Iran’s election as vice-chair of the United Nations Commission for Social Development is being slammed by human rights advocates and policy analysts, who have condemned the U.N.’s hypocrisy when it comes to its treatment of undemocratic regimes. 

The leadership role was approved without objection during a meeting of the commission, where delegates adopted agenda items and organizational decisions by consensus.

The United Nations has faced continued criticism over its inaction towards the regime’s violent crackdown against protesters in December and January. On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres faced criticism for congratulating Iran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz criticized the development, writing on X: ‘Yet another reason why we are not a member of, nor do we participate in, this ridiculous ‘Commission for Social Development.’’

Alireza Jafarzadeh, author of The Iran Threat and deputy director of the U.S. office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also criticized the decision. ‘Having the Iranian regime in the leadership of a U.N. body tasked with promoting democracy, gender equality, tolerance and non-violence is appalling and like fox guarding the hen house,’ Jafarzadeh said. ‘The vast majority of the Iranian people are calling for regime change because the mullahs are the world’s leading human rights violators, misogynist to the core, and they slaughter the voices of dissent by thousands.’

He argued that Iran should face scrutiny rather than institutional advancement. ‘Instead, the Iranian regime must be a subject of intense investigation and accountability by all U.N. bodies for crimes against humanity and genocide, from the 1980s to January 2026 uprisings,’ Jafarzadeh said. ‘Decades of inaction by Western governments have emboldened the regime. This must stop now.’

‘By electing Iran to help lead a commission devoted to democracy, women’s rights and non-violence, the U.N. makes itself into a mockery,’ said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. ‘This is a regime that brutalizes women for not covering their hair, and that just massacred tens of thousands of its own civilians in two days.’

Neuer argued that governments had the ability to block the appointment but chose not to act. ‘The EU states know how to stop abusive regimes from winning these seats — they’ve done so in the recent past with Russia — but this time on Iran, they chose silence and complicity,’ he said. ‘By rewarding the Mullahs right after their slaughter of innocents, the U.N. has now sent a very dangerous message to Tehran.’

Lisa Daftari, an Iran analyst, said the optics of Iran holding a leadership role in a commission centered on social development and rights were deeply troubling.

‘For Iranian women who risk prison or worse just for taking off a headscarf, watching Tehran get a vice-chair on a U.N. social-development commission feels like a slap in the face.’

She added that broader patterns in U.N. voting and resolutions contribute to perceptions of bias.

‘When the same U.N. system has spent the last decade passing roughly 170-plus resolutions against Israel and only around 80 on all other countries combined, you don’t need a PhD to see there’s a bias problem,’ Daftari said. ‘When the U.N. has churned out well over a hundred anti-Israel resolutions in recent years while managing a fraction of that number on the world’s worst dictatorships, it looks less like moral leadership and more like political theater.’

Daftari rejected that procedural nature of United Nations committees and committees.

‘Some diplomats will wave this away as a procedural formality, but at the U.N. nothing is ever purely symbolic,’ she said. ‘The bottom line is that handing Iran’s regime a gavel on ‘social development’ confirms yet again that the place is biased and deeply hypocritical.’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is making an example of former President Barack Obama for encouraging voters and lawmakers to reject adopting national voter ID laws. 

‘You know how badly the Democrats are panicking when they bring out Obama to spread lies about voter ID,’ Leavitt posted to X Thursday. ‘The fact is that nearly 90% of voters support’ voter ID laws, she continued before posting two screenshots showing two polls reflecting Americans support such laws at around 83% support to 84% support. 

Leavitt’s comments follow the House passing a massive election integrity overhaul bill Wednesday, which includes requiring voters to show a photo ID when casting ballots in federal elections. The bill overall aims to prevent noncitizens from voting in U.S. federal elections, with all but one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, voting against it. 

Obama was among prominent Democrats encouraging House lawmakers to vote against the measure, claiming it will disenfranchise voters. 

‘Republicans are still trying to pass the SAVE Act—a bill that would make it harder to vote and disenfranchise millions of Americans,’ he posted to X Wednesday evening. ‘Join @RedistrictAct and tell your member of Congress to vote no.’ 

