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Violent scenes are emerging from France Tuesday as tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand education reform, forcing the reported closure of more than half of the country's high schools.

France's interior ministry said 6,100 people have been taken into custody since the protests began in September, while at least 715 police officers and 215 teenagers have been injured in clashes, according to Reuters.

Video taken in cities including Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg showed demonstrators facing off with police, lighting fires and dodging tear gas. In other areas such as Marseille and Nantes, protesters held up signs with messages like, "The state has killed national education," Reuters reported.

The Interior Ministry estimated that 86,000 people took part in demonstrations outside Paris on Tuesday morning. More were gathering in the capital for a protest scheduled for the afternoon.

"What’s happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration. This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country!" Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.

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Authorities began shutting schools last week to try to defuse tensions after widespread damage to schools and mounting injuries among staff, students and police. Classes were totally or partially suspended Tuesday at 891 schools, according to the Education Ministry. The High School Students Union also told Reuters that over half of France's high schools were closed or blockaded Tuesday.

Students have drawn attention to rundown classrooms that lack basics such as desks and chairs, become sweltering in summer without air conditioning and, in some cases, are infested with rats.

Other common complaints include staff shortages and exhausting workloads. French high school students’ compulsory classroom hours are among the highest in Europe.

"We want more money for the national educational system so that high schools are renovated," Roberta, a recent high school graduate in Paris, told Reuters.

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In one of the recent demonstrations on Monday, a 15-year-old had picked up a police dispersal grenade that detonated in the town of Lens, losing his hand and part of his lower arm, officials said.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has asked ministers in France to address student demands, including repairs to aging buildings, a call for longer lunch breaks and a review of the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. school day, according to Reuters.

Felix Barney, a university student, told The Associated Press that the police response was disproportionate.

"It doesn’t have any sense to hit minors," he said.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez on Tuesday defended policing methods used against high schoolers, saying the police response has been proportionate in "almost all cases."

Fox News Digital's Louis Casiano and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A legal battle between the family of an Oct. 7, 2023 attack victim and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has become a lightning rod for ongoing uncertainty about the agency’s future in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli civil rights attorney and president of the Shurat HaDin Law Center, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, told Fox News Digital that she filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Jerusalem on behalf of the family of 21-year-old Yonatan Samerano, who was murdered outside of Kibbutz Be’eri after fleeing the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. Samerano’s body was returned to his family after 625 days in captivity, during the final stage of hostage releases, Darshan-Leitner said.

According to Darshan-Leitner, after Samerano was shot to death by terrorists, his body was picked up by UNRWA workers, placed in an UNRWA vehicle and kidnapped to Gaza. "Although the kidnapping was by UNRWA’s workers, UNRWA never revealed the place of the body, never cooperated with Israeli authorities to tell them where Yonatan Samerano was held and never admitted that it was done by its workers. And therefore we decided to sue UNRWA on behalf of the family."

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The difficulty in bringing suit against UNRWA has been the diplomatic immunity the organization enjoys by virtue of the Charter of the United Nations and the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. Darshan-Leitner said that the charter "specifically prohibits any act of violence, let alone terrorism" and that because "UNRWA was aiding and abetting terror organizations and participating in acts of terrorism, they can no longer enjoy the immunity granted by the treaty."

The Israeli Knesset passed legislation in December stripping UNRWA of its diplomatic immunity, which allows the Israeli government to expropriate UNRWA properties within East Jerusalem.

Due to UNRWA’s loss of immunity, the Samerano family is pursuing punitive damages of NIS 24 million (nearly $8million) under Israel’s Compensation for Victims of Terrorism Law. When the deadline for UNRWA to file its defense in the case arrived last week, Darshan-Leitner said that the agency asked for a 45-day extension.

UNRWA did not respond to requests for comment about the status of its immunity, or its response to the litigation it faces on behalf of Samerano’s family.

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Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, told Fox News Digital that Guterres has consistently "stated that the Knesset Law and its amendments are inconsistent with the status and international legal framework applicable to UNRWA. The source of UNRWA’s immunities is vested in the Charter of the United Nations and the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, which remain applicable."

While Guterres "has been very clear that any UNRWA personnel who has been demonstrated to have participated in the terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7 must be held accountable," he added that "Whenever we have been given information by the Israeli government on such individuals, we have acted."

UNRWA’s role in the future of Gaza has been hotly contested in passing months. As the USAID Office of Inspector General and NGO Watch continue to turn up evidence of Hamas infiltration of UNRWA, Finland, Sweden and the U.S. have now fully stopped issuing funds to the organization.

The Board of Peace, charged with the reconstruction of Gaza, has stated that UNRWA will have no role in the future of the Strip.

However, the Associated Press reported on Sept. 25 that the Board of Peace members "have been more open to working with the U.N. agency for Palestine than it seems." Their article cited a Board of Peace official’s confirmation that "board members had met multiple times with UNRWA officials."

The Board of Peace shot back on X, saying that its "policy as it relates to UNRWA’s involvement in Gaza is unchanged. We will only work with trusted partners who will deliver for the people of Gaza and contribute to a deradicalized Strip. UNRWA fails on those litmus tests."

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A U.S. official told Fox News Digital that "The evidence continues to mount that UNRWA has become a vehicle for instability, violence and radicalization, and it has no place in Gaza’s future humanitarian operations. At the same time, we are confident there are many capable and dedicated service providers in Gaza today who, following robust vetting and background checks, will meet the high standards required to deliver critical goods and services to the Palestinian people. We expect many will welcome the opportunity to continue that important work in partnership with credible NGOs, other U.N. entities or alongside the [National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.] Following an orderly wind-down, UNRWA itself will neither be essential nor necessary to accomplishing the work that lies ahead in Gaza."

Guterres continues to stand behind the organization. In remarks he delivered at the Ministerial Meeting on UNRWA on Sept. 24, the U.N. leader stated that "UNRWA remains a critical stabilizing presence."

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"For years now, UNRWA has been forced to operate under extraordinary pressure. I have repeatedly condemned in the strongest terms the appalling attacks by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, UNRWA’s personnel in Gaza have endured terrible loss and hardship. Nearly 400 members of its workforce have been killed. Hundreds of its premises remain inaccessible, severely damaged, or utterly destroyed," Guterres said.

Guterres also said that "a ceaseless political campaign has tried to manipulate public perceptions, undermine UNRWA’s ability to operate, and deny the rights of Palestine refugees." He called on U.N. Member States to "take immediate action" to politically and financially support the organization and protect its mandate.

Darshan-Leitner said that allowing UNRWA to continue operations inside Gaza would be problematic. "UNRWA indoctrinated [Palestinian refugees] and let the terror organizations infiltrate their schools and education facilities." She added that UNRWA facilities "served Hamas as bases, as launchers, as missile storage places," which both "risk the life of the citizens in Gaza," and ensure that there will be collateral damage if Israel retaliates against attacks.

"If the Board of Peace wants to re-educate the people to get rid of the terrorist system, to separate between the terrorists and the citizens of Gaza, it cannot do it when UNRWA is around because UNRWA is embedded in Hamas…UNRWA is Hamas. So letting UNRWA take care of the humanitarian needs of the population in Gaza is a fatal mistake," Darshan-Leitner said.

Iran has promoted a new system encouraging citizens to report information about Iranians living abroad, effectively crowdsourcing surveillance of the diaspora through a website and messaging platforms including Telegram, according to Iranian media reports and an Iranian official source who confirmed the program to Fox News Digital.

The platform, known as Alaj — Persian for "remedy" or "cure" — asks users to provide information on people overseas whom it accuses of acting against Iran’s national interests or security. Iran International reported that tips could be submitted through the Alaj website, a Telegram bot and Iran’s Bale messaging service. The outlet reported that Iranian state television and the Revolutionary Guard-affiliated Fars News Agency also promoted the initiative.

An Iranian official source confirmed to Fox News Digital that Alaj and the Telegram chatbot were established as a new system through which certain individuals could report information about Iranians living abroad. The source said the website was subsequently taken down after the project drew significant criticism inside Iran.

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The website did go offline shortly after its public rollout, although the reason for its suspension remains disputed.

Iran International reported that Alaj claimed to have identified and monitored 1,600 people, including roughly 600 identified through reports submitted by members of the public. Those numbers have not been independently verified. The platform published names and photographs of Iranians abroad and, in some cases, national identification numbers, dates of birth and fathers’ names, according to the outlet.

For Iranian-American journalist and foreign policy analyst Lisa Daftari, the most consequential element is not simply that Tehran is collecting information, but that it is asking Iranians to report on one another.

"Even if it's just the perception that other Iranians can report you or can get you in trouble or that this app exists, it makes a lot of people fearful," Daftari told Fox News Digital. "You'll think twice before going to that next protest."

