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Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks of the war against Moscow and the surrounding region overnight, striking an oil depot and logistics facilities more than 250 miles from the Ukrainian border, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said more than 400 Ukrainian drones were launched toward the Moscow region between Sunday evening and early Monday, including 85 that were destroyed while approaching the Russian capital. Russia’s Defense Ministry separately claimed that its forces intercepted 381 drones across Russian regions, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

The Russian claims could not be independently verified by Fox News Digital.

At least 10 people were wounded in the Moscow region, including three Chinese nationals, according to regional authorities cited by Reuters. Seven of the injuries were reported in Domodedovo, Russia, where officials said a residential building was struck and a fire broke out at an industrial park near one of Moscow’s main airports.

The scale and reach of the operation suggest Ukraine is moving beyond occasional symbolic attacks on Moscow and building a sustained campaign against the infrastructure that supports Russia’s war. 

UKRAINE LAUNCHES WHAT APPEARS TO BE ONE OF ITS LARGEST DRONE ATTACKS AGAINST RUSSIA: REPORT

By simultaneously targeting oil facilities, transportation networks and logistics hubs hundreds of miles from the front, Kyiv is seeking to disrupt the flow of fuel and supplies to Russian forces, reduce revenue available to the Kremlin and force Moscow to divert air-defense systems away from the battlefield. 

Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries had doubled since the beginning of 2026, Reuters reported, contributing to refinery shutdowns and reduced production of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukrainian forces targeted logistics facilities and an oil depot in the Moscow region.

"Our long-range sanctions have produced results against logistics facilities and an oil depot," Zelenskyy wrote on X, adding that the targets were more than 400 kilometers (roughly 250 miles) from Ukraine’s border. "We are responding, justly, to every Russian strike against our cities and communities."

Wildberries, a company known as "Russia’s Amazon," said its logistics center in the Podolsk district of Russia was temporarily evacuated as a precaution before resuming normal operations, East2West News reported. Ukraine has accused the company of selling supplies used by the Russian military.

RUSSIA UNLEASHES NEARLY 600 MISSILES AND DRONES ON KYIV IN DEADLIEST STRIKE SINCE MAY

Ksenia Svetlova, associate fellow at Chatham House policy institute based in London, argued that the disruption caused by strikes on fuel infrastructure and companies such as Wildberries is unlikely, by itself, to change President Vladimir Putin’s approach to the war.

"The hardship of the Russian citizen who suffers because of fuel shortages, the strike on a Wildberries warehouse, or forced recruitment does not interest him," Svetlova said. "The war machine is operating at full force, and he has neither the desire nor the ability to stop it."

Svetlova said Putin remains reluctant to announce another mass mobilization after large numbers of young Russians fled the country during the Kremlin’s previous call-up. At the same time, she said, Russia’s military still needs additional troops after recruiting heavily from its prison population and is increasingly pressuring ordinary civilians accused of relatively minor offenses to sign military contracts.

The sweeping Ukrainian operation followed one of Russia’s largest ballistic missile attacks of the war against Kyiv. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 41 missiles of various types in the overnight barrage, which killed at least one person and wounded 16, Reuters reported Sunday.

The Russian attack also spread into the Black Sea, where a Russian missile attack on the Guinea-Bissau-flagged cargo ship Golden Leo killed 10 people near Odesa, Reuters reported Monday.

'A NEW KIND OF WAR': INSIDE UKRAINE'S HIDDEN FACTORIES MASS-PRODUCING COMBAT DRONES

Ukrainian officials said the vessel, which was carrying corn, was struck by three cruise missiles and caught fire. Nine crew members and a Ukrainian maritime pilot were killed, while eight other crew members were rescued. The ship’s crew included Indian and Syrian nationals, according to Reuters.

The escalation comes as Zelenskyy faces growing domestic pressure over his removal of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, a 35-year-old reformer credited with expanding Ukraine’s drone capabilities and seeking to modernize military procurement and management. Fedorov’s supporters viewed him as a rare official willing to challenge entrenched practices, improve oversight of defense spending and push a technology-centered approach to the war.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered following Fedorov’s dismissal, demanding his reinstatement and the removal of commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi. Protesters have accused Syrskyi of resisting modernization and retaining a rigid command structure that they say contributes to high troop losses. Syrskyi has defended his wartime record and called for unity.

Fedorov publicly accused Syrskyi of blocking his initiatives and sabotaging his work. Zelenskyy said their relationship had deteriorated so badly that the two could no longer work together, but provided little additional explanation for removing Fedorov.

Zelenskyy indicated Monday that consultations over Ukraine’s military leadership were continuing, saying he had spoken with Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi about ensuring that the experience of every branch of Ukraine’s defense forces was applied in a coordinated manner. He did not announce any decision on Syrskyi’s future.

Reuters contributed to this report.

New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham assumed power Monday morning, vowing to move authority away from London as his new government confronts economic strain, political instability and potential friction with Washington.

"We will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem-solving than point scoring," Burnham said outside 10 Downing Street. "And we will take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land, so that they can do more.

"And, in doing more, build a new economy where we put life's essentials back under stronger public control to make them affordable to you again – reindustrializing Britain, using public procurement to back British industry."

WHO IS ANDY BURNHAM? THE TRUMP CRITIC SET TO BECOME THE UK'S NEXT PRIME MINISTER

Burnham, 56, was greeted by King Charles III at Buckingham Palace, London, on Monday before his swearing-in and first remarks. King Charles formally requested that Burnham form a new administration, and Burnham accepted.

"I have just come from Buckingham Palace, where I have accepted His Majesty the King's invitation to form a government," Burnham's brief introduction began. "{And in doing so, I am acutely conscious that I am the sixth person in the last 10 years to walk up this street: The seventh prime minister since 2016, making this a moment for reflection and new resolution. 

"It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game and rise to the new challenge. Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again, and that is our challenge to make politics work, to make it work better," he said. "I know people at home are fed up with politics. I hear you and I want to be honest with you: We have not been good enough and we need to be better. We will be."

Burnham called for sweeping political and economic changes, stating that "Britain took some wrong turns" in the 1980s.

"We will make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last 40 years," he said. "A new political model and a new economic model."

Outgoing Keir Starmer officially submitted his resignation and passed "the baton" in remarks outside 10 Downing Street.

"As I now pass the baton to Andy Burnham, I wish him every success," Starmer said. "He has my full support.

"For all the focus on individuals, politics will always be a team sport and the changes we have delivered for our country and our party belong to everyone who has fought for them. I thank them again today, and I thank the British people for the opportunity to serve.

"I go with good grace, I go with a smile, and I go proud of everything that we have achieved."

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER KEIR STARMER FACES POTENTIAL LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE FROM NEWLY-ELECTED ANDY BURNHAM

Burnham's relationship with Washington could provide an early foreign-policy test. He has repeatedly criticized Trump, comparing the instability surrounding the president’s return to office with the turmoil under former British Prime Minister Liz Truss and warning against importing what he called America’s polarized political culture.

He has maintained that the U.S.-U.K. relationship remains important, though, pledging continuity on NATO, Britain’s nuclear deterrent and support for Ukraine.

Trump previously dismissed Burnham as the former "mayor of a town" and said he had heard the incoming British leader was "extremely liberal." Reform UK has also challenged Burnham’s mandate, arguing that he should call a general election after reaching Downing Street without facing either a competitive Labor leadership contest or a nationwide vote.

KEIR STARMER REPORTEDLY CONSIDERING STEPPING DOWN AS PM AND COULD ANNOUNCE TIMETABLE FOR DEPARTURE

Burnham succeeds Starmer after becoming Labor leader unopposed Friday. He enters office without a new national vote under Britain’s parliamentary system, which allows the governing party to change leaders midterm. The next general election is not required until 2029, though Burnham could call one earlier.

At the center of his agenda is what he calls "Manchesterism" — an effort to give cities and regions greater authority over transportation, housing, infrastructure and economic development. He has paired that approach with what he describes as "business-friendly socialism," combining greater public control of essential services with cooperation between government and private industry.

STARMER IN 'SEISMIC' CRISIS, UK DEFENSE CHIEF QUITS BEFORE HIGH-STAKES TRUMP NATO SUMMIT

Burnham's arrival at Downing Street caps a decade-long political comeback. After losing his second Labor leadership contest in 2015, Burnham left national politics and built a new power base in Greater Manchester, where nine years as mayor earned him the nickname "King of the North" and a reputation as an effective communicator willing to challenge the government in London.

"I will work to build a new politics; the country is crying out for it," he said Friday. "People are looking for us to deliver, and we will."

Reuters and Fox News' Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.

