENT

President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping greet children during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2026.(Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

Trump said on Air Force One that discussions about chips did not come up.

U.S. officials said China continues to weigh whether to buy advanced U.S. chips or accelerate domestic alternatives, while Trump said the two sides discussed the possibility of AI guardrails.

TRUMP REVERSES COURSE ON MIDDLE EAST TECH POLICY, BUT WILL IT BE ENOUGH TO COUNTER CHINA?

“As to whether the Chinese are going to buy [U.S. chips] or not, they’re making their own determinations,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Friday on Bloomberg TV.

“They’re very committed to domestic production. They often see U.S. high tech as a threat to them. If we’re ahead of the game on AI chips, sometimes they feel that can stop their own growth,” he added.

Trump said China may “want to try and develop their own” chips.

TRUMP ANNOUNCES CHINA WILL RESTART RARE EARTH MINERAL SHIPMENTS TO US AFTER PRODUCTIVE CALL

President Donald Trump meets with China’s President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2026.(Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

Trade and tariffs

At the final meeting between the two leaders, Trump touted what he called “fantastic trade deals” during the summit.

Trump said China agreed to purchase 200 Boeing planes and expressed interest in buying as many as 750 once the first deliveries are completed.

While few details have been released regarding the specific agreements reached, Trump also said agricultural deals were pledged while at the same time stating tariffs were not discussed.

“The farmers are going to be very happy. They’re going to be buying billions of dollars of soybeans,” Trump said.

The president added during a gaggle on Air Force One during his trip home that he and Xi did not discuss tariffs during the meetings, even though such duties have served as one of Trump’s central tools for pressuring Beijing on trade.

TRUMP PUSHES XI ON TRADE AFTER SUPREME COURT RULING DENTS KEY CHINA PRESSURE TOOL

“We didn’t discuss tariffs – I mean they’re paying tariffs. They’re paying substantial tariffs,” he said at one point.

The talks come as Trump’s tariff agenda faced a setback after a Supreme Court ruling limited his use of emergency powers to impose duties, which cut directly into one of his preferred tools for pressuring Beijing.

Trump also suggested an energy deal was close, saying China could begin buying oil from Texas, Louisiana and Alaska.

“They’re going to go to Texas. We’re going to start sending Chinese ships to Texas and to Louisiana and to Alaska. And I think that was another thing that was agreed to. That’s a big thing,” Trump said.

President Donald Trump stands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing on May 14, 2026.(Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

Iran was an area where Trump could point to a clearer diplomatic win, saying Xi told him China would not provide military equipment to Tehran and that both leaders agreed Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.

But broader concerns remain over Beijing’s economic support for Iran through oil purchases, dual-use exports and intermediary networks.

China remains a major buyer of Iranian crude despite U.S. sanctions.

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Trump said that Xi and his wife will visit the U.S. in September.

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

Trump’s soft touch on China, in stark relief

2026-05-15 2:35 PM ET / CNN

Analysis by

Aaron Blake

President Donald Trump has long tried to portray himself as something of a strongman on China, though his tough talk and trade wars are often undercut by his remarkably accommodating nature toward Xi Jinping.

And that softer approach was on full display during Trump’s Beijing visit this week.

Trump’s trip — and his comments at the tail end of it — include some notable rhetorical and actual concessions to the Chinese government. He also explicitly walked back previous campaign promises to get tough on China.

Taiwan was perhaps the most prominent issue. It’s a tricky topic for any president, given the very nuanced US policies toward its independence (the “one China” policy) and defending it from China (“strategic ambiguity”).

And for much of the trip, Trump avoided saying anything substantive about it. Remarkably, Fox News’ Sean Hannity didn’t even broach the subject in his interview with Trump that aired Thursday night.

Then Trump held a gaggle with reporters aboard Air Force One on the trip back home, where he said he and Xi did discuss a pending $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan, and that Trump would “make a determination over the next fairly short period.”

Even that noncommittal response is a pretty significant win for China, as CNN’s Jim Sciutto notes. The Trump administration has already sent $11 billion worth of arms to Taiwan. Trump also echoed Xi’s talking points about how Taiwan had been part of China for thousands of years. And even consulting China about the issue is remarkable; Ronald Reagan in 1982 declared that the United States would not seek China’s input on such arms sales.