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Daftari said the fear is particularly acute for members of the Iranian diaspora who still have relatives inside the country.

"Now your face could be captured, you can get in trouble," she said. "If you have family in Iran, they can get into trouble."

Daftari described the approach as a digital extension of a much older system of control, arguing that Iran’s clerical establishment has spent decades creating uncertainty over whether neighbors, colleagues or acquaintances might report one another to authorities.

"Now the regime wants to take this show on the road and do that here, here in the West," Daftari said. "They want to intimidate people. And it works."

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Daftari said she has experienced that intimidation personally for years. "I've been followed, I've been hacked multiple times, I have been approached in person in L.A., in New York, even at the airport," she told Fox News Digital.

She said that after one major hacking incident compromised her social media accounts as well as her personal and professional email, she was contacted by her local FBI office and began working closely with agents.

Daftari said hackers also obtained private photographs of her in a bikini while she was on vacation and sent them to her husband. "The message they want to send is very clear, that we know where you are, we can reach you," she said. "And obviously the point is to intimidate and silence those who speak out, who report, who speak the truth and talk about all the crimes of this regime."

She said the effects extend beyond prominent journalists or activists. Years ago, while filming at a Los Angeles cafe where Iranian Americans were watching a World Cup game, Daftari said she saw people attempting to hide their faces from the camera out of fear that footage could reach Iran and expose relatives there to retaliation.

The calculation, she said, illustrates why a system such as Alaj can have an impact even if a target never knows whether information about them has actually been submitted.

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The threat has also changed Daftari’s own behavior.

She recalled being unable to stop thinking about security when the location of her father’s memorial service had to be announced publicly after his death. Daftari said she routinely considers where she parks, what details she shares online and security vulnerabilities at places she visits. "It does silence a lot of people and it does change the freedom by which we think we can operate here in the United States where we believe we have full freedom," Daftari said.

"Their intimidation works," she added. "It works to a certain extent on each individual."

Daftari said the broader campaign should also shape how Americans understand the confrontation with Tehran, arguing that the threat extends beyond Iran’s nuclear program.

"It's not just about nuclear weapons, it's about a deadly ideology that has made its way here to U.S. soil," she said. "We have to understand that."

Fears of a pneumonic plague outbreak following the death of a Siberian plague research institute employee don't bode well for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is facing a faltering economy and a stalled war in Ukraine that has claimed estimated hundreds of thousands of Russian lives, experts say.

Putin has for years maintained a tight grip on power, and while a single lab death isn't an immediate regime-killer, suppressed biological incidents—much like the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster or the Soviet-Afghan War—add to the compounding list of systemic failures in Moscow, retired CIA officer Dan Hoffman told Fox News Digital.

"The longer-term strategic question is, does this have an impact on Vladimir Putin and his hold on the Kremlin until his own people realize: 'This just isn't right for us. We don't like this. We don't like the war in Ukraine. This is just another thing,'" Hoffman told Fox News Digital.

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"The reason why the Soviet Union collapsed wasn't because of Chernobyl, but that was a part of it," he added. "It was it a failed economy? Well, they kind of got that going too. The failed war in Afghanistan? Well, that war in Ukraine doesn't look too good. So all these things just pile up on Putin."

The researcher who died has been identified as 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, who worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East.

There was no evidence that her illness was caused by pathogens linked to her work, Russian health authorities said. Shipilova died after being diagnosed with a pneumonia of "unknown" origin, authorities have said.

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On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States was "watching and monitoring" the situation closely.

Anna Popova, the head of Russia's Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare, or the Rospotrebnadzor, which handles infectious disease, arrived at the research lab.

"No micro-organisms associated with the employee’s professional duties were detected in samples taken from the patient," the agency said.

Even if Shipilova's death is an isolated incident, Russia's history of hiding information related to sensitive matters could leave many outside observers with doubts, Hoffman said.

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"Putin, you know, is a dictator and he's got pretty strict control over information, so they're obviously not going to release any truth to the public, and that means we have to rely on intelligence to understand what's going on behind the scenes," he said.

The Soviet Union tightly controlled news of its invasion of Afghanistan amid global condemnation and enforced a total media blackout when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded on April 26, 1986, suppressing information both domestically and internationally.

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"Whatever Russia is saying publicly, that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground," said Hoffman. "What that is, is an influence operation for their own people."

Hoffman noted that China, one of Moscow's closest allies, also controls what information is disseminated to the outside world.

"China does the same thing. How much useful information did we get out of them with COVID?" Hoffman said. "That's the way dictatorships work."

A teenager had his hand blown off as high school protesters clashed with French police during chaotic riots, as students across the country continue to protest poor conditions and teacher shortages.

The 15-year-old had picked up a police dispersal grenade that detonated in the town of Lens as the wave of school protests entered its third week, losing his hand and part of his lower arm, officials said Monday, Reuters reported.

François-Xavier Lauch, prefect of Pas-de-Calais, said roughly 200 to 250 protesters had been hurling objects at police.

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Education Minister Edouard Geffray said the wave of protests had been declining in recent days and that the government would launch a platform for students to express their dissatisfaction.

The incident involving the teen happened on the eve of a national demonstration by the pupils' union against underfunding, overcrowding, and dilapidation.

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The protests come months ahead of an election to replace outgoing President Emmanuel Macron. The demonstrations began in Paris, mostly focusing on poor suburbs, before spreading nationwide.

Government officials said the protests have evolved into violence, including some schools being ransacked.

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"We’re going to keep blocking until the government hears us," Sami Karen, 18, told Reuters while demonstrating outside Charles de Foucauld high school in Paris. "As long as they don’t listen to us, we won’t stop this fight."

In total, more than 5,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, with 87% of them being minors. More than 1,800 people are facing prosecution, including 1,483 minors, France's Justice Ministry said.

The specific charges were not disclosed.

Russian authorities have quarantined a hospital and placed scores of people under medical observation after a 28-year-old employee at a Siberian plague research institute died from a mysterious case of pneumonia, fueling fears — still unconfirmed — that she may have contracted pneumonic plague.

Darya Shipilova worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Russian health authorities say extensive testing found no evidence that her illness was caused by pathogens linked to her work, but officials have yet to publicly identify what killed her.

The extraordinary precautions surrounding the case have fueled speculation inside and outside Russia. Reuters reported Oct. 5 that all known contacts had been traced and placed under medical supervision and that authorities said no new cases had been identified among employees of the institute.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the U.S. was "watching and monitoring it closely," adding, "I don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an eye on it."

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Rubio said information released by Russia appeared to show "there was a worker at the lab that was infected" and concern that the illness could have spread internally. He noted that travel between Russia and the U.S. is limited but warned that "something like that gets out, it just quickly spreads."

The comments follow a State Department statement to Fox News on Oct. 4 that Washington was monitoring the case alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies. The official stressed that many details remained unconfirmed and urged Moscow to provide accurate information quickly.

Additional reporting provided Monday by East2West news agency said more than 60 employees remained confined inside the Irkutsk institute and nearly 200 people who had contact with Shipilova had been placed under observation. Those precise figures have not been officially confirmed. The agency also reported that neighboring countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, had increased border health precautions following the case.

The hospital in Shelekhov, just outside Irkutsk, where Shipilova was treated, has been placed under quarantine and temporarily stopped admitting or discharging patients, according to The Associated Press. Irkutsk Gov. Igor Kobzev described the case as a suspected "particularly dangerous infection."

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Adding to the unusual response, Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, flew to Irkutsk for an emergency meeting after Shipilova’s death, Reuters reported. A nearby aluminum plant also ordered employees to wear masks as a precaution.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the public to rely on official information rather than "rumors or speculation."

Rospotrebnadzor said Sunday that Shipilova was diagnosed with "pneumonia of unknown etiology" and that testing detected "no microorganisms associated with the patient’s professional activities." The agency also said an investigation found no laboratory incident involving pathogenic microorganisms.

Pneumonic plague is a severe form of plague caused by Yersinia pestis that can spread from person to person through respiratory droplets during close contact. It can be successfully treated with antibiotics when treatment begins early.

Russian officials continue to insist there is no evidence of a plague outbreak and say the epidemiological situation remains stable. For now, however, the central question remains unanswered: what caused Shipilova’s fatal pneumonia — and why authorities imposed such extensive containment measures if no dangerous pathogen has been detected.

As Israel marks three years since the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks, stories of bravery and self-sacrifice continue to emerge from within a nation grappling with recovery and rehabilitation.

For Nil Kirsht-Levi, the three years since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre have been defined by devastating personal loss, an agonizing wait for her sister who was taken hostage and brought to Gaza and an unwavering commitment to caring for fellow survivors of the cross-border terror attack.