Steve Forbes says the United States must double down on efforts to topple the Tehran regime, arguing that free passage through the Strait of Hormuz should remain a non-negotiable American imperative.

As the U.S. struck targets in Iran for a ninth consecutive day on Sunday, pressure on the Tehran regime continued to build. Speaking at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, the chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes and former presidential candidate recently sat down with Fox News Digital to discuss Iran and the Trump administration's foreign policy.

STEVE FORBES BACKS TRUMP'S MT. RUSHMORE WARNING ON COMMUNISM: 'HE'S RIGHT'

"Going back to Thomas Jefferson, a core foreign policy plank of the United States is freedom of the seas. Freedom of navigation got us into another war with Great Britain, the War of 1812," Forbes said.

"So we've been doing it for over two centuries. The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway, just as the South China Sea is an international waterway. And so we must keep that open. 

"No tolls, no restrictions, all ships of commerce should have free passage through it unmolested."

Forbes said that with proper application of air power, boots on the ground wouldn't be needed, but he would not discard that as an option, bringing the example of the engagement with the Barbary pirates, which brought freedom of navigation to the Mediterranean following the completion of the First Barbary War of 1805.

TWO US SERVICE MEMBERS KILLED IN IRANIAN STRIKES ON JORDAN, CENTCOM SAYS

"If we do things right in the air, that won't be necessary. But as we demonstrated with the Barbary pirates, sometimes you do need hand-to-hand combat. But again, with our great military and the great Israeli military, we should be able to bring this evil regime down and enable the elements in the Iranian army that want change to feel we're not going to pull the rug out from under them with another fake ceasefire. That we keep hammering away at this evil regime."

Ultimately, Forbes said freedom of navigation should be an international red line:

"So the key thing is if you don't enforce these key principles of freedom of navigation, liberty, you're going to lose them. Ronald Reagan was right. Others have made the same observation. You have to preserve liberty each and every generation."

Forbes said that the time for diplomacy with Tehran has passed, and encouraged the Trump administration to ratchet up the pressure, while also praising a recent decision on Ukraine policy.

"Get Iran done with. No more fake ceasefires. Get rid of that evil regime. By the way, I'm delighted that he's saying he's going to give licensing for Patriot missiles to Ukraine. That'll bring a good result there."

Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent is reiterating his call for the withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East amid the ongoing war with Iran.

"Get our troops out now before we suffer a mass casualty attack. Break the escalation trap. Trump still has the political strength at home to declare victory & have it resonate, that ability will be lost if we suffer more casualties. Now is the time to leave, immediately," he wrote Sunday on X.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House on Monday.

US SERVICE MEMBER KILLED IN IRAQ AS TROOPS RECOVER UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS IN JORDAN: CENTCOM

Kent made the comments while sharing a post from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).

"Yesterday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the passing of two U.S. service members and the missing status of one in Jordan following an Iranian attack on July 17. After a thorough search, U.S. military personnel found unidentified remains at the location earlier today. An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing," CENTCOM noted in part of a statement on Sunday.

"Separately, a U.S. service member in northern Iraq was killed in action July 18 during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone. A second service member was wounded and continues to receive medical treatment for a minor injury," the statement noted.

EX-COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL JOE KENT ENDORSES GOP SENATE PRIMARY CHALLENGER AS TRUMP BACKS LINDSEY GRAHAM

Kent quit the counterterrorism government post earlier this year, citing his opposition to the Iran war.

In part of his resignation letter he asserted, "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby."

EX-COUNTERTERRORISM CHIEF WARNS OF 'MAJOR PROBLEM' THAT COULD FORCE US 'BACK INTO THE WAR ON IRAN'S TERMS'

In a portion of a Saturday post on X he wrote, "We restore order by ending the conflict on our terms: deprive Iran of military targets to strike by removing our troops, bases, & naval forces from the area. Our bases in the region are liabilities & relics of the past—abandoning them is not retreat, it’s strategic adaptation to modern warfare. This move removes Iran’s primary justification for disrupting shipping in the SOH and for attacking its neighbors. We can then offer the carrot: sanctions relief in exchange for freedom of navigation in the SOH."

The Islamic State is quietly rebuilding as the United States prepares to complete its withdrawal from Iraq, raising fears the terror group could exploit a security vacuum, a regional security expert warned Sunday.

With U.S. forces leaving by Sept. 30 and as Baghdad tries to rein in Iran-backed militias, Iraq could also be entering its most dangerous period since ISIS seized Mosul in 2014, according to counterterrorism expert Dr. Omar Mohammed.

"ISIS is waiting actively in the gaps, as it historically always has," Mohammed, author and researcher with the George Washington University Program on Extremism, told Fox News Digital.

US SERVICE MEMBER KILLED IN IRAQ AS TROOPS RECOVER UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS IN JORDAN: CENTCOM

"The question is not whether American forces leave Iraq in September; that timetable is set. The question is what leaves with them."

"The militias claim the ISIS threat in order to keep their weapons, while ISIS recruits from the grievances that the militias create," Mohammed explained.

"That is exactly the dynamic that hollowed out Mosul before 2014, when the city was caught between a sectarian security apparatus and the insurgency it fed."

After preparing for years, ISIS captured Mosul, about 250 miles north of Baghdad, over a decade ago. Iraqi security forces collapsed and fled the city.

The group built underground networks through assassinations, extortion, intimidation and infiltration before launching its offensive. ISIS seized U.S.-made weapons and hundreds of millions of dollars before leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the group's self-proclaimed caliphate.

At the time, Mohammed launched "Mosul Eye," a blog that secretly documented life under ISIS rule, exposing its operations and offering intelligence to U.S. forces.

TRUMP ADMIN WARNS IRAQ OVER IRAN TERROR PROXIES AS US REPORTEDLY BLOCKS CASH PAYMENTS

Mohammed’s story is chronicled in Mosul Eye: A Scholar's Clandestine War Against ISIS, out July 21 from Skyhorse Publishing, with a foreword by Pope Francis and an introduction by retired Gen. David Petraeus.

Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, went on to recapture Mosul in July 2017. When the U.S. combat mission ended in 2021, ISIS continued operating in parts of Iraq and Syria.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has said it will continue working to dismantle ISIS networks and prevent the terror group's resurgence.

But, citing Iraqi intelligence estimates, Mohammed said the number of ISIS fighters in neighboring Syria has increased from around 2,000 to as many as 10,000 since the collapse of Bashar Assad's government in 2024.

Mohammed also said the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, an umbrella organization integrated into Iraq's security forces, was never disbanded after ISIS's territorial defeat.

He estimated the force has about 238,000 members, receives billions of dollars in government funding and includes factions with close ties to Iran that operate outside the Iraqi government's direct control.

IRAN TARGETS US WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE CAMPAIGN TO MANIPULATE AMERICANS, EMBARRASS TRUMP: EXPERTS

Now Baghdad is trying to bring armed factions, including Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, under full state control.

"Sept. 30 is not one deadline; it is two," Mohammed said, referring to the simultaneous U.S. withdrawal and the domestic disarmament push.

"The militias and ISIS are not separate stories; they are deeply interdependent. Each actively justifies the other. Both forces thrive in the unstable spaces the central state cannot hold."

The U.S. withdrawal also follows a 2024 U.S.-Iraq agreement that envisioned ending the mission in Iraq by 2025 while continuing support for anti-ISIS operations in Syria through September 2026. Mohammed warned against repeating past complacency.

"Mosul did not fall in 2014 because ISIS was strong. It fell because everything that would have detected its strength—presence, attention, honest reporting from the ground—had been withdrawn in the years before, while the world's eyes were elsewhere."

I'VE STUDIED MILITARY STRATEGY. TRUMP NOW FACES IRAN'S OLDEST BATTLEFIELD TRICK

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s White House meeting July 14, where it was announced remaining U.S. troops would leave Iraq, drew condemnation from Tehran.

According to Iran International, Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei , called al-Zaidi's trip "regrettable" and claimed it damaged Iraq's dignity.

Mohammed said Iran's influence inside Iraq is important to Tehran after U.S. strikes degraded parts of its proxy network.

"Iran's strategic calculation matters more now than at any point in a decade because Iraq is essentially what Iran has left," Mohammed said. "So the regime's real fear is not resurgence. It is irrelevance."

Tehran fears an Iraq where the government successfully disarms the militias, U.S. forces leave on Baghdad's terms rather than Iran's, and no active security crisis remains to justify armed groups operating outside full state control, he said.

"That said, what happens across the wider region after September will not be decided by anyone's stated intentions or diplomatic promises," Mohammed added.