“What am I going to do, say I don’t want to talk about it?” Trump said when asked about the 1982 document. “Because we have an agreement signed in 1982? No, we discussed arms sales.”

That wasn’t the only rhetorical concession China landed — despite Trump seemingly getting relatively little in the way of big deals, at least so far.

The US president also said he was considering lifting sanctions on Chinese companies that have been buying Iranian oil.

And he repeatedly declined to judge China for its espionage efforts. When pressed on Chinese cyberattacks, Trump downplayed it as a both-sides issue.

“You know, what they do, we do too,” Trump said on Air Force One. “We spy like hell on them too. I told him, ‘We do a lot of stuff to you that you don’t know about.’”

Trump had the same line when Hannity pressed him on China’s “nefarious” intent, saying, “Honestly, you know, they do things to us, and we do things to them.”

Finally, there are the major walkbacks on a pair of campaign promises: freeing Jimmy Lai and banning Chinese ownership of American farmland.

Trump in 2024 said that getting Lai, a former Hong Kong media tycoon who criticized the Chinese Community Party, released from prison was “going to be so easy.”

“I’ll get him out,” Trump added back then. “There’s no reason for him being there right now except that Xi doesn’t respect Biden and Kamala.”

But Trump sounded a very different note on Air Force One Friday, saying it would be easier to get a pastor released.

“It’s a tougher one, I’d say,” Trump said of Lai. “I did bring it up.”

And then there is the issue of China buying up American farmland. Both Democrats and Republicans support banning the practice, and the idea is particularly popular on the right. Late in the 2024 campaign, Trump pledged to ban it, saying politicians were “allowing our country to be sold out from under us.”

“Do you think China would let us go in and buy their land and do what they do? I don’t think so, OK?” Trump told Breitbart. “It won’t happen.”

The Trump administration has also said it would “aggressively” revoke Chinese student visas.

But Trump on Air Force One telegraphed a much softer line on both fronts.

On Chinese-owned farmland, the president said: “Look, it’s not that I love it. You want to see farm prices drop? You want to see farmers lose a lot of money? Just take that out of the market.”

And on visas, he called the students “good students.”

“‘I don’t want any students’ is a very insulting thing to say to a country,” Trump said, adding: “But if you want to see our university system die, take a half a million people out of it.”

Trump is not exactly a studied diplomat. He likes to keep his options open. And it’s always important to look at what he does, not just what he says.

It could just be that he doesn’t want to put a damper on the trip by immediately embracing positions that pit US interests against China’s.

But Trump has shown that he’s susceptible to a good charm offensive, particularly from powerful world leaders. And on his priority list with China, cutting deals seems to increasingly rank higher than combatting its influence.

(That was perhaps most evident when his administration effectively ignored the law to save TikTok, even though Trump had once labeled TikTok a grave national security threat.)

It’s worth watching just how much the US relationship with China might actually change after this trip. Even if Trump aspires to a better relationship, that could be a tough sell with members of his party.

But regardless, he pretty much put to rest any lingering illusions that he’s a true China hawk.

President Donald Trump speaks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping after a visit to Zhongnanhai Garden in Beijing, on Friday.

Evan Vucci/Pool/Getty Images

FAA cuts target for air traffic control staffing

2026-05-15T18:22:53.113Z / Reuters

By David Shepardson

May 15, 2026 6:22 PM UTC Updated 57 mins ago

The air traffic control tower at New York’s Laguardia Airport in the Queens borough of New York City, U.S., November 7, 2025. REUTERS/Ryan Murphy Purchase Licensing Rights

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it was sharply reducing its target for air traffic control staffing as ​it vowed to modernize scheduling and increase the time employees spend managing ‌traffic.

The FAA said its new target is 12,563 certified controllers, down from 14,633. A National Academies of Sciences report last year said overtime costs for air traffic controllers, have jumped by more than ​300% since 2013 to over $200 million, citing a misallocated workforce and inefficient ​scheduling.