Kirsht-Levi, a nurse with Israel's largest healthcare provider, Clalit Southern District, who lives in Kibbutz Magen, spent the morning of Oct. 7 treating patients remotely from her safe room while trying to protect her three children as terrorists invaded the community and went from house to house. At the same time, she desperately texted her sister, Rimon Buchshtab-Kirsht, who lived with her husband in nearby Kibbutz Nirim.

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"I lost more than 30 patients that day, more than 200 people I knew, and around 100 people I knew were kidnapped," Kirsht-Levi told Fox News Digital. "I’m lucky to have a job that saves me, healthy children, a healthy husband. We work every day to recover and rehabilitate ourselves. Every day, we fall and get back up, but we are here — for ourselves, for others and we have won," she continued.

"We should never forget, but we must move forward, live every moment and keep going. It’s a privilege to be alive," she added.

On Oct. 7, Kirsht-Levi’s sister sent a message saying she could hear Arabic and that terrorists had entered her home. Weeks of agonizing uncertainty followed before Kirsht-Levi saw her sister alive in a Hamas video. She had campaigned for her release and ultimately welcomed her home 53 days later, emaciated and covered in scars, as part of a ceasefire deal in November 2023.

Her sister's husband, her brother-in-law, Yagev Buchshtab however, had been murdered by the terrorists.

During the 2023 Palestinian terror assault, launched on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, Michaela Koretsky, a midwife with Clalit’s Southern District, improvised lifesaving treatments for wounded members of Kibbutz Alumim.

Like so many others, Koretsky was jolted awake by air raid sirens at 6:29 a.m. that fateful day, as Hamas launched thousands of rockets at Israel, providing cover for terrorists as they crossed the border in the ensuing invasion. She rushed with her husband and children to the shelter, where she received a message from Eran, a member of the kibbutz’s civil defense squad, asking if she was home. Eran then began bringing wounded kibbutz members to her for first aid.

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"When they entered the house carrying Amichai, he was covered in blood… I switched into nurse mode," she said.

Koretsky had Amichai placed on the floor as they continued to hear gunfire outside the kitchen window. She improvised bandages and prepared an IV while staying in contact with an emergency room doctor from Soroka Medical Center who was also in the kibbutz. He confirmed that Amichai was stable.

Then Eyal was brought in. He had been shot, with one of the bullets lodged in his lung. After Koretsky placed him on an IV and administered additional oxygen, it became clear that he needed to be evacuated.

"We needed to save lives, so I switched my brain into action mode and did what needed to be done. The whole time I did not think that the terrorists would enter my house. I knew one of my children was afraid they would figure out where the wounded were being taken and come after us, but I told myself, ‘I am protected. It will not happen,’" she told Fox News Digital.

Her husband, Tzviki, accompanied by members of the kibbutz’s civil defense squad, reached his car and alone he evacuated the wounded under fire to Netivot, where they were transferred to waiting ambulances. From there, both Amichai and Eyal were taken to Soroka Medical Center for further treatment.

Prof. Shlomi Codish, director of the hospital in Beersheba, said he made three lifesaving decisions early on Oct. 7 that shaped the response throughout the day.

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First, he and his team decided not to send the night shift home, allowing the hospital to begin the day with twice its normal staffing level. At 7:45 a.m., they declared a mass-casualty incident, despite not yet knowing how many wounded would arrive and alerted all available staff to report to the hospital. Finally, they ordered additional blood supplies in anticipation of the surge of casualties.

"We usually start the shift with 50 units of blood in our blood bank. By the end of the day, we had given 250 units. If we hadn’t ordered additional blood early that morning, we might have run out and people may have died," Codish told Fox News Digital.

Codish said the hospital faced several overwhelming challenges throughout the day, beginning with the sheer number of wounded being brought to the hospital.

"In the first 24 hours, we received 674 wounded people. At the peak, we received more than 80 in a single hour, with an average of just 40 seconds between wounded people arriving," he said.

"This was one of the largest mass-casualty events resulting from terror in human history. The hospital itself was also under fire, with dozens of incoming missile warnings from the Gaza Strip, while attacks were taking place simultaneously at a very large number of sites," he added.

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The second challenge was the immediate impact of the invasion on hospital staff themselves. "Everyone who came in left a family at home that was potentially under attack. They got into their cars and drove through air-raid sirens in areas that weren’t protected, at significant personal risk, to come in and save lives," he said.

Another major challenge was maintaining care inside the hospital as the number of casualties surged. The hospital began the day at full capacity, forcing staff to quickly free up intensive care beds and operating rooms for incoming patients. With roads around the hospital unsafe, transferring patients to other facilities was not an option in the first hours of the attack, while sending ambulances into the field risked exposing them to Hamas ambushes.

"When you see babies or children with direct injuries, that is not something you typically see on a battlefield. We saw elderly people with severe wounds inflicted directly, with no protection," Codish said, reflecting on the brutality he witnessed that day.

"As a medical professional, what we saw was beyond words. Two babies suffering from dehydration after their parents were killed, simply waiting to be rescued — I defy anyone to find a word other than ‘evil’ to describe it," he added.

The FlyDubai co-pilot accused of attacking his captain in an attempted terrorist act aboard an Israel-bound passenger jet allegedly planned to crash the aircraft into Ben Gurion Airport, according to new reports on the investigation.

Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported that Hamam al-Hammami told investigators he intended to continue FlyDubai Flight FZ1073 toward Israel as though nothing was wrong, obtain the necessary clearances to approach Ben Gurion Airport and then crash the aircraft into a building or another plane at the airport.

The information reportedly came from investigations by Saudi and Emirati authorities into the incident. Israeli investigators have not questioned al-Hammami directly, according to reporting from Channel 12 and Ynet.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the UAE Public Prosecution and FlyDubai seeking confirmation of the reported findings.

Reuters separately reported Monday that a source briefed on the UAE investigation said the Omani co-pilot had planned to crash the flight into Ben Gurion Airport. Two Israeli officials with knowledge of the investigation also told Reuters that al-Hammami said during questioning that he had planned the attack before he was hired by FlyDubai.

The latest details follow last week's dramatic incident aboard Flight FZ1073, which was traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv when the co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain inside the cockpit.

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UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said investigators determined that the co-pilot attempted to carry out a terrorist act by attacking the captain with a crash axe and attempting to take control of the aircraft.

Passengers and others aboard the flight ultimately intervened, and the aircraft was diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, where it landed safely.

Al Shamsi has said the UAE investigation remains underway to determine the full circumstances and motives behind the attack, as well as any potential links to others.

The UAE Public Prosecution has said the final results of the investigation will be announced after the necessary investigative procedures are completed.

Coast Guard personnel exchanged gunfire with people on the Mexican side of the border, an encounter the U.S. military later cited as an example of increased illegal activity as hundreds of U.S. troops and their equipment were repositioned to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and 500 Mexican Army and National Guard personnel were deployed to its side of the border.

Coast Guard personnel were intercepting migrants crossing the Rio Grande River while working with other federal agencies when the initial gunshots came from the Mexican side of the border. Coast Guard personnel then returned fire, officials said on Friday, according to Stars and Stripes.

The exchange happened on Sept. 26 while federal agencies conducted joint operations near Garceno, a small town along the border in Starr County, Texas.

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The Coast Guard said it was investigating the incident alongside federal partners. It is unclear who fired the initial shots.

"No injuries to Coast Guard or other personnel were reported, and no damage to Coast Guard assets or equipment was reported," the Coast Guard said.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said the embassy "is helping to coordinate with Mexican forces that are being deployed in the border area where shots were fired against elements of the United States Coast Guard."

"Mexican military commanders will communicate directly with the U.S. forces deployed. Together, we intend to patrol both sides of our shared border, protect our communities, and disrupt the operations of criminal and terrorist organizations. Any threat from criminal or terrorist elements on either side of the border will be addressed swiftly," he added.

The Coast Guard launched Operation River Wall in October 2025, deploying additional personnel, boats and other assets to patrol the river between the U.S. and Mexico. The Coast Guard said its forces would focus on approximately 260 miles of the Rio Grande along the U.S.-Mexico border.

It was working closely with Border Patrol, the Pentagon and the Texas Military Department "to secure the border, disrupt illicit activity and protect the American people," the Coast Guard said, according to Stars and Stripes.

"We will continue to leverage a layered, integrated approach to control, secure and defend the border that strengthens our collective ability to counter illicit activity and safeguard our personnel and the communities we serve," the Coast Guard said.

TRUMP ADMIN'S LIST OF US-DESIGNATED 'FOREIGN TERRORIST' GROUPS IN LATIN AMERICA EXPANDS TO 21

The U.S. military said on Friday it had deployed hundreds of troops and their equipment to the Rio Grande Valley as part of planned preparations to address "historically observed seasonal increases in attempted illegal activity."