"I have seen what a city pays when that judgment is wrong. Whether ISIS grows large enough to frighten Iran, or stays just large enough to serve it, will be one of the defining questions of the year after the withdrawal," he warned.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

Tehran has spent decades preparing for — and welcoming — a U.S. ground invasion, a senior Iranian official has claimed, as fresh explosions rocked the region on the eighth day of renewed U.S.-Iran strikes.

Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian American academic identified as a regime "mouthpiece," also boasted that Tehran had just launched a "new missile" while decentralizing and burying its arsenal deep underground to withstand sustained American air campaigns.

"The Americans are planning an invasion. I'm not saying it will necessarily happen. I'm not saying it will necessarily happen in the next few days. But they have plans for an invasion," Marandi, a former advisor to Iran's nuclear negotiation team, said in an interview with political analyst Glenn Diesen.

I'VE STUDIED MILITARY STRATEGY. TRUMP NOW FACES IRAN'S OLDEST BATTLEFIELD TRICK

"Whether they carry them out or not, we'll see. But the Iranians, as you pointed out, the focus of Iranian strikes is on Bahrain and Kuwait, and that's because that's where most American assets have been placed for a ground invasion," Diesen said.

Marandi’s comments came as the conflict expanded across western and southern Iran in the run-up to Saturday.

Iran also launched missile and drone salvos targeting U.S.-linked facilities in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Jordanian officials confirmed they intercepted 10 missiles early Saturday, while authorities in Kuwait reported casualties and severe damage to a domestic power and desalination plant.

In response, U.S. airstrikes struck bridges, a key road tunnel, surveillance outposts and reinforced underground weapons storage facilities.

Multiple explosions also rocked the city of Khorramabad in Iran's Lorestan province. Iranian state media claimed the blasts were caused by U.S. missiles launched from regional bases in Kuwait, according to reports.

TRUMP SAYS IRAN'S MISSILES 'AREN'T THE PROBLEM' AFTER WHITE HOUSE MADE THEM CENTRAL TO WAR RATIONALE

Khorramabad houses the Imam Ali Missile Base, one of Tehran's primary underground silo facilities engineered to store and deploy liquid-fueled Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missiles, according to Washington’s Nuclear Threat Initiative.

The complex was damaged by Israeli airstrikes during the 2025 campaign targeting Tehran's military and nuclear infrastructure.

Marandi also detailed what he described as a resilient, subterranean network central to Tehran's military strategy.

"When Iran wants to fire missiles or drones, they don't put them inside buildings or in piles somewhere. They take out whatever they need," Marandi said. "They fire them, and then they go back to their bases, or they take out different missiles and drones, spread them out in different areas, put them apart from one another so that the Americans cannot bomb them in large numbers."

He added: "Everything has been spread out in Iran and placed underground."

The latest escalation between the U.S. and Iran ended a recently signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a 60-day ceasefire and facilitate nuclear talks.

The key issue has centered on control of the Strait of Hormuz, with the strategic waterway turning into the conflict's main battleground.

TRUMP'S 60-DAY IRAN DEAL REACHES HALFWAY MARK AS CEASEFIRE COLLAPSES INTO ESCALATING WAR

President Donald Trump ordered renewed airstrikes within weeks of the truce, or MOU, being implemented, and on July 14, he floated the possibility of launching a ground campaign.

According to Marandi, Iran's military command is actively counting on a ground scenario and has since introduced a new weapon to the theater.

"Iran has that advantage, and of course, it has been accumulating missiles and drones for decades now, and it is doing so even now," Marandi claimed.

"They, I think, last night introduced a new missile to the war," he said of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG).

"The Iranians are hitting very hard, and they are prepared for a land war. They've been preparing for decades."

Marandi concluded by claiming that Tehran views a U.S. ground operation as the most direct path to ending the conflict on its own terms.

"The Iranians — we discussed this during the 40-day war before on your show — when I said that the Iranians actually want the Americans to carry out a land invasion, and the same is true now, because they felt that if there was a land invasion, they would win," he told Diesen.

A U.S. service member was killed Saturday during an operation involving explosive remnants from a downed Iranian drone in northern Iraq, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Sunday. 

A second U.S. service member was also wounded in the incident, officials said. 

The announcement came as CENTCOM confirmed unidentified remains were found Sunday during the search for a U.S. service member reported missing in Jordan following a separate Iranian attack on Friday. 

TWO US SERVICE MEMBERS KILLED IN IRANIAN STRIKES ON JORDAN, CENTCOM SAYS

According to officials, the incident in Iraq happened after U.S. forces recovered a downed Iranian drone and began handling the explosive material left behind. 

"A U.S. service member in northern Iraq was killed in action July 18 during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone," CENTCOM wrote in a post on X. 

LEAKED IRAN REPORT FINDS RECORD PUBLIC ANGER AS REGIME FOCUSES ON HOLDING POWER

The military did not immediately release further details about the incident, but said the other service member injured in the operation is receiving medical treatment. 

In Jordan, officials said the unidentified remains recovered Sunday will also undergo an examination to determine their identity. 

"After a thorough search, U.S. military personnel found unidentified remains at the location earlier today," CENTCOM said. "An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing."

Friday's Iranian attack on a U.S. base in Jordan killed two U.S. service members, CENTCOM previously said. 

Four American service members were also medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals, officials said. They have since been discharged. 

"CENTCOM is withholding additional information, including the identities of the missing and fallen warriors, out of respect for the families during the notification process," the agency said. 

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office is accusing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of attacking the Jewish state to distract from his record in New York after calling Netanyahu a "war criminal."

The prime minister's office fired back Sunday after the Democratic mayor said his administration was exploring whether it could arrest the Israeli leader during an expected visit to the city under the International Criminal Court's warrant.

"The ICC is a kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis," Netanyahu's office wrote in an X post Sunday, amid recent reports he is nearing a trip to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump.

POTENTIAL 2028 DEM CONTENDER UNLOADS ON NETANYAHU, ADMITS US-ISRAEL TIES AT 'CROSSROADS'

"Its bogus arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu was issued by a disgraced former ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, a few days before allegations of sexual misconduct against him became public," Netanyahu's office said. "It was a clear attempt by Khan to divert public attention and seek protection from scrutiny."

Mamdani is following the same playbook, the office added.

"Instead of backing Khan's criminal behaviour, Mr. Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York," the post concluded. "Like Karim Khan, Mamdani appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East."

MAMDANI SPARKS FIERCE BACKLASH FOR WORLD CUP STUNT 'PALLING AROUND' WITH RIKERS ISLAND CONVICTS

Israel vowed to ignore the ICC warrant while it roots Hamas, "a genocidal terrorist organization ," out of Gaza.

"Under Prime Minister Netanyahu's leadership, Israel has taken unprecedented wartime measures to minimize harm to civilians while confronting Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that uses Palestinians as human shields and deliberately targets innocent Israeli civilians," the office's post read.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News' "Fox & Friends Weekend" earlier Sunday that Mamdani is ostensibly hyperbolizing for "political theater."

"This is a communist, antisemitic mayor trying to make news for his own audience," Pompeo said. "There's nothing more than that. This is no chance he's going to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu when he comes to New York in September for the U.N. General Assembly.

"It's just simply not going to happen, and he knows it."

Even some Democrats have rejected Mamdani's stance, warning it could embolden terrorists at home and abroad.

"This isn’t a college protest," former Democrat Mayor Eric Adams wrote on X. "This is the City of New York."

"Threatening to arrest the democratically elected leader of one of America’s closest allies during U.N. General Assembly week isn’t bold. It’s reckless," Adams continued. "American diplomats, service members, and officials are stationed in dangerous places around the world. Irresponsible rhetoric like this doesn’t stay in New York. It can put Americans at greater risk abroad. Leadership means understanding that your words have consequences. Reckless political theater can have very real-world costs."

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has long broken with Democrats on becoming the "anti-Israel party," telling the "clown" Mamdani to "sit down."

"It's such a tough guy to say that kind of thing," Fetterman told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures." "He has no way to do that, of course. Obviously, America is not even part of that corrupt court. And so he's just a clown to even say that. So he won't try that. Just sit down and focus on other the problems that they have in New York. That's really not your purview. You and I know that. Sit down."

A powerful earthquake ripped through Peru's Andes region overnight, killing at least five people and leaving hundreds displaced as homes and a church collapsed, with authorities warning Sunday that an unknown number of people remain missing.

The magnitude 5.5 quake struck shortly after 9:20 p.m. Saturday near the city of Sicaya in central Peru, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake injured more than 20 people and forced at least 300 residents from their homes, Peru's National Civil Defense Institute said.

Officials were still trying to account for missing residents Sunday after several buildings collapsed or were left unsafe, including a local church and convent.