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The report said the time controllers spend on position managing air ⁠traffic has declined despite a 4% increase in traffic. It added it could increase time ​on position from around four hours per shift to more than five hours.

The ​FAA said “deploying modern staffing models and scheduling tools will improve controller staffing efficiency and reduce the need for excessive overtime.”

The FAA said as of April, approximately 11,000 certified controllers are deployed ​across more than 300 FAA air traffic facilities, with an additional 4,000 controllers in ​the training pipeline, including 1,000 who were previously a fully certified controller but are now training ‌at ⁠new air traffic control facilities.

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The FAA said it “will modernize scheduling and workforce management systems to improve efficiency.”

The FAA air traffic control workforce in 2024 logged 2.2 million hours of overtime costing $200 million. Annual overtime is up 308% per air traffic ​controller, or 126 hours ​per year since ⁠2013, to 167 hours on average.

From 2013 to 2023, the FAA hired only two-thirds of the air traffic controllers called ​for by its staffing models as staffing fell by 13%, the ​report said, ⁠adding the agency has also been unable to implement a robust shift scheduling software package it acquired in 2012 that may be making the issue worse, the report said.

⁠Controllers ​in many locations must often work six-day work weeks ​and mandatory overtime. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in December the FAA lost 400-500 trainees that withdrew from ​training during a government shutdown last year.

Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

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Exclusive: Hackers have breached tank readers at US gas stations; officials suspect Iran is responsible

2026-05-15T18:40:20.584Z / CNN

By

Sean Lyngaas

Updated 14 min ago

Updated May 15, 2026, 3:15 PM ET

PUBLISHED May 15, 2026, 2:40 PM ET

The Middle East Digital security Oil & gas National security

A person fuels his vehicle at a gas station on April 6 in Miami.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

US officials suspect Iranian hackers are behind a series of breaches of systems that monitor the amount of fuel in storage tanks serving gas stations in multiple states, according to multiple sources briefed on the activity.

The hackers responsible have exploited automatic tank gauge (ATG) systems that were sitting online and unprotected by passwords, allowing them in some cases to tinker with display readings on the tanks but not the actual levels of fuel in them, the sources said.

The cyber intrusions are not known to have caused physical damage or harm, but the breaches have raised safety concerns because gaining access to an ATG could, in theory, allow a hacker to make a gas leak go undetected, according to private experts and US officials.

The sources briefed on the investigation said Iran’s history of targeting the gas tank systems is one reason the country is a top suspect. But, the sources cautioned, the US government may not be able to definitively determine who was responsible because of a lack of forensic evidence left by the hackers.

CNN has requested comment on the ATG hack from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The FBI declined to comment.

If Iran’s involvement is confirmed, it would be the latest case of Tehran threatening critical infrastructure in the US homeland, which remains out of reach of Iranian drones and missiles, amid the US and Israeli war with Iran.

It could also raise a politically sensitive issue for the Trump administration by drawing further attention to higher gas prices caused by the war. Seventy-five percent of US adults surveyed in a recent CNN poll said the Iran war had a negative effect on their finances.

The hacking campaign is also a warning to many US critical infrastructure operators who have struggled to secure their systems despite years of federal exhortations.

Iranian hacking groups have long looked for low-hanging fruit — critical US computer systems sitting online that interact with oil and gas sites and water systems, for example. After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, US officials blamed hackers affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for a series of attacks on US water utilities that displayed an anti-Israel message on equipment used to manage water pressure.

Cybersecurity researchers have been warning about internet-facing ATGs for over a decade. In 2015, security firm Trend Micro put mock ATG systems online to see what kind of hackers would target them. A pro-Iran group was quick to surface.

A 2021 report from Sky News cited internal documents from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that singled out ATGs as a potential target for a disruptive cyberattack on gas stations.

Iran’s cyber operations are ‘accelerating’

US intelligence agencies have long considered Iran’s cyber capabilities inferior to those of China or Russia. But a string of opportunistic hacks of key US assets during the war suggests Iran is a capable — and unpredictable — adversary.