"The Sept. 26 Coast Guard encounter is an example of this uptick in illegal activity," the Joint Task Force-Southern Border said in a statement.

The U.S. military on Sunday announced a lethal strike on another vessel in the Caribbean carrying alleged narco-traffickers, killing four people on board.

The U.S. Southern Command said the vessel was traveling along "established narco-trafficking routes" in the Caribbean. The military shared a video that showed what appeared to be an explosion destroying a moving boat it described as a go-fast vessel.

"Under the direction of U.S. Southern Command, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean," the military said in a statement.

US FORCES OBLITERATE SUSPECTED 'NARCO-TERRORIST' VESSEL IN LETHAL EASTERN PACIFIC STRIKE, KILLING 3

Southern Command claimed that intelligence revealed the vessel's "active involvement in narco-trafficking." The military did not provide evidence to back up this allegation.

"The operation killed four narco-terrorists," the statement added.

This is the latest attack that the Trump administration has argued was launched in an attempt to eliminate alleged narco-terrorists, with the death toll in these strikes carried out since September 2025 sitting at more than 235.

The Pentagon has refused to release the identities of those killed in the strikes since last year. It has also refused to provide evidence of drugs on board.

The administration has been scrutinized in the past year by Democrats and even some Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has raised concerns about killing people without due process and the possibility of killing innocent people.

The attacks have also been denounced by human rights groups as "extrajudicial killings."

US KILLS 4 ALLEGED DRUG SMUGGLERS ON BOAT IN CARIBBEAN, BRINGING TOTAL TO 227 IN 68 STRIKES

The administration is pursuing deals with allied nations to extend its military attacks to land in multiple Latin American countries. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said during a visit to Panama in August that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to allow the U.S. to carry out joint military operations against criminal groups on their soil, although Guatemala denied reaching a deal.

Ecuador launched similar operations with the U.S. in March.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, won the first round of the Brazilian presidential election tonight, turning in a surprisingly strong showing, and continuing a long run of wins for Latin American Trump-backed right-wing candidates.

Although the race had tightened considerably in the weeks leading up to the election, the vast majority of the polls showed incumbent President Inacio Lula da Silva with a single digit lead.

Bolsonaro will now face off against President Lula da Silva in an October 25 second round election. With 99% of the votes in, Bolsonaro led Lula 47.2% to 44.9%, in a race Lula had widely been expected to win.

LATIN AMERICA’S CONSERVATIVE SHIFT FACES ITS BIGGEST TEST YET IN BRAZIL ELECTION

Tonight, the question on everyone's mind: how could the pollsters get the results so wrong?

The epic polling failure will serve to give further ammunition to the Brazilian right and the Bolsonaro camp, which have long alleged that the nation's leading pollsters turn in work biased in favor of Lula and his Workers Party.

The polling situation was similarly unfavorable to Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 and 2018 elections, but relatively minor in comparison with the disparity in tonight's electoral results.

Bolsonaro put in an incredibly strong showing in his electoral strongholds in the south of Brazil, winning the country's three largest states by large margins: 

In Sao Paulo state, the nation's largest, Bolsonaro led Lula 52% to 38%.

In Minas Gerais, which is Brazil's historic "bellwether state", Bolsonaro led Lula 48% to 43%, while in his stronghold of Rio de Janeiro, he bested the incumbent president 53% to 39%.

BRAZIL'S LULA INAUGURATED AS NEW PRESIDENT AFTER BOLSONARO REPORTEDLY FLED TO FLORIDA HOME OF MMA FIGHTER

Lula racked up large margins in his traditional strongholds in the Northeast, where he won vote-rich Bahia, Pernambuco, and Ceara by large margins, but it was not enough to surmount Bolsonaro's unprecedented electoral strength in Brazil's south.

Bolsonaro enjoyed a close relationship with Donald Trump through the course of the campaign, who made no secret of his intent to unceremoniously eject longtime geopolitical adversary Lula from office.

Tonight's surprising result is merely the latest in a long string of right-wing victories across Latin America, which has recently ushered in a red wave of conservative candidates in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

The election will undoubtedly prompt a period of soul-searching for the Brazilian left, which may be asking, "Should Lula have run at all?"

At 80 years old, with three presidential terms under his belt, and aspiring to a fourth, Lula was widely viewed as the only contender who could unite the contentious and often-fractured Brazilian left.

Lula's political story marks one of the greatest comebacks in history. Once imprisoned on corruption charges, Lula was freed by the nation's Supreme Court, and then defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a heated 2022 election by a razor-thin margin.

Famously, he pledged to serve only one term as president in 2022, and then reneged on that promise. Now, the move seems likely to backfire on him, in what will almost certainly be his last electoral campaign.

Flavio Bolsonaro will now face off against incumbent Lula in a second round election on October 25. Bolsonaro begins the race with several structural advantages.

In addition to vastly outperforming across the country, and proving the pollsters wrong, he is likely to win the vast majority of the votes of the major third-party candidates: Augusto Cury, Renan Santos, Ronaldo Caiado, and Romeu Zema.

Together, these four candidates received nearly 8% of the vote. What remains to be seen is whether any of these candidates will make an endorsement. It is suspected that Caiado and Zema will back Bolsonaro, while Cury and Santos will likely not make an endorsement.

If elected, Flavio Bolsonaro is all but certain to free his father, and senior Brazilian military officers, who are currently jailed on charges of planning a coup to remain in power following the 2022 election.

The election also saw other members of the Bolsonaro family ushered into higher office: Jair Bolsonaro's wife, Michelly, was elected senator, as was his son Carlos, while another son, Renan, was elected federal deputy.

Bolsonaro's Liberal Party also turned in strong results in races for both chambers of Brazil's Congress, particularly in the Senate, where they are expected to hold 29 seats, compared to just 9 for Lula's Workers Party.

The State Department is monitoring reports of a suspected fatal pneumonic plague case in Russia and is urging Moscow to share accurate information quickly as details remain unconfirmed.

A State Department official told Fox News that the U.S. is aware of reports of a death in Irkutsk Oblast, a region in southeastern Siberia, and is watching the situation closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies. The official stressed that many details have not been confirmed and called on Russian authorities to reveal what they know.

Former CIA officer Dan Hoffman told Fox News Digital that the U.S. intelligence community is likely to be collecting all-source intelligence on the incident.

SCIENTISTS CRACK THE CODE ON NEW VACCINE FOR DEADLY PLAGUE BACTERIA

"I would also expect our embassy in Moscow to be engaging with their diplomatic counterparts at an official level because we might have people in Russia who might be at risk," Hoffman warned.

"Washington will be speaking to all of our allies and partners in the region and sharing what we know."

DEADLY BACTERIA THAT DOOMED NAPOLEON'S ARMY DISCOVERED 213 YEARS AFTER RUSSIAN RETREAT

Pneumonic plague can be treated with common antibiotics, especially when treatment begins early, the official said. Appropriate therapy should begin as soon as plague is suspected, and patients can be treated with intravenous or oral antimicrobials depending on the severity of illness and other factors, according to the CDC.

Cases of pneumonic plague occur naturally in many parts of the world, according to the State Department official.

The official said the safety and security of U.S. citizens remains the department’s top priority and encouraged Americans traveling overseas to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, or STEP, to receive updates.

Russia may be concealing signal repeaters inside Ukrainian cities to help its long-range drones evade air defenses and strike with greater precision, a weapons expert told Fox News Digital.

The Kyiv Post first reported the possible use of the small ground devices, or repeaters, which Draganfly CEO and co-founder Cameron Chell said form part of an expanding "mesh" network that allows Russian drones to relay encrypted signals across multiple connections, making drones and drone swarms far harder for Ukraine to disrupt and bring down through standard electronic jamming.

Chell’s warning also came amid escalating diplomatic notices for the region, with Moscow urging foreign nationals and embassy staff to leave the capital Kyiv immediately on Oct. 3, highlighting "mortal danger" as Russian forces threatened further "massive retaliatory strikes."

"Russia has come to the realization that innovation is going to have to win this war, to the point now where they are becoming the innovative leader in this war—not just in terms of tactics, strategy, and technology, but the entire mindset is shifting," Chell said.

RUSSIA READIES NEW 500-MILE MISSILE AS WEAPON EXPERT WARNS OF 'TERMINAL END GAME SURPRISES'

Mesh networks, Chell explained, allow drones and strategically placed ground-based repeaters to relay encrypted signals across multiple connections, making many Russian drone flights harder to disrupt.

"The use of mesh networking is now making it increasingly hard for a defensive position to bring down Russian drones in an effective manner."

"With real-time precision, Russia can also now take their drone device into a particular window," Chell warned.