SECURITY GUARD SURVIVES EIGHT DAYS BENEATH COLLAPSED SHOPPING CENTER AFTER VENEZUELA EARTHQUAKES

Authorities said the region's widespread use of traditional adobe construction likely made the damage worse. Luis Vásquez, head of the local civil defense office, said the rustic building materials "contributed to the greater impact and damage."

Images from the hard-hit farming community of Chongo Bajo showed families wrapped in blankets outside damaged homes as neighbors picked through the rubble. Animals could also be seen trapped beneath collapsed buildings.

BOY, 2, PULLED ALIVE FROM RUBBLE SIX DAYS AFTER VENEZUELA'S DEVASTATING TWIN EARTHQUAKES

"My home has been destroyed," resident Hermenegilda Guamalato told local radio while looking for shelter with her three children in the neighboring province of Huayucachi.

Peru sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," one of the world's most active earthquake zones. In 2007, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck the coastal province of Pisco, killing nearly 600 people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

UNITED NATIONS — The Trump administration says it has secured more than $1 billion in cuts to United Nations budgets in just six months, calling the reductions evidence that an institution long considered resistant to change is finally beginning to reform.

The latest milestone came June 30, when all 193 U.N. member states approved a peacekeeping budget of approximately $5.1 billion for the coming fiscal year — about $550 million, or 9.7%, less than the previous year.

Combined with a 15% reduction to the U.N.'s regular budget approved in December, U.S. officials say the agreements amount to more than $1 billion in cuts to assessed U.N. budgets, a level they describe as unprecedented.

INTERNATIONAL ‘DEEP STATE’ PRIME TARGET OF TRUMP-STYLE CANDIDATE FOR UN CHIEF

Assessed budgets are funded through mandatory contributions charged to member states under a formula based largely on the size of their economies.

"On June 30th, with U.S. leadership, all 193 countries came together again for the second time in six months," U.S. Ambassador for U.N. Management and Reform Jeff Bartos told Fox News Digital. "We've achieved over a billion dollars of savings in six months, which is unprecedented. Any one cut would be unprecedented. The totality of the reforms is monumental."

The agreement comes as the United Nations faces mounting financial pressure and prepares for a leadership transition in 2027, with Secretary-General António Guterres set to leave office at the end of his second term. At the same time, the Trump administration has made reform a central pillar of its U.N. strategy, arguing the organization has become overly bureaucratic and inefficient.

In response to questions from Fox News Digital, U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric confirmed that the peacekeeping budget was reduced by roughly $550 million and the regular budget by 15%, describing both as "unprecedented reductions."

US URGES DONORS TO ABANDON UNRWA FUNDING AS UN DEFENDS AGENCY'S MISSION

Bartos argues the reforms reflect sustained pressure from the Trump administration and months of negotiations led by the U.S. Mission.

"The new budget, this reformed budget, the enhanced efficiency changes the culture of how the U.N. looks at peacekeeping," Bartos said. "Every dollar has to achieve impact on the ground."

He pointed to the U.N. Mission in South Sudan as an example, saying the United States worked to streamline the mission's mandate before reducing its budget accordingly.

Another reform highlighted by the administration changes how the U.N. handles unused budget credits.

Until now, U.N. financial rules required the organization to return unspent funds to member states even if those contributions had never actually been paid, a practice critics said worsened the organization's recurring liquidity crisis.

The General Assembly voted on June 30 to introduce, on a four-year trial basis, a new methodology under which unspent funds will be returned only when backed by cash actually received.

Bartos said the change could save the organization more than $1 billion over the next three years. That projected figure is separate from the more than $1 billion in budget reductions already approved over the past six months.

He called the change another example of "common-sense" reform and said it could save the organization more than $1 billion over the next three years.

The United Nations likewise welcomed the change, though officials noted it had been a longstanding priority of Secretary-General António Guterres.

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"I have been pushing for this reform for almost a decade," Guterres said after the vote. He described the previous system as a "Kafkaesque cycle" in which the organization was expected "to give back cash that did not exist."

Dujarric said the reform would allow the U.N. to manage resources "in a more predictable and responsible way" while helping ensure operational continuity, particularly for peacekeeping missions.

Bartos insists the latest budget agreements are only the beginning.

Among the administration's next priorities are reforms to staff compensation, employee benefits and the U.N. pension system, areas he argues consume resources that could otherwise support humanitarian operations and peacekeeping missions.

"We're going to continue to see us push whether it's on benefits, whether it's on staff compensation, whether it's on the pension system," Bartos said. "There's massive numbers of additional reforms that our team is working on right now."

He also suggested reform will remain a central issue as member states begin selecting the next secretary-general.

"We're going to select the next secretary-general," Bartos said. "That reform momentum that has been growing over the last 15, 18 months ... you'll see that continuing in 2027 with the new secretary-general."

Since the beginning of the month, France and Spain have been hit by massive wildfires. Some observed the fires looked like a scene from Armageddon. The infernos destroyed buildings and forests alike, where the epic heat wave in Europe has hit record levels in many parts of the bloc. The heat has already led to thousands of deaths. However, the fires are not just due to the record heat.

Notably, last week, the famous Fontainebleau Forest near Paris was set alight, destroying 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of woodland. Approximately 1,000 people were evacuated, and 850 emergency firefighters were deployed — efforts to end the fire could take weeks.

The latest data from France's Ministry of Agriculture says nine out of 10 wildfires are caused by people. Often it's campfires, unextinguished cigarettes or similar negligence. That was exacerbated by the extreme heat this year in France and Spain, which in many cases turned scrub grassland into a tinderbox. It's also true that both countries have regulations that prohibit clearing of certain protected lands, according to information from each country. "Policies of nature restoration and building have made it hard in some cases to clear the brush that piles up," Daniel Lacalle, chief economist at Madrid-based investment company Tressis, told Fox News Digital.

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The causes of fires in the U.S. are quite similar to those in France. According to data from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) and the U.S. Forest Service, 85% of fires are caused by people. However, the total wildfire burns in the U.S. from lightning-caused fires tends to burn more acreage because they often strike in remote, hard-to-reach areas. 

France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said experts found 10 points around a little more than half of a mile radius that were used for ignition, according to a report by France Insider. It also found that pattern "suggests a voluntary origin," the minister reportedly said.

France 24 reported that dozens of people have been arrested across the nation for either accidentally or deliberately starting fires. On a visit to the Fontainebleau forest last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said the country "has never faced so many outbreaks of fire across the country since the end of World War II." He added, according to the France 24 report, "Here, as everywhere else in France, there will be zero tolerance" for arsonists, "because it is, of course, our national territory that is under attack every time a fire breaks out."

Meanwhile, Spain has been dealing with three separate wildfires, one of which has been stopped. A fire in Zaragoza destroyed 12,000 hectares (29,653 acres) and resulted in the evacuation of six separate villages. Fires in Madrid and Guadalajara impacted at least 2,000 people. "The speed of these fires is something that even the most experienced firefighters are saying they have never seen anything like this," Lacalle told Fox News Digital.

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A fire in the Spanish Andalusia region killed at least 13 people, including a 93-year-old woman who was injured in the fire at Los Gallardos.

Spain has vast areas of unused land with most of the population living in cities. "Some unused areas have not been cleaned up," Lacalle told Fox News Digital. "Because they have uncleared scrub land, there is a higher likelihood of a disastrous fire." That uncleared scrub that gets dried out by an extreme heat wave effectively creates a tinderbox that ignites quickly, even with a partially smoked cigarette.

Are there more wildfires happening across the globe than there used to be? Not necessarily. The volume of land burned declined 26% between 2002 and 2021, according to data from Global Wildfire Information System (2026). "It seems to be getting more attention," Gilbertie told Fox News Digital. "It’s also the manifestation of the increased weather volatility.

The number of people exposed to wildfires has grown by an average of 382,700 per year during the period from 2002 to 2021, an increase of 40%, according to a study by the University of East Anglia in England. The study says, "This surge in human exposure was driven mainly by population growth and migration into fire-prone landscapes." Over the same period, the amount of land burned decreased by 26%, according to the UEA study. 

Separately, the extreme heat across France over the last month has caused a high death rate. The Guardian reported that some 2,000 people died at the end of June. The heat wave is forecast to continue through August.

France is the epicenter of the excessive heat, which has resulted in many outdoor events being canceled, especially in the south of the country. "Europe is being hit by a unique situation," Hackett told Fox News Digital. "The extreme heat and dryness are mainly being driven by the warm surface in the Mediterranean Sea and the cold-water Atlantic." And that situation of warm dry weather will continue into August.

As smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to drift across parts of the United States, forestry experts say Canada could reduce the severity of some fires through more aggressive forest management.

The issue reached the White House Friday, with President Donald Trump accusing Canada of failing to properly manage its forests and threatening to factor the economic cost of the smoke into tariffs on Canadian imports.

"We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air," Trump wrote on Truth Social. He said he planned to call Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and accused Canada of refusing to engage in "basic Forest Management and Debris Removal," calling it "Willful Negligence."

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Andrew Hale, a Canadian fellow at Advancing American Freedom, argued that Canada’s wildfire policies have failed to prioritize forest management.

"Canada has a policy of not keeping reservoirs. They also will not cut firebreaks and will not thin their forests," Hale told Fox News Digital. "This is the result of the undue influence of environmental groups who are firmly politically motivated and have divorced themselves from science and good stewardship. Canada and the rest of North America is suffering as a result," he said.

Earlier this week, four Republican members of Michigan's congressional delegation — Reps. Jack Bergman, John James, Lisa McClain and John Moolenaar — sent a letter to Carney saying residents in their state were once again experiencing unhealthy air because of smoke drifting south from Canadian wildfires.

"We are done accepting apologies in place of action," the lawmakers wrote, accusing Canada of underinvesting in forest thinning, fuel reduction and prescribed burns while calling for measurable plans to reduce future wildfire smoke crossing the border.

The criticism comes as Canada's own Senate has reached a similar conclusion on one point: while it says climate change is making wildfire seasons longer and more severe, the country also needs to do substantially more to prepare its forests before fires ignite.

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The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry released a report in June titled Canada on Fire: The Catastrophic and Escalating Effects of Wildfires on Lives and Communities after holding 17 meetings, hearing testimony from 79 witnesses and receiving 23 written briefs from scientists, government officials, Indigenous leaders and industry experts.

The committee concluded that Canada's three most recent wildfire seasons demonstrated that climate change was accelerating fire behavior "beyond the capacity of existing systems." At the same time, it found that prevention efforts have not kept pace with the growing threat.

Much of the report focuses on what experts call "fuel management" — reducing the amount of dry grass, dead trees, fallen branches and other vegetation that allows small fires to become large, destructive wildfires.

"Several witnesses agreed that prescribed fire is the most important risk-reduction tool for helping to manage or slow wildfire on the landscape and restoring ecological integrity," the report said.

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One witness, Paul Hessburg, a professor at the University of Washington's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, said that climate change is making wildfire conditions worse but does not eliminate the value of proactive forest management.

"The punchline is, with climate change, these conditions will intensify with less snowpack, more fires, bigger fires, hotter fires," Hessburg told the committee. "The question is: Can we restore resilience? We can. We can bring back these elements and put the governors back into the landscape that historically regulated the flow of fire."

Jason Hayes, a senior research fellow in energy and environmental policy at the Heritage Foundation, said the practical solution is to spend more time managing forests before fires begin rather than relying primarily on emergency response after they start.

"The best thing to do is get out, space and thin, do prescribed burns and recognize that these are renewable resources," Hayes told Fox News Digital. "If we did that, then we would have much less intense wildfires."

Hayes acknowledged that carrying out those recommendations across Canada would be far more difficult than simply identifying them. He said many fires burn in remote areas of northern Ontario and other parts of Canada that are difficult to reach because they are far from roads and population centers.

"You have to fly in, and it's just difficult to do," Hayes said.

Witnesses to the Canadian Senate committee also warned that Canada faces practical challenges beyond forest management, including shortages of wildfire-management expertise and an aging fleet of firefighting aircraft. The report cited testimony that provincial fleets still include 22 older CL-215 aircraft and that at least 20 aircraft require immediate replacement.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Office of Prime Minister Mark Carney but did not receive a comment in time for publication. 

Britain’s incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham used his first speech as Labour leader Friday to condemn the economic model established in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher and promise greater public control of essential services, signaling a shift to the left from outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

Burnham, who will formally become prime minister Monday, said that Britain had taken "a series of wrong turns in the 1980s," when political power was centralized and economic power was transferred to private companies. He was unopposed to run as party leader, having been nominated by 379 Members of Parliament to lead it.

"The country surrendered control of the essentials — housing, water, energy, transport — and left people exposed to higher costs," Burnham said during the July 17 speech in London, according to a transcript of his remarks.

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He declared that four decades of neoliberal economic policy had "not been kind" to the working-class and industrial communities that traditionally supported Labour and described his ascent as the country’s most significant political turning point in 40 years.

"The government I lead will confidently lay that path out starting next week," Burnham said. "That is why this change today is the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years.

Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, said Burnham’s speech offered a clear ideological signal but little detail about how his government would carry it out. "With Burnham, there is a lot of light and heat, but not much actual substance," he added. "We are all still waiting to see what that substance might be."
 

Mendoza said, "If he thinks Britain has been on the wrong track for the last 40 years, what is the right track? Is it socialism of a past kind? Is it some form of statism? What does he actually intend to do?"

Burnham's speech offered the clearest indication yet that the former Greater Manchester mayor intends to move the party away from Starmer’s more cautious economic positioning and toward greater state ownership, expanded council and social housing, giving more power to regional government and increased state involvement in essential services.

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Burnham said Labour would no longer attempt to imitate the right and far-left parties. "We won’t try to out-Green the Greens or out-Reform Reform."

Although he did not explicitly advocate returning Britain to the 1970s or refer to the late Lady Thatcher by name, free-market critics portrayed his attack on her reforms as an effort to revive the state-dominated economic policies that preceded her government.

Britain experienced the Winter of Discontent in 1978-79, when millions of workers participated in widespread strikes over pay that disrupted daily life. The strikes left trash uncollected, reduced hospital services and affected public transportation. The unrest is widely seen as a major factor in the election of Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives in 1979 as voters turned against the unions and the Labour government of that time.

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The Adam Smith Institute responded to his speech by publishing a lengthy defense of the Thatcher era, highlighting reductions in income and corporate tax rates, privatizations, rising homeownership and fewer days lost to labor strikes.

"Since you mentioned the 1980s, Andy Burnham, here’s a reminder of what was achieved," the free-market think tank wrote before listing economic indicators it said improved during the period.

According to the free-market think tank, the top rate of income tax fell from 83% to 40%, the basic rate dropped from 33% to 25%, and corporation tax was reduced from 52% to 35%. It said inflation declined from a peak of 21.9% in 1980 to 2.4% in 1986, while the number of working days lost to strikes fell from 29.5 million in 1979 to 1.9 million in 1990. The institute also said homeownership rose from 55% to 67%, the number of individual shareholders increased from 3 million to 11 million, and national debt fell from 47% of gross domestic product to 28%.

Emma Schubart, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society who previously worked at the Adam Smith Institute, told Fox News Digital that Burnham’s speech demonstrated what she described as a fundamental misunderstanding of taxation and economic incentives.

"The biggest takeaway is that he comes across as pretty economically illiterate," Schubart said in an interview Friday. She called Burnham’s "demonization" of Thatcher polices "strange and needless."

Schubart argued that Burnham’s message was internally contradictory because he presented his leadership as a national renewal while proposing to dismantle reforms associated with the 1980s.

"He keeps saying he’s bringing a renewal to the U.K. and a new chapter," she said. "But then he also says, ‘We’re going to go back to the ’70s.’ You have to pick one."

Burnham nevertheless insisted he would be a "pro-business leader," while calling for greater public control of essential services, new powers for regional governments and closer cooperation with private businesses.

The ideological shift presents an immediate political gamble. Burnham must unite Labour’s competing factions, reassure financial markets and respond to Reform UK’s growing challenge — all while taking office without winning a national election. 

Mendoza warned that Burnham’s effort to appeal to the left could complicate relations with the Trump administration. "The government could most definitely clash with the United States under Burnham’s vision, because the voters he is trying to bring back into his tent include many of those who are deeply hostile to America.

"If he adopts U.S.-friendly policies, he risks alienating the voting coalition he is trying to create," he continued. "But if he decides to pick fights with the United States, he risks damaging British national security and the alliance with America, which matters far more to the country than any electoral coalition."

Burnham is expected to be sworn in as prime minister on Monday by King Charles III.

A confidential report prepared for Iran’s presidency is raising a consequential question for Washington and its allies: Do extraordinary levels of public anger and support for systemic change justify reassessing whether the Islamic Republic may be more vulnerable to regime change than previously believed?

The classified document, titled "What Iran Wants," reportedly found that only 9% of respondents supported maintaining the status quo, with 53% calling for fundamental or structural reforms and more than 19% favoring changing the political system outright.