Since the war began in late February, Tehran-linked hackers have caused disruptions at multiple US oil and gas and water sites, shipping delays at Stryker, a major US medical device maker, and have leaked the private emails of FBI Director Kash Patel.

Israeli organizations and citizens have also been heavily targeted by Tehran’s hackers during the latest war, while the US and Israeli military have used cyber operations to make their kinetic strikes more lethal.

Iran’s cyber activity during the war has shown “a significant increase in the scale, speed, and integration between cyber operations and psychological campaigns,” Yossi Karadi, head of the Israel’s cyber defense agency, the National Cyber Directorate, told CNN.

The Israel Defense Forces in March claimed to have struck a compound housing Iran’s “Cyber Warfare headquarters.” It’s unclear how many Iranian cyber operatives, if any, were killed in that strike.

Karadi would not comment on that matter, citing his agency’s mandate, which is limited to cyber defense.

“That said, from a defensive perspective, in recent month, we are seeing some degradation in parts of the hostile cyber activity,” he said. “The bottom line is that Iranian actors are under pressure and are trying to strike wherever they find an opening in cyberspace.

The last 18 months have shown that Iran’s cyber operations in general “are now accelerating with faster iteration, more layered hacktivist personas, and likely AI-driven scaling for reconnaissance and phishing,” said Allison Wikoff, a director on PwC’s threat intelligence team with over a decade of experience tracking Iran-based threats.

“What’s notably new in their cyber playbook is the swift creation of ‘good-enough’ malware, including the destructive wiping types, complemented by assertive hack-and-leak campaigns against media, dissidents, and key (US)civilian infrastructure,” Wikoff told CNN.

Part of that Iranian playbook is capitalizing on the wartime footing of an American media quick to pounce on claims made by all sides.

Hackers associated with Iran’s intelligence ministry and paramilitary arm maintain a number of “hacktivist” personas through which they use Telegram to exaggerate their exploits, publish stolen material and release promotional videos spliced to catchy music.

One of the groups, calling itself Handala after a Palestinian cartoon character, taunted Patel while claiming it had breached the FBI’s “impenetrable” computer systems. In reality, the hackers got into Patel’s years-old Gmail emails.

“The fact that every Handala claim leads to people freaking out demonstrates that the operational reality of the threat Iran poses is something that both government agencies and vendors don’t seem to be able to articulate,” said Alex Orleans, a cybersecurity researcher who has tracked Iran-linked hackers for years and leads threat intelligence at security firm Sublime Security.

Despite the string of hacks from Iran during the war, Orleans offered two reasons there haven’t been more.

“The first is that Iran appears to have lacked the lines of access to deliver sustained effects, or we likely would’ve seen more incidents like Stryker,” he told CNN. “The second is that the regime has clearly demonstrated its intention to endure, which further disincentivizes wanton cyber effects operations.”

‘Nobody’s paying a price for it’

For some current and former US officials, the aggressive and unpredictable nature of Iranian cyber operations take on added significance ahead of the midterm elections.

In the 2020 election, federal agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), blamed Iran for a scheme that impersonated the far-right Proud Boys to try to intimidate voters. During the 2024 US presidential election, Iranian hackers breached the Trump campaign and sent internal documents from it to news organizations.

Now, for the first election cycle in years, US military and intelligence officials have yet to activate a specialized team dedicated to detecting and thwarting foreign threats to elections — a move that one former Cyber Command official, Jason Kikta, deemed “strategic malpractice.”

“Between what we’ve watched Iran do in this war and what they ran in 2020, I’d be surprised if they sat the midterms out,” said Chris Krebs, who as CISA director in 2020 stood beside then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe as they warned the American public about Iranian and Russian influence operations.

“My bet is on information operations, not attacks on election systems,” Krebs told CNN. “That’s where the Russians and Chinese have gone, and for good reason. It’s cheap, it’s easy to scale with AI, and nobody’s paying a price for it.”