Democrats have argued that voter ID laws can disenfranchise eligible voters because they often require specific, current government-issued IDs that may be a struggle to obtain due to costs, paperwork hurdles or limited DMV access. Republicans have rejected that argument, calling the requirement a common-sense safeguards that would boost confidence in elections, while simultaneously noting that most Americans already need IDs for everyday tasks.

In another post, Leavitt shared that Obama presented his own driver’s license to vote in the 2012 election. Obama voted early that cycle and was seen on camera pulling his Illinois driver’s license from his wallet to flash to poll workers. 

‘Here is Barack Obama showing his photo ID to vote in a past election,’  Leavitt posted. ‘Why are Democrats in Congress so opposed to making this a requirement across the country? Voter ID laws are common sense.’ 

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers added that IDs are frequently used by Americans to buy alcohol or get on a plane, which she said shows the hypocrisy of Democrats pushing against the election security overhaul. 

‘Barack Obama and the rest of the Democrats think Americans are stupid, which is why they are blatantly lying about the commonsense election integrity provisions in the popular SAVE Act,’ Rogers told Fox News Digital. 

‘Americans need to show ID to buy alcohol, get on a plane, and even get into the Democratic National Convention — but these hypocrite Democrats don’t want voters to show their ID to cast a ballot. Congressional Democrats’ opposition to the SAVE America Act is indefensible and wildly out of step with the views of the American people.’ 

Fox News Digital reached out to Obama’s office Thursday for comment but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Called the SAVE Act, the legislation would additionally require information-sharing between state election officials and federal authorities in verifying citizenship on current voter rolls, as well as enable the Department of Homeland Security to pursue immigration cases if non-citizens were found to be listed as eligible to vote.

If passed, the new requirements could be implemented for the November midterm elections. It must first pass the Senate before it could land on President Donald Trump’s desk. 

Lawmakers are jetting from Washington, D.C., without a deal to prevent a partial government shutdown. 

Their departure comes after the Senate was unable to send a full-year funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to President Donald Trump’s desk. 

Senate Democrats doubled down on their demands for stringent reforms to immigration enforcement and bucked multiple attempts Thursday to keep the agency open.

With both chambers now on their way to a weeklong recess, the agency is expected to shutter at midnight Friday. Unless a deal is struck before lawmakers return, DHS will be shut down for at least that period of time.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made the call to send lawmakers home and noted that if negotiations made a breakthrough, they would be on 24-hour notice to return. But talks, for now, are somewhere between baby steps and stuck. 

‘What it appears to me, at least at this point, is happening is the Democrats, like they did last fall, they really don’t want the solution,’ Thune said. ‘They don’t want the answer. They want the political issue.’ 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus blocked an attempt to pass the original DHS funding bill and a subsequent two-week funding extension. 

Their resistance comes after the White House unveiled the legislative text of the administration’s counteroffer, which several Senate Democrats balked at Thursday morning. 

‘The administration doesn’t actually want to reform ICE,’ Schumer said. ‘They never do it on their own. That is why we need — we are fighting for — legislation to rein in ICE and stop the violence.’

Senate Democrats have demanded a stringent list of reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They weren’t persuaded by border czar Tom Homan that operations in Minneapolis would be drawn down as negotiations continue.

It was a déjà vu moment from months earlier, when Thune repeatedly tried to peel Democrats away from Schumer during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history but failed to break their blockade.

While there was optimism that negotiations were moving in a positive direction earlier this week, those hopes appeared to have shattered. 

‘At this point, it seems clear that the Democrats are going to walk away from that bipartisan conversation,’ a senior White House official said. ‘They’re going to shut the department down. They’re going to deprive Americans of critical services such as FEMA, such as TSA and what will be the third partial government shutdown of this Congress.’

Senate Democrats received the legislative version of Republicans and the White House’s counteroffer Wednesday night, but many said it was ‘not sufficient,’ and several Democrats leaving a closed-door meeting Thursday morning said a deal remained out of reach.

Given the stagnation in talks, Thune opted to go ahead with the scheduled recess, but made clear to lawmakers that if there was a breakthrough they would need to return.

‘Obviously, we’ve made it clear to people that they have to be available to come back and vote,’ Thune said. 