Taken together, nearly three-quarters of those surveyed reportedly supported either deep structural reform or replacement of the existing system — findings that could strengthen arguments that Iran’s political crisis has moved beyond dissatisfaction with individual leaders or policies.

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IranWire reported on July 13 that it had obtained the document, which was compiled by Ali Rabiei, President Masoud Pezeshkian’s social adviser and a former government spokesman. It was based on polling conducted by the Ara Opinion Research Center in May 2026 and circulated among institutions within Iran’s governing structure in June, according to the outlet.

Miad Maleki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that the report should prompt a fresh assessment of the potential for political upheaval inside Iran.

"If anything, this research understates the depth of Iranians’ rage," Maleki said. "And that is what makes it remarkable: even a survey prepared for the regime’s own president, by its own pollsters, records anger levels above 63%, well beyond the highest rate Gallup has ever recorded anywhere in the world, alongside 81% struggling to put food on the table and a majority expressing hopelessness."

Maleki cautioned that polling conducted under an authoritarian government cannot be treated as precise because respondents may fear the consequences of expressing opposition.

"In a police state where expressing the wrong opinion can cost you your job, your freedom, or your life, respondents self-censor, which means these findings are best read as a floor, not a ceiling," he said.

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The complete survey methodology was not included in the material obtained by IranWire. The report reportedly did not disclose how respondents were selected, who was questioned or whether the sample reflected Iran’s geographic and demographic makeup.

Its findings therefore cannot be independently verified or treated as definitive measurements of Iranian opinion. The report also cannot establish that dissatisfaction will translate into an organized movement capable of removing the government.

Still, its findings portray multiple pressures converging at once.

Approximately 64% of respondents reported persistent anger, up roughly 12% points from a previous government survey conducted in December 2025. Half reported hopelessness, approximately 48% reported sadness or depression and about 45% reported persistent fear or anxiety, according to IranWire.

Economic distress also appears central to the public anger.

More than 81% experienced severe or partial difficulty obtaining enough food, while 75% struggled to cover medical costs, IranWire reported. Fifty-four percent said their income did not cover current household expenses, and only 8% reported earning enough to save.

Respondents blamed domestic governance more frequently than international pressure. 46.9% cited government inefficiency as the cause of Iran’s economic problems, 26.3% blamed corruption and 20.7% cited foreign sanctions.

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That finding could be especially significant to the regime-change debate because it suggests many Iranians do not primarily blame outside powers for their deteriorating living conditions.

The document also points to a crisis of institutional confidence. Roughly 60% reportedly distrusted major government institutions, while 61.2% negatively assessed officials’ ability to solve Iran’s problems. Distrust of the government, parliament, judiciary and state television remained above 50%, IranWire reported.

The report’s recommendations, however, reportedly centered on managing dissatisfaction rather than addressing demands for systemic change.

Rabiei urged state institutions to better explain the impact of sanctions, moderate the rhetoric used by officials and religious platforms, present a more inclusive image through state television and avoid policies that place the government in direct confrontation with society.

IranWire’s follow-up analysis argued that the recommendations treated Iran’s crisis primarily as a communications and public-perception problem. The report offered few concrete proposals involving institutional accountability, political liberalization or fundamental economic reform, according to the outlet.

Maleki said the findings were consistent with the expanding scale of unrest, citing demonstrations that spread from more than 80 cities in 2017 to more than 200 cities across all 31 provinces this year, alongside what he described as a quadrupling of strikes.

"Iranians have moved from being skeptical of what another revolution might bring to concluding there is no alternative to one, because reform has proven impossible," Maleki said.

Yet the report does not resolve one of the largest obstacles to regime change: The Islamic Republic has spent decades building institutions designed to monitor, deter and violently suppress organized opposition.

"This regime was born of revolution, by revolutionaries," Maleki said. "Preventing and crushing the next one is the one thing they genuinely know how to do."

He nevertheless argued that further unrest was inevitable.

"So the discontent will translate into renewed protest," Maleki said. "The question is not if, but when, and whether anyone is prepared to stand with the Iranian people when it does."

Japan’s Parliament voted Friday to enshrine male-only succession for the imperial throne, part of a monarchy that traces its origins back roughly 1,500 years.

Lawmakers did so by revising an Imperial House Law dating back to the 1800s, despite warnings from experts that limiting succession to men in the paternal line will hasten the decline of Japan’s shrinking and aging imperial family, according to the Associated Press.

To address the dwindling number of eligible heirs, the revisions allow distant male relatives to be adopted into the imperial family to father future successors. However, strict rules remain in place limiting the throne to men with royal blood. The changes also allow princesses to retain their royal status after marrying commoners.

The new rules passed by Parliament come as many Japanese had been calling for Princess Aiko, Emperor Naruhito’s 24-year-old daughter, to be allowed to succeed him — now an impossibility.

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"The emperor is a symbolic figure, and I don’t see why women cannot serve in the role," Junichiro Tsujimaru, a 78-year-old sushi chain founder, told the AP.

Under current law, the 66-year-old emperor's younger brother is next in line. After that, his 19-year-old nephew, Prince Hisahito, will inherit the throne, and then the emperor's 90-year-old uncle.

Hisahito is the only boy to be born in four decades, and only five of the 16 adults in the imperial family are men.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and other conservatives say the male bloodline is the source of the emperor's authority and legitimacy.

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"It’s a declaration to prevent female monarchs … and to defend the male-lineage at all costs," Hideya Kawanishi, a Nagoya University expert on monarchy, told the AP. "They cannot say it’s male chauvinism, so they call it tradition."

Chizuko Ueno, a prominent feminist and sociologist, recently suggested it was ironic that Japan's first female prime minister was the one to ensure male-only succession.

Ueno said the new rules "treat male royals as stallions and put female royals under pressure as ‘childbearing machines’ to produce male offspring."

Japan has had eight empresses descended from the male line in its centuries-long history as a hereditary monarchy. The last woman to reign was Empress Go-Sakuramachi, who sat on the throne from 1762 until 1771, when she abdicated in favor of her nephew.

Female eligibility for the throne was first eliminated in 1890 under the original Imperial House Law.

That change was carried over into the modern Imperial House Law, enacted in 1947, the same year Japan’s new constitution stripped the emperor of governing authority after the country’s defeat in World War II.

Like Britain’s royal family, Japan’s imperial family remains an important national symbol.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

UNITED NATIONS — The Democratic Republic of Congo does not view growing American involvement in its critical minerals industry as a contest with China, the country’s foreign minister told Fox News Digital, arguing that Kinshasa needs multiple partners to transform its vast natural wealth into prosperity for its people.

"I don’t like talking about competition. I like talking about complementarity," Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said in an exclusive interview at the United Nations.

"A country as big as the USA, but also a country as big as the DRC and as big as China, they do not develop just with one single partner," she added. "They develop with different partnerships that respond to different needs and that bring different expertise to the table."

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The comments come as the Trump administration seeks to increase American access to Congo’s copper, cobalt, lithium, gold and other strategic resources, while reducing U.S. reliance on mineral supply chains dominated by China.

A strategic partnership signed by Washington and Kinshasa Dec. 4, 2025, calls for increased economic cooperation, investment and the development of secure and transparent critical-mineral supply chains. The agreement accompanied a broader regional framework linking economic integration to efforts to end decades of conflict between Congo and Rwanda.

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A separate arrangement involving DR Congo’s state mining company Gécamines and commodities trader Mercuria could give U.S. buyers priority access to some copper and cobalt supplies, Reuters reported Dec. 5, 2025. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation also expressed interest in taking a strategic stake in the partnership.

Kayikwamba Wagner said relations between the U.S. and DR Congo were taking "a more concrete shape" based on mutual economic interests.

She said Kinshasa welcomed "more U.S. interests in the DRC" that could help the country turn its mineral wealth into "tangible transformations for the lives of Congolese," while also delivering benefits to American partners.

Speaking separately at a high-level U.N. meeting on critical minerals Tuesday, Kayikwamba Wagner warned that the global shift toward clean energy must not reproduce an economic model in which raw materials leave Africa while processing, technology and most of the profits remain elsewhere.

"The global energy transition must not become another extractive transition," she said. "If it merely replaces one form of dependency with another, it will have fallen short of its promise."

She called for foreign partnerships to support local processing, infrastructure, technology transfers, research, industrialization and access to financing — not simply secure supplies of raw materials.

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The minerals push is closely connected to the U.S.-mediated peace process between the DRC and Rwanda. The countries initially signed a peace agreement in Washington June 27, 2025, before presidents Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame reaffirmed the deal and signed related economic agreements on Dec. 4. The framework was intended both to reduce fighting and attract Western investment to a region rich in cobalt, copper, tantalum and other minerals.