Unlikely bipartisan Senate duo seeks to permanently ban ex-lawmakers from lobbying

‘Our founders never intended public service to become a training ground for a lifetime of lobbying,’ Sen. Rick Scott noted

2026-05-15T15:05:00-04:00 / Fox News

By Alex Nitzberg Fox News

Published May 15, 2026 3:05pm EDT

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A bipartisan Senate duo are pushing a proposal to permanently prohibit former lawmakers and elected officers of Congress from lobbying.

Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have teamed up on a measure called the “Banning Lobbying And Safeguarding Trust Act,” or “BLAST Act.”

UNIVERSITIES FACE FUNDING THREAT AS LAWMAKERS TARGET SCHOOLS WITH TIES TO ADVERSARIAL NATIONS

Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, in the Senate Subway during a vote at the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Friday, March 14, 2025.(Allison Robbert/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“When politicians use their time in public office to cash in after they leave government, the American people lose. Trust in our institutions is at an all-time low, and the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street is a big part of that. We need to restore the American people’s trust in their government, and that’s why I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan bill to put government clearly back on the side of the people,” Scott said in a statement.

“Our founders never intended public service to become a training ground for a lifetime of lobbying. Senator Warren and I are working to end this practice once and for all,” he added.

ELIZABETH WARREN’S BEZOS MET GALA JAB BACKFIRES AS CRITICS MERCILESSLY DRAG ‘UN-AMERICAN’ LAWMAKER

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., walks to a closed door briefing with the Senate Armed Services committee at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 2, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The proposal for a permanent lobbying ban on lawmakers would go further than current law, according to Warren’s office.

“Under current law, former members of Congress are allowed to lobby their former colleagues in Congress after a ‘cooling off’ period — one year for former members of the House of Representatives and two years for former senators,” her office said.

WARREN PUSHED ‘FREE AND EASY’ IRS FILING SYSTEM, BUT DOCS REVEAL WHAT SHE USED INSTEAD

The U.S. Capitol Building at dusk during a candlelight vigil in honor of National Police Week, on May 12, 2026, in Washington, DC.(The U.S. Capitol Building at dusk during a candlelight vigil in honor of National Police Week, on May 12, 2026, in Washington, DC.)

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“It’s simple: Members of Congress should spend their time in Washington serving the American people, not preparing to cash in big time with a cushy lobbying career after they leave office,” Warren said in a statement. “It’s long past time to close the revolving door that’s corrupted our government and destroyed public trust in elected officials. This bipartisan bill is an important push to get that done.”

Alex Nitzberg is a writer for Fox News Digital.

Washington law enforcers to be boosted for America 250, DOJ announces

2026-05-15T17:36:06.335Z / Reuters

By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Andrew Goudsward

May 15, 2026 5:36 PM UTC Updated 2 hours ago

U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) Director Gadyaces Serralta speaks during a press conference on details of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force “summer surge”, ahead of America250 events, at the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 15, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Friday announced a planned “summer surge” of law enforcement into Washington, D.C., ahead of events surrounding the U.S. 250th anniversary celebration.

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• Federal government temporarily took over D.C. law enforcement last summer through presidential executive order
• Authorities request 1,500 more National Guard troops to bring total to 5,000, U.S. Marshals Director Gadyaces Serralta says.

Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Kevin Liffey

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‘Creeps need not apply’: How a team of bipartisan women plan to change Capitol Hill’s culture of harassment

2026-05-15 2:29 PM ET / CNN

By Lauren Fox, Ellis Kim

Republican Rep. Kat Cammack, left, and Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes

Getty Images/AP

When Rep. Emilia Sykes met with Democratic leaders about the pervasiveness of sexual harassment on Capitol Hill, she made one thing very clear to Hakeem Jeffries: this could not just be a women’s issue.

“This could all be eliminated and we wouldn’t even be here if these members were not abusing their power, and so we need to get to the root cause,” the Ohio Democrat said. “We cannot do this alone.”

Not even 10 years on from Congress’ last attempt to reform the process for reporting sexual harassment on Capitol Hill, leaders from the Republican and Democratic Women’s Caucuses have been tasked with overhauling the process again. Two of them — Sykes and Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack — sat down exclusively with CNN to detail their goals, provide insight into a forming strategy and even acknowledge the limitations of that work.