"You can take the device onto a particular portion of a bridge because you can make that real-time, last-minute decision live because you've got all these additional network connections that increase not just your bandwidth, but also your resilience in terms of being jammed," he added.

RUSSIAN STRIKES CONTINUE FOLLOWING VISIT BY WITKOFF AND KUSHNER TO KYIV

Moscow's rapid technological evolution on the battlefield comes alongside unusually precise strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv, including major river crossings.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat confirmed Sept. 29 that Russian forces are integrating mesh networking into their drone fleet while upgrading onboard optics.

"The enemy is using high-quality materials in its UAVs and increasing camera resolution, allowing the enemy to view the situation on the ground in detail and use these UAVs for various targets. And the use of mesh networks is indeed present. Of course, this is quite dangerous," Ihnat said, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

"They are using the principles of mesh networking to combat the counter-drone measures taken by Ukraine to ensure that drones can't get through or that those Russian communication links are broken," Chell said.

FBI WARNS BATTLEFIELD-STYLE DRONE ATTACKS COULD REACH US: 'ONLY A MATTER OF TIME'

"If Russia had multiple nodes that could communicate with a device and could use the device to communicate with other devices swarming the area, Ukraine would be faced with multiple, maybe even hundreds of connections to have to break simultaneously in order to bring that drone down," he said.

On Oct. 3, Serhii Beskrestnov, a defense technology adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, also warned that Russian forces may have hidden the small signal boosters, or these ground repeaters, inside Kyiv to extend drone control.

"Such repeaters are difficult to find, but we must search for them. As long as they exist, shielding the city with electronic warfare will not be effective," Beskrestnov warned.

Specifically, the repeaters are small concealed radio relay devices that receive and retransmit signals, extending the range of drone operators while helping maintain control in areas where direct communications or GPS signals may be disrupted.

"The size of these repeaters is really about the size of a large lunchbox. They're very easy to conceal, and they don't have to be turned on all the time, so they're hard to detect electronically," Chell said.

"Moving one or two or even three of these into a city the size of Kyiv can be hugely effective."

RUSSIA EXPOSES NATO WEAPONS GAP AS TOP COMMANDER WARNS ‘THE MATH IS NOT IN FAVOR OF THE WEST’

Technical analysts also pointed to a Sept. 4 strike on the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) headquarters on Volodymyrska Street in central Kyiv as early evidence of the tactic.

Tracking data reportedly showed no relay drones airborne during the strike, fueling concerns that hidden ground-based repeaters may have been used to maintain communications with the attacking drone.

"They will be doing everything they can to move as many of these things not just into Kyiv, but at any location in the country, even operational battlefields," Chell said.

"The reality is every time you put another node on a mesh network, you exponentially increase the efficiency, resiliency, and capability of that network."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sept. 28 that while Ukraine intercepts about 70% of conventional Russian drones during mass attacks, interception rates fall to 57% against newer, faster jet-powered UAVs.

UKRAINE’S BATTLEFIELD IS TRANSFORMING THE FUTURE OF NATO

"It is obvious that the Russians are not preparing to stop the war – at least not at the moment," Zelenskyy said.

"Next year Russia plans to spend US$12 billion just on producing jet-powered drones and loitering munitions. And that's only one category of weapons. Of course, this doesn't only relate to Ukraine," he added, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

"Russia probably has the intention of, if needed, expanding this war," Chell warned, arguing that drones themselves are becoming secondary to the communications architecture that guides them.

"The network is now the weapon, and the drone is what executes the desired result," he said.

"This is an unbelievable moment in the tactics of what's unfolding here with the future of warfare," Chell concluded.

North Korea fired what it described as an intermediate-range strategic missile Oct. 3, and an expert warned that such a missile could put Guam and parts of Alaska within range, raising the stakes for the U.S. and its allies as President Donald Trump seeks to revive diplomacy with Kim Jong Un.

Kim personally oversaw the drill, North Korean state media claimed, while former U.S. Forces Korea analyst Sydney Seiler told Fox News Digital that its range means the latest test has implications extending far beyond the Korean Peninsula.

According to Reuters, citing North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency, the missile was described as part of a "hypersonic strategic weapon system" and traveled about 1,000 kilometers, or 621 miles, away in waters off the country's east coast.

Guam holds strategic military importance as a U.S. territory in the western Pacific and hosts major military installations, including Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam.

NORTH KOREA EXPERT WARNS US CAN 'NEVER TAKE THEIR EYE OFF' KIM JONG UN FOLLOWING MISSILE TEST DURING IRAN WAR

"What is interesting about an IRBM launch — an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flies around 3,000 to 5,000 kilometers — is that it brings Guam, parts of Alaska, and Japan into range of North Korea," Seiler, a former National Intelligence Council officer focused on North Korea, said while cautioning against fully viewing the launch as a direct response to Trump.

"But when you consider the preparation required for an intermediate-range ballistic missile system, it is unlikely this was primarily a response to the president's comments or actions over the past few days," Seiler said.

Hours after the Oct. 3 missile launch, Trump had touted his relationship with Kim during a rally in Vandalia, Ohio.

"I get along great with Kim Jong Un. Isn't it nice to get along with the leaders of massive nuclear nations?" Trump said.

He also added: "When someone has 112 nuclear missiles, it is better to get along with them," pointing to North Korea's nuclear capabilities as a reason for maintaining open diplomatic communication.

"North Korea simply isn't interested in talking right now, so they have no incentive not to launch," Seiler said of the recent missile test and Trump's latest remarks.

"The fact that they're doing these missile launches amid a diplomatic effort by President Trump to try to re-engage the North, you have to see them only as somewhat related."

RUSSIA DEPLOYS NORTH KOREAN MISSILE UNIT TO UKRAINE; MOSCOW-PYONGYANG AXIS DEEPENS: REPORT

The test also followed North Korea's launch of two short-range ballistic missiles from the Wonsan area on Sept. 20, according to reports.

Officials from the U.S., South Korea and Japan said Oct. 3 that North Korea's ballistic missile tests violate U.N. Security Council resolutions and threaten regional and international security.

Seiler, now a nonresident senior adviser with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Pyongyang's posture extends beyond its relationship with the Trump administration.

The latest launch comes "within the larger context of a current absolute stand down on dialogue with South Korea and repeated rejections of overtures from the United States for dialogue," Seiler said.

"But North Korea has refrained from some more aggressive actions during the president’s term of office; we haven't seen an ICBM launch for almost two years now."

TRUMP ORDERS MAJOR CUT TO US-SOUTH KOREA DRILLS AS NORTH KOREA RAMPS UP MISSILE TESTS

Seiler warned that restraint should not, however, be mistaken for a willingness to abandon Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.

"For North Korea, their overall diplomatic strategy is to condition the world to accept them for who they are: a non-denuclearizing, missile-launching, occasionally provoking, and rhetorically coercive state," Seiler said.

"As time goes on, their goal is for us to give up any hope of denuclearization or structural change, which is consistent with them establishing a baseline: whether diplomacy unfolds or not, they will continue to develop and demonstrate missile technology."

Meanwhile, Trump has continued to emphasize his relationship with Kim while signaling a wish to revive the personal diplomacy of his first term.

Trump and Kim held summits in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019 before meeting at Panmunjom in the Korean Demilitarized Zone later that year, when Trump crossed into North Korea.

INSIDE THE TENSION THAT DROVE TRUMP’S SOUTH KOREA ALLIANCE FROM ‘HISTORIC NEW ERA’ TO MILITARY PULLBACK

"The president has shown persistent commitment to engaging North Korea in dialogue — most recently suggesting he is open to a phone call," Seiler said.

"While a call might not yield immediate progress on denuclearization, it contributes to tension reduction and helps establish a direct relationship necessary for future crisis management on the peninsula."

Complicating Washington's strategy, the expert said, is Kim's alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

North Korea has provided troops and military equipment to support Russia's war in Ukraine, reducing Kim's incentive to engage with the U.S., according to Seiler.

"Right now, Kim Jong Un, particularly given his emerging relationship with Vladimir Putin and everything he's getting out of the relationship with Russia right now, simply doesn't need to talk to the United States," Seiler said.

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman's unusual relationship with Kim also perhaps offers Trump another potential connection to the North Korean leader. Rodman has also made multiple trips to North Korea and met personally with Kim.

Rodman joined Trump at a Peterbilt plant in Denton, Texas, on Oct. 1 before traveling with the president toward a rally in Durant, Oklahoma.

NORTH KOREA UPDATES CONSTITUTION TO REQUIRE AUTOMATIC NUCLEAR STRIKE IF KIM JONG UN IS ASSASSINATED: REPORT

Asked in Texas whether he was using Rodman, who has personally met Kim, to help broker peace with Pyongyang, Trump emphasized his own relationship with the North Korean leader.