Talks of another counteroffer to the White House are in the works. Some Senate Democrats hope that the upcoming recess and likely closure of DHS will serve as a wake-up call to Republicans. 

Complicating matters is that several members of the House and Senate are expected to travel to Germany for the annual Munich Security Conference.

‘I still think the Republicans are in a bubble and do not understand the depth of the anger out there in the world,’ Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told Fox News Digital. 

‘And maybe this break will allow them to go home and get yelled at, not just by people who are progressive, but everybody who thinks that this agency is out of control and needs to be reined in.’

President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) office focused on aviation is facing heightened scrutiny for hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes that were not disclosed in official ethics documents obtained by Fox News Digital. 

Jeffrey Anderson, a retired Delta Air Lines captain and U.S. Navy veteran, was nominated to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization in July 2025. The International Civil Aviation Organization is a U.N. office based in Canada that is charged with overseeing international aviation standards, including issues related to safety, navigation and environmental protection. 

The administration has backed him as ‘highly qualified’ for the role and a ‘great choice to represent the President’s America First foreign policy agenda in the international aviation community,’ in a statement to Fox News Digital in 2025 as his tax issues and past support of Democrats came to light. 

The role is a Senate-confirmed post, with Anderson’s nomination sitting before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

Now, Anderson has signed his ethics agreement and disclosure forms, but mentions of the now-paid off liens are not included, Fox News Digital found.  

Fox News Digital obtained Anderson’s IRS Certificates of Release of Federal Tax Lien that show he and his wife had multiple federal tax liens stemming from tax years 2013–2019, with unpaid assessed balances totaling approximately $426,000. The liens were related to ‘small business/self employed’ taxes, according to the documents. 

A federal tax lien is ‘the government’s legal claim against your property when you neglect or fail to pay a tax debt,’ according to the IRS. 

The liens, filed in two Georgia counties, were not released until October 2025 after payment was fulfilled. One IRS Certificate of Release of Federal Tax Lien shows liens tied to the 2012–2018 tax years totaling $354,791.63 and later released on Oct. 15, 2025, according to the documents obtained by Fox Digital. A second release shows a lien tied to tax year 2019 totaling $71,313.11 and released Oct. 29, 2025. 

Anderson’s Public Financial Disclosure Report, called OGE Form 278e, however, only lists a single mortgage in the liabilities section — not any disclosures of federal tax liens or IRS liability, according to the documents obtained by Fox News Digital. The OGE Form 278e does detail boilerplate and detailed information on Anderson’s assets, past employment and income. 

The Office of Government Ethics’ guidance for OGE Form 278e instructs filers to report liabilities over $10,000 owed at any time during the reporting period.

Anderson signed the OGE Form on Aug. 14, 2025, according to the document obtained by Fox News Digital. 

Anderson’s OGE Form 278e and a separate ethics document sent by Anderson to the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser were added to the Office of Government Ethics’ system tracking financial and ethics disclosures Sept. 21, 2025, Fox News Digital found. 

Fox News Digital repeatedly reached out to the State Department, specifically inquiring why Anderson did not disclose the liens on the liabilities section of the OGE 278e, if he filed an amended financial disclosure to add any IRS liability or lien after the initial filing, and when the administration was first notified of the liens.  

The ICAO ambassador operates under the authority of the secretary of state when confirmed.

‘We support the president’s nominee and look forward to having him confirmed,’ a State Department spokesperson told Fox Digital of Anderson Wednesday. 

A review of other nominees listed on the OGE disclosure database shows individuals have amended their ethics disclosures amid the vetting process. Anderson’s file does not reflect any public amendments to his initial disclosures. 

Public financial disclosure is a core piece of the nomination vetting process. Federal ethics rules and guidance generally require nominees to disclose major outstanding liabilities during the reporting period. 

Nominees for Senate-confirmed ambassador posts typically are cleared through a multistep White House process that can include FBI background checks and federal ethics review of financial disclosures, with the State Department helping compile and process the nomination package before it is formally sent to the Senate.

‘Everyone has setbacks. That’s not the problem,’ a former Trump official told Fox Digital about the matter. ‘The problem is lying to Congress and misleading President Trump. Jeffrey Anderson stiffed the IRS for more than $426,000, carried federal tax liens for years, then tried to slip through Senate confirmation by hiding them on a sworn disclosure. Federal tax liens aren’t optional, and they don’t magically disappear.’