“We have seen where this is a bipartisan problem, which is why it is requiring a bipartisan solution. And if you are a creep on Capitol Hill, we’re here to say that creeps need not apply,” Cammack said.

The congresswoman promised that “we’ll see additional repercussions for members that have acted inappropriately,” but, she added, “we want to see this stop before it ever gets to that point.”

The plan, they say, is to work quickly, a challenge in a body that is only six months out from a contentious midterm election and already struggling to pass bipartisan legislation.

They are aiming to devise a series of reforms that could move more expeditiously through the House administration committee and pass as a resolution. They also are entertaining a wide variety of options that they hope can shape the culture that has made Capitol Hill such a breeding ground for harassment.

One idea being considered, Cammack said, is new disclosure requirements for members who have ever settled sexual harassment claims or had cases brought against them.

And while it is against House rules for a members of Congress to enter into relationships with their own staff, there is no such rule barring a member of Congress from having relationships with staff from other offices. The pair argued this can blur boundaries and is ripe for abuse.

“As a matter of judgment, it’s not a great idea,” Sykes said. “It just creates so many potential issues, and I can understand folks tend to meet their spouses and their partners in their workplace, but there has to be a level of judgment and thoughtfulness so you’re not putting yourself or someone else in harm’s way.”

Currently, staffers facing harassment and seeking help can turn to a long list of entities from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to the Office of Employee Advocacy to the House Ethics Committee. But the processes of each, the lawmakers argued, are ill-defined and often not well-publicized among the staffers who may need to access them.

When allegations reach the House and Senate Ethics Committees, the lawmakers pointed out, cases can languish for months and even years before any hope of resolution.

“Today if a woman was harassed or, God forbid, assaulted, if there was a situation, she wouldn’t really know where to go. The training is woefully inadequate, and she would wonder, ‘Who do I talk to, where do I go?’” Cammack said. “On top of that, there is this real fear, and it is a credible fear of retaliation. People work so very hard to get to Capitol Hill, they work endless hours and they feel like if they report that they will be retaliated against.”

Another area ripe for reform, they argue, is training, which they say is especially inadequate for lawmakers.

For Cammack and Sykes, who represent a younger generation of women on Capitol Hill, the issue is personal. Each said they have personally had to call out harassment.

“I think what you’ll find from Rep. Cammack and I is that we will call it out in the moment,” Sykes said. “But we are also members of Congress, and we have the confidence and the ability to do so. But that’s unique for us.”

“I can’t tell you how many times as a southerner I have had to bless someone’s heart,” Cammack said, noting that hill staffers can’t always do that.

“They are dealing with a real power dynamic imbalance,” she added.

The bipartisan task force, announced this week by Jeffries and House Speaker Mike Johnson, comes as Congress is still reeling after Reps. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, and Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, resigned under threat of expulsion amid sexual misconduct allegations.

Additionally, Reps. Cory Mills of Florida and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina are facing ethics investigation for allegations of misconduct. Both men deny they have done anything wrong.

“In the case of Representative Mills, being from my home state, I have … been open about how I feel that he has abused his authority, and so for me this is not a partisan issue. It is truly an issue of right or wrong,” Cammack said.

But Sykes and Cammack argue that while due process is important and ethics investigations can be a significant part of that process, there does come a point at which members need to call out one another.

“It’s really important for us to police ourselves,” Sykes said. “Where there is smoke there is usually fire and so that’s the responsibility of every member of Congress.”

CNN’s Emily Condon contributed to this report.

Pentagon rush to counter drone threat may be undermining safety standards, Army explosive safety specialist warns

2026-05-15T12:04:00-0400 / CBS News

Washington — As the U.S. military races to adapt low-cost, expendable drones for battlefield use, an Army explosive safety specialist warned that the Defense Department’s rush to innovate may be outpacing basic explosive safeguards, raising the risk of accidents.

The assessment was tucked inside a memo obtained by CBS News detailing how a mini-drone had detonated, causing injuries to an Army Special Forces soldier.