"As long as I'm here, you're not gonna have any problems. Somebody else comes, you're gonna have some big problems," Trump said.

Trump also highlighted Rodman's personal connection to Kim, saying: "When I wanted to get to know Kim Jong Un when we were having a problem—Kim Jong Un and I get along—but the one who knew him best was Dennis Rodman."

"Dennis Rodman has a very interesting perspective in that he was able to interact with Kim Jong Un over a number of visits and get to know him personally, to develop some rapport without any diplomatic baggage," Seiler said.

"He may be offering President Trump insights into Kim Jong Un's personality, values, and potential approaches, but, you know, as I think Dennis Rodman's representatives have said, he is still a long way off from getting airplane tickets."

Across one of the coldest, most remote and strategically exposed corners of the United States, American forces are practicing how to fight on land, at sea and in the air — rapidly moving rocket systems into western Alaska, sending F-35s and F-16s toward simulated threats, and coordinating U.S. and Canadian warships in the Bering Sea.

The operations are part of Tundra Merlin, an enduring U.S. military campaign aimed at proving that even across Alaska’s vast distances and extreme Arctic conditions, American and allied forces can rapidly assemble combat power to defend the northern approaches to the homeland.

And behind that show of force is a changing security environment increasingly shaped by Russia and China.

TWO ICEBREAKERS HEADED TO ALASKA AS US COMBATS RUSSIAN, CHINESE INFLUENCE IN ARCTIC

"I think what’s changed is primarily two things," Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, commander of Alaskan Command, told Fox News Digital. "One is that the melting sea ice has made the Arctic more accessible. And we’re seeing increased activity both commercially and militarily in the Arctic, particularly during the summer months."

"The other factor is that China and Russia and others are continuing to advance their military capabilities and capacity with an interest in showing that they can use them in the Arctic as well," Davis said.

The Pentagon has reached a similar conclusion. Its 2024 Arctic Strategy warned that growing Russia-China cooperation could "alter the Arctic’s stability and threat picture," and called for greater U.S. presence, exercises and military preparedness in a region becoming increasingly accessible. Defense officials have said forces operating there must be able not merely to train in extreme conditions, but survive them.

RUSSIA PULLED BACK FROM THE ARCTIC, FOR NOW. NATO MUST ACT BEFORE THOSE TROOPS RETURN

Few places illustrate the stakes better than Alaska.

The state sits at the intersection of the Arctic and Pacific and serves as a critical hub for homeland defense and a platform for projecting U.S. military power toward the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The Russian and American mainlands are only about 55 miles apart at their closest points across the Bering Strait, while Russia’s Big Diomede Island and Alaska’s Little Diomede Island are separated by roughly 2.5 miles.

Alaska also hosts major air bases, early-warning and missile-defense infrastructure, and tens of thousands of military personnel. U.S. Northern Command says Alaskan Command has more than 22,000 active-duty personnel from across the services, along with approximately 4,700 Guard and Reserve members.

Air Force officials have described Alaska as the "crossroads of the Arctic and the Pacific," providing U.S. forces with reach and domain awareness for both homeland defense and global power projection.

Davis put that geography in even starker terms.

Pointing to the fifth-generation fighters positioned in Alaska, he told Fox News Digital that U.S. forces can "project from the Arctic to almost anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere in about 10 hours of flight time."

RUSSIA’S QUIETER NUCLEAR SUBMARINES THREATEN NATO, FORMER COMMANDER WARNS

Tundra Merlin is designed to turn that geographic advantage into combat capability.

Davis described the operation as a collection of military options — essentially "plays in a playbook" — that can be activated either to deter an adversary or respond if one begins acting aggressively.

"Our hope is that we don’t have any adversarial activity because we’ve effectively deterred it," Davis said. "But if we do see it and we have kind of a play in the playbook ready to go. For a response."

One of the most striking demonstrations came recently, on Alaska’s western edge.

U.S. and Canadian forces rapidly moved a U.S. Army HIMARS mobile rocket system and an AN/TPQ-53 radar into western Alaska aboard a Royal Canadian Air Force C-17, then connected those ground forces with American F-35s, F-16s and a KC-135 tanker operating overhead.

CHINA, RUSSIA, IRAN AND NORTH KOREA FORM 'AXIS OF AGGRESSORS' THAT COULD OVERWHELM US, BOOK WARNS

The mission brought air defense and long-range offensive firepower together in a single operation. F-35s and HIMARS synchronized against a simulated ground target approximately 135 miles away, while F-16s simultaneously intercepted F-35s acting as simulated incoming aerial threats, according to U.S. Northern Command.

Davis said the point was not simply to prove the individual weapons worked, but to show how quickly forces could be moved into a remote part of Alaska and linked together.

The operation demonstrated that U.S. forces can rapidly move capabilities into Alaska "both to defend Alaska, but also, if necessary, to put other adversary targets at risk," he told Fox News Digital.

Tundra Merlin pushed that same concept out to sea in September.

From Sept. 18–22, U.S. and Canadian forces conducted a joint maritime strike scenario roughly 100 nautical miles north of Dutch Harbor, integrating U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy surface and subsurface vessels with Canadian maritime patrol aircraft and Alaska-based U.S. Air Force F-35 fighters and E-3 airborne warning and control aircraft.

The forces practiced multiple simulated maritime target engagements, testing whether information collected by different ships and aircraft could be rapidly passed across the force and used to identify, track and engage a potential threat.

"The most impressive part to me was seeing the high degree of cooperation and integration among units that day in and day out don't necessarily operate together," Davis said.

"To see the joint nature on the U.S. side integrated together with the inter-agency of the U.S. Coast Guard and with our allies, with Canada as an example, was just an amazing thing to see," he added.

That ability to operate at scale is complicated by Alaska itself.

Extreme cold can affect equipment and personnel, while the enormous distances and limited infrastructure of the North American Arctic make moving and sustaining forces unusually difficult. The Pentagon’s Arctic Strategy specifically identifies those distances and the region’s infrastructure limitations as obstacles to military operations and says maintaining infrastructure in Alaska is essential for missile defense, surveillance and rapid power projection.

Davis said military equipment brought into Alaska cannot simply be expected to function as it would elsewhere.

"It needs to be conditioned. It needs to be properly outfitted to operate in sub-zero temperatures for a long period of time," he said, adding that troops also require specialized clothing, training and procedures to avoid cold-weather injuries and continue fighting in Arctic conditions.

The pressure to master that environment comes as Russia and China increasingly demonstrate their own ability to operate near North America.

In July 2024, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, detected and intercepted two Russian Tu-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers flying together in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone. It was the first time NORAD had intercepted Russian and Chinese military aircraft operating together in the zone. The aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign territory, and NORAD said the flight itself was not considered a threat.

The episode nevertheless highlighted the very kind of cooperation U.S. defense planners are watching.

For now, Davis said Alaska is positioned to deal with the military threats commanders expect under normal conditions.

"We're postured very well for any of the anticipated threats that we think would come our way in the very near term," he said. But if commanders saw indications of a significant escalation, Davis said Alaskan Command would likely request additional forces and capabilities.

That, ultimately, is what Tundra Merlin is intended to prove: that in a theater defined by enormous distances, punishing weather and growing Russian and Chinese activity, the United States can move forces across Alaska, connect them across land, sea and air, and have combat power ready before a potential adversary decides to test the northern edge of the homeland.

A U.S. Marine stationed in Japan has been arrested on suspicion of robbing and killing a 39-year-old woman at a hotel in Okinawa, prompting Japanese officials to lodge a formal protest with the United States.

Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, is suspected of killing Anna Yagi at a hotel in Naha, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture, early Saturday and taking her wallet and backpack, according to Japanese police.

Ballard has denied the allegations, police said.

SERVICE MEMBER AMONG 2 ARRESTED AFTER MISSING MAN PROBE LEADS COPS TO BODY DUMP SITE ON ARMY BASE

Ballard is assigned to the III Marine Expeditionary Force and based at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa, according to the Marine Corps.

Surveillance footage showed Yagi entering the hotel with Ballard before he later left alone, Stars and Stripes reported, citing Okinawa police. A hotel employee later found Yagi unresponsive after she failed to check out.

Police subsequently located Ballard in Okinawa City and arrested him, according to the outlet.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Okinawa Prefectural Police for additional information.

THAI RESORT CITY CRACKS DOWN ON PROSTITUTION AHEAD OF USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN ARRIVAL

The Marine Corps said it was cooperating with Japanese authorities and that Ballard remained in Japanese custody.

"The Marine Corps takes these allegations very seriously and expects every Marine to adhere to the highest standards of behavior," the service said in a statement obtained by Reuters.

The arrest prompted swift condemnation from senior Japanese officials. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi offered condolences to Yagi's family and said her government had lodged a "strong protest" with the United States.