Kayikwamba Wagner acknowledged that the agreement had not ended the violence but said Washington’s willingness to impose consequences for violations showed that the process remained meaningful.

"This is a 30-year conflict we’re dealing with," she said. "It’s not going to happen overnight."

She praised the administration for sanctioning the Rwanda Defense Force and senior Rwandan officials over what the Treasury Department described as their support for the M23 rebel group. Treasury said in March that the RDF had supported, trained and fought alongside M23 as it seized territory and strategic mining locations in eastern Congo. Rwanda has repeatedly denied supporting M23.

"I find it encouraging to see that we have with us a partner that is not willing to give up at the first obstacle," Kayikwamba Wagner said.

She was in New York as the DRC, which holds the Security Council presidency for July, elevated the connection between natural resources, armed conflict and sexual violence.

Kayikwamba Wagner said rape and other forms of conflict-related sexual violence had risen sharply in areas held by M23 and Rwandan forces, affecting women and girls as well as men and boys.

Victims in occupied areas, she said, often lack access to courts, healthcare or other avenues for redress.

"This is also one of the reasons why we continue to be mobilized against this illegal occupation of eastern DRC," she said, arguing that restoring state authority was essential to providing survivors with justice and medical care.

In her U.N. remarks, she cited the Rubaya mining area, which is under M23 control and supplies a significant share of global tantalum demand. She said U.N. experts estimated that at least 1,400 tons of coltan were smuggled into Rwanda during the first year after the mines were seized, generating approximately $800,000 per month for the armed group.

The Treasury Department imposed additional sanctions on June 25 against a network it accused of working with M23 to smuggle minerals from eastern Congo into Rwanda, saying the action was intended to support the Washington peace framework and improve transparency in regional mineral supply chains.

Iran has reportedly instructed Yemen’s Houthi terrorists to prepare to close a critical Red Sea gateway if the United States attacks Iranian power infrastructure, Reuters reported, a threat experts warn could sharply disrupt global shipping even if the group cannot completely seal the waterway.

"This threat should be taken seriously," Nadwa Al-Dawsari of the Middle East Institute told Fox News Digital. "With recent escalation and U.S. strikes on Iran, Tehran has already signaled that the Bab al-Mandab could become part of its response."

Three sources told Reuters on Thursday that Iran’s leadership had discussed using the Houthis to shut the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and recently conveyed the request to the group. A source close to the Houthis said missiles and drones had been deployed near the waterway and that the group was awaiting an order to begin attacking shipping.

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Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British ambassador to Yemen and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned in a recent Fox News Digital report that a full resumption of the Houthi maritime campaign could trigger wider fighting.

"It will be interesting if the Houthis do go all in, and resume their campaign against Red Sea shipping with full intensity," Fitton-Brown said. "This will draw international anger and likely result in Israeli and U.S. strikes on Sana’a and Hodeida."

"There is potential for a general escalation if this happens, albeit one in which the allies have a clear military advantage," he added. 

Al-Dawsari said the Houthis have continued developing the weapons needed to threaten the narrow shipping corridor despite largely refraining from maritime attacks over the past year.

"While the Houthis have largely refrained from attacking shipping for about a year, they have continued to advance their maritime capabilities, including missiles, drones and sea mines," she said. "They may not be able to fully close the strait, but they could significantly disrupt shipping and raise costs and risks for commercial traffic."

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But the group would not necessarily need to physically control the waterway. Its previous missile and drone campaign demonstrated that repeated attacks — or even a credible threat of them — can push major shipping companies to reroute vessels around Africa, driving up insurance, fuel and freight costs.

The Bab el-Mandeb connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, making it one of the world’s most important maritime choke points. The consequences of renewed attacks would be especially severe because Iran has already disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, historically the principal route for roughly one-fifth of global energy supplies.

A substantial volume of Gulf oil has consequently been redirected through Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Reuters reported that the Bab el-Mandeb route now carries approximately 7% of global energy supplies and that Saudi Arabia has shifted about 70% of its energy exports through Yanbu.

The reported instructions also raise new questions about how much control Tehran exercises over major Houthi military decisions. 

"Any decision to escalate in the Bab al-Mandab would be strategic and tied more to the interests of Iran and the Axis of Resistance than to Houthi interests alone," Al-Dawsari said. "Decisions of this magnitude are likely coordinated through the Axis’ joint operations room under IRGC oversight."

A source close to the Houthis claimed representatives of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Yemen would control the timing of any move against the strait, Reuters reported.

The latest warning follows earlier Houthi threats against maritime traffic. In the June 12 report, Fox News Digital reported that the group had announced a complete ban on Israeli-owned ships in the Red Sea and declared them "legitimate targets."

EXPERT WARNS OF 'GENERAL ESCALATION' OF FIGHTING IF HOUTHIS RESUME RED SEA CAMPAIGN

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital at the time that the actions of Iran and the Houthis were "unacceptable" and "dangerous," warning that they could inflame regional tensions and further disrupt global supply chains.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has "repeatedly condemned" Houthis attacks against ships in the Red Sea and called on all parties Thursday to avoid further escalation, his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told Fox News Digital.

"Any disruptions or attacks would endanger the safety and security of seafarers, freedom of navigation and the stability of global supply chains and have a negative impact on the economic and humanitarian situation in Yemen and beyond," Dujarric said. "The Secretary-General underscores that U.N. Security Council Resolution 2722 (2024) must be fully respected in its entirety," he said on the resolution condemning at least two dozen Houthis attacks on commercial vessels since November 2023 and demanding an immediate end to the attacks. 

The emerging threat has also renewed scrutiny of the Iranian weapons networks that helped build the Houthis’ missile and drone arsenal.

Amr Al-Bidh, foreign affairs chief of the Southern Arabian Transitional Council, said that the reported threat also exposed broader failures in the handling of Yemen’s security crisis. "The fact that individuals convicted of trafficking Iranian weapons to the Houthis and leading terrorist operations are now being released under a U.N.-brokered deal only underscores how poorly the Yemen crisis is being managed," he said, "the main beneficiary of this vacuum is Iran, as seen in its credible threat to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait."

In a July 15 letter obtained by Fox News Digital, the Southern Arabian Transitional Council formerly known as the Southern Transitional Council, a southern Yemeni separatist movement that seeks greater autonomy or independence for the territory of the former South Yemen, warned U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg that a U.N.-facilitated detainee agreement may include people the council says were convicted of assisting Iranian weapons transfers to the Houthis.

An annex identifies individuals the council alleges were members of a cell that smuggled drones, aviation fuel and heavy and medium weapons from Iran to Sanaa.

The Office of the U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen said it received the letter only after the agreement had already been signed and stressed that it does not determine which detainees are released.

"We have received the letter after the agreement was signed," spokesperson Ismini Palla told Fox News Digital. "The United Nations – as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – do not decide who is released and who remains in detention. Our role is limited to mediating the negotiations and ICRC leads on the implementation of the release operation."

Palla added that "the names of those released are proposed and agreed between the parties under the framework of the Stockholm Agreement on prisoners’ exchange of 2018."

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations on the latest developments.

Fox News' Paul Tilsley and Reuters contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Many African economies are accelerating – booming – since the Trump Administration shifted policy focus from aid to trade, a senior State Department official told Fox News Digital.

In some African countries, doom was forecast when the Trump administration severely cut back USAID funding, but instead there’s been unprecedented economic growth, credited to the Commercial Diplomacy Strategy, introduced at the beginning of President Trump’s second term.

Now, "nine of the 20 fastest-growing economies (in the world) are in Africa," Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs Frank Garcia told Fox News Digital.

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Garcia added, "African economies are responding positively to the shift from aid to trade. In 2025, U.S. exports to sub-Saharan Africa increased by 23% to $22.6 billion. And continue to grow this year."

When the Administration cut USAID by 83% early last year, "The predictions were catastrophic: economies heavily dependent on foreign donors—from Ethiopia to South Sudan and Malawi — were expected to collapse. Instead, something quite different happened," Anna Mahjar-Barducci, Project Director at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), told Fox News Digital.

"The African continent proved far more resilient than expected, citing Ethiopia, which revised its 2026 growth forecasts upward despite the funding cuts," Mahjar-Barducci continued. "According to projections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow between 4.3% and 4.6% in 2026, outpacing Asia as a whole, whose growth is forecast at around 4.1%. Growth is propelled by massive hydroelectric investments, construction, mining and expanding coffee exports."