In a March memorandum, a civilian U.S. Army employee — with more than 20 years of experience in uniform and as a civilian employee evaluating and monitoring safety experience in the service — cautioned that while U.S. Army Special Forces units are adept at improvising solutions in the field, the broader drive to counter unmanned aerial threats has imposed pressures that could undermine long-established safety standards.

“We fully understand Special Forces’s ability to innovate and create tactical solutions to accomplish a mission set or task,” the memo states, but it goes on to say that the safety specialist believes that the Defense Department “is in such a rush to solve future and enduring threats related to unmanned aerial systems” that “basic explosive safety principles are being ignored,” and “will ultimately lead to a greater risk associated with mishaps or accidents.”

Drones have been used for decades by the U.S. military, particularly during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Russia-Ukraine conflict has dramatically expanded the battlefront for drone warfare, and what has emerged is the understanding that the U.S. military will need to find a way to quickly and cheaply scale up its production of lethal drones.

Late last year, the Pentagon requested information from the defense industry to gauge its “willingness and ability” to make roughly 300,000 drones, following President Trump’s executive order calling for more unmanned aircraft systems to be produced.

The March assessment was written by an explosive safety specialist with the command safety office at Fort Polk in Louisiana, where the Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center is located.

The memorandum was sent by the specialist to the director of safety at U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

The warning appeared in a letter detailing an incident in which a small explosive device attached to a drone detonated inside a building at the Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center.

Army Col. Allie Scott of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command told CBS News that the comments from the safety investigator in the memorandum appear to be his opinion and not based in fact.

Scott confirmed the authenticity of the memo and research of the safety report and said the soldier involved in the blast returned to duty shortly after sustaining the injuries from the blast.

CBS News reached out to the explosive safety specialist and the office he works for at Fort Polk but no reply was returned. CBS News also contacted the U.S. Army’s Combat Readiness Center at Fort Novosel, Alabama, which serves as the central authority for safety, risk management and accident prevention.

A spokesperson for the center told CBS News it did not receive a request to investigate the incident, explaining that for an incident to be investigated by Army center, it must “meet the threshold in regard to a dollar value of damages to equipment and/or a permanent injury or death.”

The blast occurred when a Special Forces soldier assigned to the Army’s 3rd Special Forces Group attempted to disconnect the device during troubleshooting, resulting in minor injuries, including lacerations to the arm and face and a concussion. Photographs included in the memo, taken inside a cluttered workspace, show a damaged drone and scattered equipment on a table, underscoring how close the incident came to causing more serious harm.

The investigator believes the detonation may have been triggered either by static electric charge or hazards of electromagnetic radiation to ordnance, possibly caused by an improperly secured relay switch that allowed current to pass through the drone’s carbon fiber frame.

The device involved, an XM183″MiniBlast” pyrotechnic cartridge, was made by Houston-based PR Tactical Corporation, which specializes in producing pyrotechnic explosives for U.S. military training exercises.

Contacted by CBS News, Fred Laughlin of PR Tactical Corporation said the company would not comment before seeing the full report.

The XM183 “MiniBlast” cartridge is designed to replicate the sights and sounds of combat on the modern battlefield. Used during unit exercise, the round is part of a broader system of battlefield effects simulators intended to immerse soldiers in realistic conditions without the use of live munitions.

The memorandum noted that the XM183 “MiniBlast” cartridge has been assessed as having a medium-level hazard risk because it can produce dangerous fragments or shrapnel and can accidentally ignite or detonate.

It also noted that the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command had not provided a “full material release” for the XM183 “MiniBlast.”

Under Army regulations, a “full material release” is the formal determination that a material is safe for use, capable of meeting its operational requirements and sustainable through the Army’s logistical system when it’s employed under approved conditions.

Murkowski vs Trump: Senator sides with Democrats on Iran after series of breaks with president

May 15, 2026 12:25pm EDT / Fox News

Former White House speechwriter and Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen discusses five Republican senators who voted with Democrats to limit President Donald Trump’s military authority in Venezuela on ‘America Reports.’

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The Senate was two votes away from taking a step toward handcuffing President Donald Trump’s war authorities in Iran this week.