The former official added that most ‘Americans don’t just come up with half a million dollars to make a scandal vanish,’ while arguing ‘Anderson’s record of donating to anti-Trump politicians’ tees up a nomination that will collapse on itself. 

ICAO ROLE HAS GONE UNFILLED FOR YEARS 

Anderson’s nomination to serve in the office follows years of it sitting dormant of U.S. leadership. The role was last filled by former ambassador, famed pilot Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, who stepped down in 2022. 

Sullenberger gained widespread applause in 2009, when the US Airways pilot landed Flight 1549 on the Hudson River after a bird strike disabled both engines and saved 155 people — an event known as the ‘Miracle on the Hudson.’

Anderson’s nomination has been dragging since July 2025, with it returned to the president on Jan. 3, 2026 under Senate Rule XXXI, a technical rule, and Trump resending Anderson’s nomination to the Senate days later. 

Anderson’s nomination has received pushback from the Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents nearly 80,000 pilots across the U.S. and Canada, arguing his ‘only’ qualification was supporting an effort to raise the mandatory pilot retirement age. 

The union opposes increasing the mandatory retirement from 65 years of age to age 67, arguing it ‘would leave the United States as an outlier in the global aviation space and create chaos on pilot labor, and international and domestic flight operations,’ the group’s statement in July 2025 read.

International aviation rules prohibit airline pilots older than 65 from flying. Some global airline groups have called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to consider raising the international pilot retirement age to 67, citing staffing pressure and that retaining veteran pilots would only bolster airline safety. 

Anderson also has had close financial ties to Democrats and other politicians frequently hostile toward Trump and his policies, Fox News Digital previously reported. 

‘Jeffrey Anderson isn’t a Trump Republican at all; he’s a liberal sleeper who slipped through the cracks of PPO (Presidential Personnel Office),’ a former Trump official told Fox Digital of Anderson’s political donations and tax history in August 2025. 

Anderson made a handful of small-dollar donations to Republican Nikki Haley during the 2024 campaign cycle, when the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. ran against Trump, whom she slammed as ‘unhinged’ while on the campaign trail before dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump as the GOP nominee for president. 

The former pilot also donated to the former Democratic opponent who tried to unseat then-Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in the 2024 cycle, according to donation filings previously reported by Fox News Digital. Anderson’s political donations to Democrats stretch back years, including in 2017 when he donated to Democrats, such as former House candidate Dan Ward in Virginia and former Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon.

Texas Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, who serves as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation, told Fox Digital in August 2025 that Anderson will help usher in ‘the Golden Age of aviation’ if confirmed. 

‘Mr. Anderson served as a naval aviator and has more than three decades of experience as a pilot for Delta,’ Nehls said in August. ‘He is, without a doubt, qualified to represent the United States of America at ICAO, where his first-hand experience with the aviation industry will play a crucial role in advancing President Trump’s mission of ushering in the Golden Age of aviation.’

‘I am fully supportive of President Trump and his America First agenda. I have been fully vetted by the White House and appreciate the approval of the President, House Aviation Chair Troy Nehls and House T&I Chair Sam Graves, among others. I look forward to advancing American interests as the next Permanent Representative to ICAO,’ Anderson wrote in a direct message on LinkedIn to Fox Digital in August 2025, while adding that Trump is seeking to ‘move effectively forward in a space negligently left vacant by Biden.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on the timeline of disclosure but did not receive a reply.

Fox New Digital reached out to Anderson for comment on the timeline of the tax liens and ethics filings but did not receive a reply.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., blocked Senate Republicans’ attempt to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the rest of the year, teeing up a likely shutdown.

The upper chamber tried and failed to pass the original DHS funding bill Thursday, testing Senate Democrats’ resolve as the deadline to fund the agency approaches Friday.

The bill failed largely along party lines, save for Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who joined Republicans in their attempt to fund DHS. 

Senate Democrats have demanded a stringent list of reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They weren’t persuaded by border czar Tom Homan that operations in Minneapolis would be drawn down as negotiations continue.