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"This is no minor detail," she continued. "For decades, we were told that without international aid Africa would collapse. Now that aid is genuinely drying up, much of the continent is not only avoiding collapse —i t is accelerating. This is precisely the argument that a long-standing school of African economic thought, now more relevant than ever, has advanced for years: aid is not the solution. In many cases, it is part of the problem."

Assistant Secretary Garcia explained how the strategy works:" We see this economic acceleration in Africa. In order to best capitalize on it, the United States is focused on driving private investment, sustainable growth in terms of partnership and treating African nations not as aid recipients, but as capable commercial partners."

He added "Our embassies (in Africa) work directly with the private sector to identify the policies, laws, and regulations constraining U.S. trade and investment. We then work with partner governments to develop practical reforms, identify the officials responsible for implementing them and determine where technical assistance may support implementation."

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It's a strategy that appears to be working, with Garcia adding, "The Bureau of African Affairs has worked on 37 commercial transactions that have closed since the beginning of the (current) Trump Administration, representing $25.67 billion in total value, with more still being reported. Embassies across the continent are actively working to close hundreds more. Top sectors include Energy 24%, ICT 19%, Critical Minerals and Mining 11%, Aerospace 8%, Agriculture 8%, Infrastructure 8%."

Mahjar-Barducci criticized the way USAID worked, telling Fox News Digital," When aid flows to governments rather than markets, it tends to finance projects designed in Brussels, Rome, or Washington which are not responding to the actual needs of local economies. Poverty cannot be overcome by treating people as permanent recipients of charity. Poverty can be reduced by recognizing people as entrepreneurs, workers and economic partners capable of building their own prosperity."

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Trade, rather than aid works, Mahjar-Barducci claimed. "The Trump administration's more transactional approach to aid — access to critical minerals, or to citizens' health data, in exchange for funding — should not be dismissed as merely cynical. Unconditional transfers have long been the deeper flaw in the traditional aid model: money with no strings attached removes any incentive for a recipient government to reform and often entrenches the same officials responsible for the underlying poverty."

Enter the America First Global Health Strategy. A senior State Department official told Fox News Digital this week that the administration "has signed 34 bilateral global health Memoranda of Understanding(MOU) representing more than $24 billion in new health funding, including more than $14.3 billion in U.S. assistance, alongside more than $9.6 billion in co-investment from recipient countries."

"24 of these MOUs were signed with sub-Saharan African countries," the official continued. "These new bilateral MOUs are designed to continue life-saving care, build resilient healthcare systems, reduce dependency on American taxpayers and strengthen country ownership."

The administration has also decided to cut funding for a U.S. anti-AIDS program known as PEPFAR. Africa has been hit hard by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. UNAIDS, the United Nations program that deals with the virus, reports that South Africa has the highest infection rate in the world. 

But the State Department official Fox News Digital spoke with says South Africa must take some of the blame for cutting help to its own people. "The United States has decided to initiate a phased drawdown of PEPFAR programming in South Africa, following South Africa’s failure to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration. The United States communicated to [the] South African government multiple times at many levels that PEPFAR funding would be terminated if they failed to address President Trump’s concerns."

"PEPFAR was never intended to be permanent," the official added. "Its success is measured by countries' ability to sustain and build upon these gains. South Africa is a middle-income country and is more than capable of supporting its own health programs."

Fox News Digital reached out to the South African government, but received no response.

President Donald Trump said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to reach an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, even as Moscow warned Wednesday that Western troops deployed to enforce any eventual peace deal would become Russian military targets.

"I say, ‘Vladimir, it’s time for you to stop. It’s time for this war to end,’" Trump told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst in an interview released Tuesday. 

Trump said he believed Putin was "ready to make a deal" to end the fighting.

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Meanwhile, fighting continued across Ukraine and Russian-occupied territory. 

The intensifying drone war has forced both militaries to search for additional ways to intercept unmanned aircraft, sometimes using weapons designed decades before modern drones emerged.

A video supplied by East2West shows a Russian soldier apparently losing control of a Soviet-era YakB-12.7 rotary machine gun mounted on an improvised ground platform.

The weapon begins spinning violently, dragging the service member around before throwing him several yards from the mounting. Another soldier ducks as the gun swings in his direction. 

East2West reported that no one was injured, though Fox News Digital has not independently verified the location, date or circumstances of the footage.

The four-barrel machine gun was originally developed for use aboard the Soviet-designed Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter. Russian forces have reportedly attempted to repurpose such weapons as ground-based defenses against Ukrainian drones, East2West news reported.

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On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said any multinational force deployed by Ukraine’s allies after a ceasefire would be unacceptable to Moscow.

"We would regard such units as legitimate military targets," Zakharova said, according to a Reuters report published Wednesday.

Members of the Western "coalition of the willing" reaffirmed at a meeting in Paris this week that they intend to deploy a multinational force after hostilities end. The proposed force would seek to reassure Ukraine and help Kyiv rebuild its military.

Ukraine’s military said Wednesday that its forces struck the Balaklava thermal power station in Russian-occupied Crimea, a facility that accounts for nearly half of the peninsula’s electricity generation, according to Reuters. 

Russia, meanwhile, launched another major drone and missile attack against Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, killing three people, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said. He said civilian, industrial and port infrastructure had been targeted during five consecutive days of Russian attacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said Wednesday that Ukraine expects to develop the technical capability to manufacture missiles for U.S.-made Patriot air-defense systems by the end of 2026.

Reuters contributed to this story.

U.S. troops unloaded what Fox News Digital is told was China's only aid flight sent to Venezuela so far as the country continues to reel from last month's back-to-back earthquakes.

Photos provided by the U.S. government show an Air China plane landing at Simón Bolívar Airport July 6, nearly two weeks after the quakes hit on June 24.

The supplies from the Chinese government were then taken off the aircraft by U.S. soldiers, who have been leading the disaster response and aid distribution efforts.

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In the photos provided to Fox News Digital, U.S. service members lifted large packages out of shipping containers, using large vehicles to move and organize pallets on the tarmac and loading boxes into trucks for transport.

"Secretary Rubio promised the Trump administration's response to the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela would be big, fast and effective. We continue to deliver on that commitment," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"While some countries say they'll deliver aid — weeks after natural disasters occur — America shows up, unloads the aid and ensures that assistance reaches the hands of those who truly need it thanks to our close coordination with the Department of War and the great public-private partnerships our Department has spearheaded."

The U.S. has moved more than 1.5 million pounds of assistance into Venezuela since the earthquakes struck June 24, according to the State Department.

A big part of that was repairing Simón Bolívar Airport, which sits just outside the capital city of Caracas after its runways were seriously damaged in the natural disaster.

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"The U.S. military was able to repair that airfield and get it up and running to allow for C-17 and other large aircraft to land there. And that’s very important as we continue to obviously get international relief supplies in," a senior State Department official told reporters in late June.

One runway is operational at the airport, and one of the first American flights into the airport was carrying forklifts to help get supplies unloaded off future flights, according to the State Department official.

Florida-based Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), one of the leading nonprofits gathering and sending aid to Venezuela, said it aims to deliver 100,000 boxes of supplies monthly for the next three to six months, according to The Associated Press.

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According to GEM's website, it has shipped nearly 1 million pounds of aid. This includes over 38,000 hygiene kits, more than 27,000 tents and tarps and 48 generators.

GEM founder and President Michael Capponi told the AP delivering aid to Venezuela now is a "whole different animal" compared to when he tried to send supplies during the reign of Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro, who was captured and deposed during a U.S.-led raid Jan. 3, did not allow Capponi into the country.

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"We land a private plane. It gets unloaded by U.S. soldiers. It goes in a truck we pay for and to a warehouse that we completely control. It doesn’t touch the hands of the Venezuelan government," he said.

The State Department said July 9 that the U.S. government has committed more than $386 million in financial assistance to Venezuela flowing through trusted partner groups. 

The Chinese foreign minister announced in late June a $14.72 million commitment for financial and material aid to Venezuela, according to Chinese state-run media.

Nearly two weeks after the earthquakes struck, Chinese state media reported about what they called the first batch of aid arriving at Simón Bolívar International Airport on July 6. State media said Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil and Chinese Ambassador to Venezuela Lan Hu received the shipment, said to include tents and generators, at the airport.

In late June, the U.S. also mobilized more than 300 search and rescue personnel throughout the country. 

The Miami Herald reported last week that those teams left after they "completed their mission."

As of Tuesday, 4,734 people have died from the earthquakes, according to figures released by the Venezuelan government, cited by Reuters. Additionally, there are at least 16,740 people injured, while nearly 18,000 people are homeless.

The earthquakes have destroyed 190 buildings and damaged over 850, Venezuelan officials told the AP.

Fox News Digital's Danielle Wallace, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.