It’s the closest Senate Democrats have come to trying to reassert Congress’ authority on the matter, and was nearly successful thanks to one Senate Republican known for an independent streak: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

That vote, in particular, came after Congress had sprinted past the 60-day deadline to either authorize or halt Trump’s war. Murkowski argued that she hoped the administration would give more clarity on next steps, but so far hadn’t received such information.

SENATE DEMOCRATS FINALLY CRACK GOP UNITY ON TRUMP’S IRAN WAR AS MURKOWSKI FLIPS

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted with Democrats to handcuff President Donald Trump’s war authorities in Iran. It’s not the first time she’s broken with the president.(Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“So I felt that it was now time to advance a discharge so that we can discuss our responsibilities through the War Powers Act,” Murkowski said. “So it’s — we’re in a different place than we were last time we voted on this.”

Many of her votes for or against any given piece of legislation are determined by a simple principle: how will this vote affect Alaska?

“Senator Murkowski approaches every decision thoughtfully, always asking what is best for Alaska,” Joseph Plesha, a spokesperson for Murkowski, told Fox News Digital. “When she believes a policy advances those priorities, she supports it, regardless of party or politics.”

That style of decision-making was on full display last year, when Murkowski cast the deciding vote for the president’s “big, beautiful bill,” his most significant legislative accomplishment of his second term to date.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, speaks during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on July 11, 2023, in Washington, D.C.(Jemal Countess/Getty Images for JDRF)

But at the time, Murkowski described the decision as “agonizing,” and one that she came to only after securing a spate of wins for Alaska.

“I had to look on balance, because the people in my state are the ones that I put first,” Murkowski said. “We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination. My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.”

Murkowski had hoped that the Senate and House would go into conference to iron out a better product, but that never came. After the upper chamber advanced the package, the House passed it several hours later to adhere to Trump’s July 4 deadline.

SENATE PASSES TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ AFTER MARATHON VOTE-A-RAMA

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Just a few weeks later, she bucked Trump and Republicans on a package designed to claw back billions in funding to public broadcasting and “woke” international aid programs.

Murkowski, an appropriator, argued that instead of legislating, “what we’re getting now is a direction from the White House and being told, ‘This is the priority we want you to execute on it. We’ll be back with you with another round.’”

“I don’t accept that,” she said at the time.

She also went against Trump’s actions in Venezuela earlier this year, joining Democrats on a successful procedural vote that was ultimately later struck down after a heavy lobbying campaign from the White House and top Trump officials flipped key votes against the war powers resolution.

Similar to her reasoning on the Iran war powers vote, Murkowski contended that while the administration argued that the Venezuelan government was complying after the capture of Nicolás Maduro, there had been “no meaningful end state” given by Trump officials.

REPUBLICANS FAIL TO ATTACH SAVE AMERICA ACT TO PARTY-LINE FUNDING PACKAGE

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, speaks to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 3, 2025.(Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)

And on the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, Murkowski once again went against the president.

She teed up her resistance to the voter ID and citizenship verification legislation early, weeks before Republicans launched a campaign on the Senate floor to debate the doomed bill.

Murkowski noted that when congressional Democrats “attempted to advance sweeping election reform legislation in 2021, Republicans were unanimous in opposition because it would have federalized elections, something we have long opposed.”

“Not only does the U.S. Constitution clearly provide states the authority to regulate the ‘times, places, and manner’ of holding federal elections, but one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C., seldom work in places like Alaska,” she said.

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Perhaps Murkowski’s biggest break from Trump came as he was exiting office shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on Capitol Hill.

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Murkowski was one of a handful of Republicans who voted to convict Trump.

“If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the Capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from holding office in the United States, I cannot imagine what is,” Murkowski said in a statement at the time.

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

CNN follows family of detainee who died while in ICE custody

2:21 PM EDT, Fri May 15, 2026 / CNN

By Audrey Ash and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

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The death of Jose Ramos is one of nearly 50 detainee deaths since President Donald Trump returned to office last year. A CNN investigation reviewed autopsies, court records, and interviews, identifying more than a dozen deaths that could be linked in part to substandard care and understaffing. CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez follows the family of one detainee who died after being detained at the Adelanto ICE Processing Facility in California.