"The occurrence of such an extremely brutal and heinous incident is a matter of profound regret," Takaichi said in an English translation of her Japanese-language statement.

Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi also summoned U.S. Ambassador George Glass and called for full U.S. cooperation with the investigation, stricter discipline among American military personnel and measures to prevent similar incidents.

Glass expressed regret over the loss of life and pledged U.S. cooperation with Japanese authorities.

CHINA DEPLOYED OVER 100 VESSELS NEAR TAIWAN IN THE WAKE OF TRUMP-XI SUMMIT, TAIWAN SECURITY OFFICIAL CLAIMS

The case comes against a decades-long backdrop of tensions surrounding the large U.S. military presence in Okinawa.

Most of the roughly 18,000 Marines stationed in Japan are based on Okinawa, where crimes involving U.S. personnel, aircraft accidents and noise have periodically fueled local opposition to the American military presence.

Okinawa remains strategically important to the U.S.-Japan alliance because of its location in the western Pacific near Taiwan amid increased concern over China's military activity in the region.

Reuters contributed to this report.

JOHANNESBURG: The U.S. ambassador to South Africa has hit out at the country’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, telling Fox News Digital, "You've got a president of South Africa who refuses to condemn an incitement to kill." 

Ambassador L. Brent Bozell III was responding strongly, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, to being summoned this past week to South Africa’s foreign ministry and criticized for ‘undiplomatic conduct." 

This is the third time the ambassador has received a démarche — a diplomatic rebuke — from Pretoria in the nine months since he arrived here. The ambassador has been slammed by South Africa for relaying President Trump’s condemnation of South African policies and statements. Bozell is a former Fox News contributor and founder of the largest conservative media watchdog, the Media Research Center.

TRUMP ADMIN IMPOSES NEW VISA RESTRICTIONS OVER ALLEGED RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, LAND SEIZURES IN SOUTH AFRICA

He has repeatedly pushed for issues brought up by President Trump in a testy confrontation in the Oval Office with South Africa’s President Ramaphosa 16 months ago to be addressed. Among other points, these include alleged race-based discrimination, allegations of murder and torture of farmers, plans for uncompensated land seizures and the incitement of violence against minority groups.

The ambassador said three of the five specific ‘asks’ the Trump administration wants have been ignored by South Africa.

High up the list of ‘asks’ is President Trump’s demand that President Ramaphosa stops people in South Africa from shouting "Kill the Boer! Kill the farmer!" A Boer is a white man, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It defines it as "a South African of Dutch or Huguenot descent". Ramaphosa has claimed he can’t stop people chanting this slogan because it’s been cleared for use by the country’s supreme court.

Bozell told Fox News Digital, "You've got a president of South Africa who refuses to condemn an incitement to kill."

SOUTH AFRICA’S ILLEGAL MIGRATION BACKLASH MIRRORS POLITICAL BATTLES ACROSS THE WEST

He added, "You've got a government that has said it's not going to do any more for the Afrikaner rural community, and it's got a government that's saying no, your mining has to go through race-based programs. We're not going to allow your investments to go the way everyone else has been allowed to go".

"Those were three strikes and you're out as far as we were concerned," Bozell said.

"Ask 100% of the world if "kill the farmer!, kill the Boer" isn’t hate speech," he continued. "If that isn't hate speech, I don't know what hate speech is: inciting people to commit murder. So the answer we've gotten is, well, the court said it isn't. To which our response is look, in the United States, the president can disagree with the court and does about every five minutes because that's what you do in a democracy when you disagree with something."

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Bozell added, "So, to say, well, you can't do it because the court said it's not, you know, that's poppycock. If President Ramaphosa, if he wants to, he can do it. It's just as simple as that."

The ambassador pushed hard on the point, saying "How hard is it to say this chant, where some, where people do it, 50,000 people in the stadium jump up and down, pantomiming guns, shooting people, how hard is it to say, stop it? This is awful that anybody would be inciting people to kill."

South Africa, analysts say, is drawing ever closer to Iran, Russia, China even Cuba. The African National Congress, the ANC, the party which rules the country in the so-called ‘government of national unity’, has hosted the terror group Hamas.

This is very much on the administration’s radar. President Trump met with Bozell in Washington again recently, with the ambassador telling Fox News Digital the president’s thinking "perhaps most of all, he's concerned about how South Africa has been systematically leaving the non-alignment space and moving closer and closer to our adversaries."

Referring to South Africa, the ambassador added, "There are people who are living in the glory days of the Soviet Union, and they want to go back to the good old days of communism. Why are they still working with Cuba?"

Digging deeper, Bozell asked, "Why are they working with Iran and Hamas terror organizations? What's Russia doing for them? What's China doing for them? This is bad news when they're going in that direction. What we're saying is simply do what you've always done. Have a non-aligned with both sides. We'll live with that."

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The ambassador stressed that the U.S. wants to make dynamic business with South Africa on mining, particularly on critical or rare earth minerals. He stated, "We're not going to do what the Chinese do. They come in, they take the ore, they take it to China, they benefit [from] it and they make a pile of money. We're saying to South Africa, we'll come in, we'll do the mining, we'll do it right there in South Africa."

He continued,"South Africa gets the money, not the Chinese. We bring in the technology that they could never have. We've created hundreds of thousands of jobs. We're saying we could create more and more and more at a time when they desperately need it, but it will be good for us as well. This is the partnership we want."

Elon Musk and his Starlink satellite internet company are one of many U.S. companies which want to enter South Africa. But in the telecommunications and mining fields, the government insists that 30% of foreign company ownership must be given to black local entrepreneurs.

Bozell says this is problematical for the U.S. "There are literally billions of dollars from American firms and American government investments ready to go into mining, but it's not going to go there so long as you have these race-based avenues they must go through. In telecom, Elon Musk has said he will put Starlink in 500 schools and pay for it in perpetuity if he's allowed to go this way. And they said, "No, we want 30% of your company. So yeah, of course it's hurting."

On Friday, a senior official at South Africa’s Department of International Relations – the country’s foreign ministry – confirmed to Fox News Digital that they demarched Ambassador Bozell for a third time, adding, "This is a record. He was called in to explain his undiplomatic conduct. The issues related to the bilateral relations between the two countries are a subject of ongoing discussions. There is commitment from both sides to resolve the outstanding matters. South Africa values the relationship with the USA. It is a mutually beneficial partnership".

Also, Friday, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, "We are not interested in diplomatic maneuvering, procedural delays, or dialogue for dialogue’s sake. The ball is now squarely in the Government of South Africa’s court to outline the relationship it wants with the United States and respond accordingly to President Trump’s executive order."

Still, Bozell looks to the future of the U.S. - South Africa relationship with guarded optimism. "Look, temperatures can go up, but I want their temperature to go down too. You know, we want this partnership. We want to figure this out. It's good for South Africa. It's good for the United States of America. Temperatures need to go down, and we got to figure it out."

SÃO PAULO: As Brazil goes to the polls Sunday, analysts are watching closely to see whether the continent’s most populous nation will be the latest domino to fall into the conservative column, following Colombia, Peru, Chile, and others in voting out the left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Known by his nickname Lula, the 80-year-old, who served time in jail for corruption in a massive payback bribery scandal, barely leads Brazilian senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair.

Going into Sunday’s first round, neither candidate is expected to win outright. The latest Datafolha poll puts Lula at 42% and Bolsonaro at 38%, with a two-point margin of error. If the election goes to a runoff, it has Lula up by 3%. But the polls have been wrong before.

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"The problem with Datafolha, which is the largest polling institute in the country, is that it tends to underestimate the force and voting intention in candidates running against Lula or the Workers Party (PT). This has been consistent for at least over a decade, and it underestimated Jair Bolsonaro’s number on the runoff of 2018 by 7%," Roberto Reis, an electoral strategist working with several candidates across multiple electoral tiers and analyzing aggregator data, told Fox News Digital. "According to the latest aggregator data such as MRT News or Polling Data, we currently have Lula leading Bolsonaro 42% to 39% on the first runoff of the elections with Bolsonaro leading Lula 45% to 44% on the runoff," he added.

One Brazil analyst said that the election is about more than just another ideological contest between left and right in Latin America — It is the single major remaining stumbling block in the Western Hemisphere that still hasn’t shifted to conservativism and while there are other left-wing governments in the hemisphere, including Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua and Uruguay, Brazil is by far the largest and most important economy in this group with its status as the 11th largest world economy according to the IMF and the 10th largest world economy according to the World Bank.

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Bolsonaro has spent much of the campaign cultivating a relationship with President Donald Trump and presenting himself as a potential U.S. partner in the Western Hemisphere. He met Trump at the White House in May, where the two discussed organized crime, tariffs and Brazil's rare earth and critical mineral reserves — both critical prime-source materials Brazil has plenty of and which could significantly lower U.S. and European dependency on Russia and China.