‘The administration doesn’t actually want to reform ICE,’ Schumer said. ‘They never do it on their own. That is why we need — we are fighting for — legislation to rein in ICE and stop the violence.’

It was a déjà vu moment from months earlier, when Thune repeatedly tried to peel Democrats away from Schumer during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history but failed to break their blockade.

Failure to send the full-year DHS funding bill to President Donald Trump’s desk leaves Congress with few options as the midnight Friday deadline looms. 

The Senate is now expected to take another shot at preventing a partial shutdown with a short-term extension of DHS funding. Republicans are eyeing at least four more weeks of funding for the agency, though that plan is also expected to fail.

Still, negotiations are ongoing in the background, and Thune said there was some progress despite Democrats continuing to publicly reject Republicans’ offers.

‘They’re posturing right now, I think,’ Thune said. ‘But I do think the progress has been real. I think the concessions on the part of the administration have been real.’

Senate Democrats received the legislative version of Republicans and the White House’s counteroffer Wednesday night, but many said it was ‘not sufficient.’ Several Democrats leaving a closed-door meeting Thursday morning said a deal remains out of reach.

‘We’re still looking at it, but no, not today,’ Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said. ‘They have not addressed most of our major concerns at all.’

Murray signaled Democrats would present their own counterproposal to the White House, a sign negotiations are ongoing, though likely not fast enough to avert a shutdown.

Lawmakers are facing the Friday deadline as both chambers prepare for a weeklong recess. Several members of the House and Senate are expected to travel to Germany for the annual Munich Security Conference.

While Thune said a deal could still be within reach, he indicated lawmakers may leave Washington while talks continue.

‘But, you know, until then, I don’t know if there’s any point keeping people around here and sitting around doing nothing,’ he said.

South Korea’s espionage agency, the National Intelligence Service, informed lawmakers Thursday that it thinks North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter is near to being set apart as the regime’s future leader, The Associated Press reported.

Kim is the third generation of men in his family to rule North Korea.

In a closed-door briefing, NIS officials said they are closely monitoring whether Kim’s daughter — believed to be named Kim Ju Ae and around 13 years old — appears with him before thousands of delegates at the upcoming Workers’ Party Congress, said lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun, who attended the meeting.

‘In the past, (NIS) described Kim Ju Ae as being in the midst of ‘successor training.’ What was notable today is that they used the term ‘successor-designate stage,’ a shift that’s quite significant,’ Lee noted, according to the outlet.

In 2023, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service indicated to lawmakers that the North Korean leader and his wife probably had an older son as well as a younger, third child of unknown gender, according to The Associated Press.

North Korea is one of the world’s few nuclear-armed nations, making it a unique threat on the global stage.

A 2025 U.S. Intelligence Community Annual Threat Assessment stated, ‘Kim remains committed to increasing the number of North Korea’s nuclear warheads and improving its missile capabilities to threaten the Homeland and U.S. forces, citizens, and allies, and to weaken U.S. power in the AsiaPacific region, as evidenced by the pace of the North’s missile flight tests and the regime’s public touting of its uranium enrichment capabilities.’

‘Russia is increasingly supporting North Korea’s nuclear status in exchange for Pyongyang’s support to Moscow’s war against Ukraine,’ the assessment noted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

In the face of President Donald Trump’s concerns about Arctic security and his calls for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, NATO has launched a security effort called ‘Arctic Sentry.’

‘Still, in the face of Russia’s increased military activity and China’s growing interest in the High North, it was crucial that we do more, which is why we have just two hours ago launched Arctic Sentry,’ NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said during remarks on Wednesday.

‘Initially, it will bring together exercises like Denmark’s Arctic Endurance and Norway’s Cold Response,’ he noted. 

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that he had a ‘very productive meeting’ with NATO’s Rutte.

‘We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region. This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations,’ Trump wrote at the time.

In a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Thursday, a White House official said, ‘The Arctic is a critical region for U.S. national security and the economy. As an Arctic nation, the United States will pursue its security and economic interests and ensure safety, stability, and prosperity in the face of growing competition from China and Russia.’

A Wednesday press release from Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe noted, ‘Allied Command Operations (ACO), which is responsible for the planning and execution of all NATO exercises, activities and operations, began Arctic Sentry today.’