Bolsonaro also said he had asked Washington to designate Brazil's two largest criminal organizations, the First Capital Command (PCC, in its Portuguese acronym) and Red Command (Comando Vermelho, in Portuguese), as terrorist groups. Both designations were accepted by the Department of State on May 28 and became effective in June under section 219 of the Immigration and Naturalization Code.

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The designation by the U.S. government incensed Lula and his allies and was viewed as direct meddling in domestic affairs and a rubber stamp from the Trump administration that the left-wing, populist president has not been doing enough to combat organized crime in his country, directly favoring Bolsonaro’s contest in the elections.

Flávio Bolsonaro has also proposed a free-trade agreement between Brazil and the United States, potentially expanding it into a broader free-trade arrangement among countries in the Americas. And his campaign has emphasized cooperation with Washington on critical minerals, an increasingly strategic issue as the Trump administration tries to reduce U.S. dependence on China, as per a current report by Brazil’s leading newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo.

That would represent a significant change in emphasis from Lula's foreign policy.

China is Brazil's largest trading partner, and Brazilian agricultural exports to China totaled more than $55 billion in 2025, according to Reuters. Lula has defended maintaining strong relations with Beijing while pursuing what he describes as an independent foreign policy that oftentimes borders on aggressiveness towards both the United States and its closest allies, such as Israel.

Lula's relationship with Trump has been considerably more complicated. Washington imposed new 25% tariffs on a wide range of Brazilian goods in July, affecting about $7 billion of Brazilian exports, while Lula's government has challenged the measures and sought negotiations with Washington with very limited success so far. Washington has also imposed a ban on most new permanent visa requests coming from Brazil, and that could lead to green cards.

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A Bolsonaro presidency would come with stated plans for closer U.S. economic and security cooperation, greater alignment with Israel, a more confrontational posture toward China's influence in Brazil and reduced friction both within the hemisphere and in global affairs. Whether those policies can all be implemented depends on negotiations with Congress, Brazil's powerful bureaucracy, and the country's economic interests — especially the agribusiness and mining powerhouses in the country.

A Lula victory would mean continuity in a foreign policy trajectory that seeks strong commercial ties with China while maintaining strategic autonomy from Washington, alongside his government's current position on Israel and Gaza. Both attitudes are in direct defiance of Trump’s policies and could end up damaging U.S.-Brazilian relations even further.

With the presidential race effectively heading toward a second round, the stakes for a new version of the Americas for U.S. interests could very much hinge on its outcome.

France’s violent student protests are fueling fresh warnings about the consequences of open-border immigration policies, with the unrest being held up as a "cautionary tale" for the U.S.

"I would also say as we’re sitting here in beautiful New York City, this is a cautionary tale," "The Big Weekend Show" co-host Tomi Lahren said Saturday.

She continued: "This is something we’re learning from Europe, and we would be wise to learn from Europe. They decided they wanted to have open borders. They decided they wanted diversity as their strength, and of course, Joe Biden tried that for four years. We’re undoing that currently."

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Lahren posited that "when you let so many people come into your country, leech off of your system, then the people who are from there are going to at some point get upset."

She said that anger often becomes misplaced and, "they end up lighting things on fire, which I think is stupid no matter what you’re angry with, but it’s no doubt these countries that say we’re going to be a global home for everybody, they end up paying the price, and it’s usually the native Frenchmen, or whenever they are that end up paying the highest price."

Students in Paris began to protest late last month against what they deemed as overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages, long school days and deteriorating conditions, blaming the government for not investing enough in education.

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The demonstrations started peacefully in Paris’ poorer suburbs but quickly spread to Paris itself, then went nationwide in cities like Marseille, Strasbourg, Tours, Nantes, Toulouse ​and Lille, becoming increasingly violent as they expanded.

The protests were also fueled by the government’s 2027 budget unveiling on Thursday, which showed education spending would rise by only 1.7%, excluding teacher pensions, an increase which is below the rate of inflation, Reuters reported.

Rioters have committed arson, vandalism, thrown objects at police and even assaulted people in some cases, prompting authorities to respond with tear gas and rubber bullets.

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More than 5,000 protesters were arrested this week across the country, according to Reuters, and more than 400 schools remained closed as of Friday.

Euronews reported Friday that at least 65 school staff members, including 40 principals, have been injured since the unrest began, along with roughly 170 students. 

More than 100 high schools have suffered what Education Minister Édouard Geffray described as "severe damage."

French intelligence agencies told a government crisis meeting Thursday that the protest movement had been initiated by politicians from the hard-left France Unbowed Party, known as LFI, Reuters reported Friday.

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LFI has denied the allegations and accused President Emmanuel Macron's government of politicizing the protests ahead of France's 2027 presidential election.

Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, senior envoy to Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the unrest began with legitimate concerns but has since evolved into something far more serious.

"The students’ grievances about missing teachers and deteriorating schools were real at first," Rodan-Benzaquen said. "But dousing a principal in gasoline and attacking firefighters are acts of extreme violence. What makes this politically significant is the effort to turn frustration over schools into a much broader confrontation with the government."

Fox News' Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.

Eliran Almog, a former Israeli helicopter pilot turned aviation cybersecurity firm CEO, explained just how "crazy" it was that the near-hijacked FlyDubai flight 1073 managed to land safely after a violent midair attack.

"You can't imagine being in that position. You see the videos, you hear the kids screaming, and people don't necessarily understand what is happening," the former Israeli Air Force pilot told Fox News Digital.

After an Omani national copilot — who has since been identified as 29-year-old Hamam al-Hammami — allegedly stabbed FlyDubai flight 1073’s pilot Capt. Smit Machchhar mid-flight, the aircraft plummeted more than 14,000 feet in 30 seconds.

"The g-force on the plane was enormous, and you basically think you are going to die," Almog said, adding "it's crazy that the aircraft did not break up in the air, and landing it with the tail damage it sustained was remarkable."

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Despite sustaining serious injuries, Machchhar was able to hit a button to open the cockpit door, allowing Israeli passengers to rush into the cockpit and subdue al-Hammami, officials said. A second FlyDubai crew that happened to be aboard the craft then stabilized the plane and successfully completed an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

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"As a pilot, if I were in this situation, I'm not sure I could have landed the aircraft. Every commercial aircraft is different, requiring different setup, landing procedures and limitations," Almog explained.

Almog, who now advises airliners and adjacent businesses on how to shore up their cybersecurity, explained how crucial it was for carriers to ensure their pilots undergo thorough screening processes for both psychological and potential political risks.

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"We give a lot of weight in the process to the characteristics of the pilot. The technical and cognitive skills are important, but we make sure that the pilot is balanced and resilient in extreme cases," he said.

"Because aviation is critical infrastructure, we must rethink how we screen pilots — not just initially, but continuously. Even for experienced pilots, we need the right tools in place to identify when someone is facing family issues, psychological distress, or developing extreme views that could impose risk. These are practices the industry needs to adopt, and I call on governments and regulators to step in," he continued.

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While numerous countries, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, are conducting their own investigations into al-Hammami and the FlyDubai incident, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox & Friends in a Thursday interview that the copilot had been exposed to "Islamist radical indoctrination."

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, suggested the pilot could have been trained or motivated by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

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Almog told Fox News Digital that geopolitical concerns, such as the ones imposed by the ongoing wars in the Middle East, are increasingly becoming airlines' top risk factor for a number of reasons.

"If you ask the airlines today what are the main risks that they are looking forward on, it is geopolitical risk," he said. "... We are tracking GNSS and GPS jamming and spoofing activities, and I can show you the map and you can understand exactly where the conflicts are."

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Almog also explained how pilots are not the only people airlines need to screen or keep an eye on.

"Pilots aren't the only ones who can crash a plane. Over 80% of cybersecurity threats come from insiders — many of whom may not even realize they are posing a risk," he said. "It isn't just pilots; it's cabin crew and maintenance personnel. A plane can crash without the right fuel balance or proper maintenance parameters. Aviation relies on a complex supply chain. It would be a mistake to limit psychological screening and background monitoring to pilots alone — it needs to expand to every person who impacts flight operations."

Almog also praised both the resiliency of the flight's passengers and the heroism of Capt. Machchhar.

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"Ultimately, this was a chain of circumstances that prevented a total disaster," he said. "Beyond personal resilience, it took the courage of the off-duty Indian pilot who opened the door, and the fact that FlyDubai had two other pilots on board who landed the aircraft safely."

"As a pilot, I can tell you that isn't easy. Landing an unfamiliar commercial aircraft type under extreme stress requires specialized training, which is why rigorous screening and continuous support for flight crews are so vital," he added.