‘The preparations for Arctic Sentry provided NATO planners with full visibility of Allied nations’ activities in the Arctic and High North. Moving forward, ACO will use Arctic Sentry to cohere these actions into one overarching operational approach to Allies’ increasing activities, which will enhance NATO’s presence there,’ the press release notes. 

‘These activities include, among others, Denmark’s Arctic Endurance, a series of multi-domain exercises designed to enhance Allied ability to operate in the region, and Norway’s upcoming exercise Cold Response, where troops from across the Alliance have already begun to arrive,’ the release states.

The United States is warning Peru that China’s growing control over a major Pacific port could threaten the country’s sovereignty, escalating tensions over Beijing’s expanding footprint in Latin America.

The concern centers on the $1.3 billion deep-water port in Chancay, north of Lima, which has become a flashpoint between Washington and Beijing after a Peruvian court ruling limited government regulatory oversight of the project.

The State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said on social media that it was ‘concerned about latest reports that Peru could be powerless to oversee Chancay, one of its largest ports, which is under the jurisdiction of predatory Chinese owners,’ adding: ‘We support Peru’s sovereign right to oversee critical infrastructure in its own territory. Let this be a cautionary tale for the region and the world: cheap Chinese money costs sovereignty.’

China’s foreign ministry rejected the comments as ‘rumor-mongering and smearing’ and insisted the project remains under Peruvian authority, according to the Associate Press report.

Asia analyst Gordon Chang told Fox News Digital: ‘Chancay is so central that analysts say it will redirect trade across the South Pacific. We know Beijing considers ports to be dual-use and strategic. China, held up the BlackRock deal to acquire the CK Hutchinson port operations in the Panama Canal Zone even though the ports are nowhere near China itself.’

‘In times of war, China will not allow its port operations to load, unload, or service American ships or ships coming from or going to U.S. ports,’ he warned.

Jack Burnham, senior analyst in the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the port reflects a broader strategic push by Beijing in the region.

‘The Chancay port is a keystone in China’s investment in Latin America — its size and proximity provide a bridge across the Pacific and access to another market to fuel Beijing’s export-driven economic engine,’ Burnham said.

‘China’s investment in Peru is predicated on Beijing grasping the sinews of Lima’s critical infrastructure to gain influence. With effective control over the port cemented for now by a lower Peruvian court ruling, China gains access to one of the largest critical infrastructure projects in the region, a position from which it could exercise significant control.’

The dispute comes as Washington and Beijing compete for influence across Latin America, where China has expanded investment through infrastructure projects and trade, analysts say.

China’s state-owned shipping giant COSCO, which holds a majority stake in the project, dismissed U.S. concerns and said the court ruling ‘in no way involves aspects of sovereignty,’ adding that Peruvian authorities still oversee security, environmental compliance and customs, according to the Associated Press.

Peru’s transport infrastructure regulator, Ositran, has said it plans to appeal the ruling, arguing the port should not be exempt from the same oversight applied to other major facilities.

China’s Embassy in Washington DC did not provide a comment in time for publication.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is all but guaranteed unless the Senate rams through a short-term extension of current funding levels sometime on Thursday.

But avoiding a DHS shutdown means the same measure must also pass the House of Representatives, where success will depend on delicate political maneuvering by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to persuade a House Republican Conference with varying ideas of what a path forward should look like.

‘It would have to be for 60 or 90 days, I would think,’ said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in 30 days, I don’t know what’s going to change.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is expected to unveil a stopgap funding measure for DHS called a continuing resolution (CR), which would extend the department’s current budget for a yet-unknown amount of time.

It comes after Democrats walked away en masse from a bipartisan deal to fund DHS through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026 over what they saw as insufficient guardrails on agencies responsible for President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

Congress has funded 97% of the federal government through FY2026 at this point. But DHS is a vast department with a broad jurisdiction that includes the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) — all of which will see varying levels of disruptions if a shutdown happens.

Republicans largely want to avoid such a situation but have made clear they believe that its effects would fall squarely on Democrats’ shoulders.

Conservatives like Norman favor an extended CR, arguing that it would fund Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a higher level than the initial bipartisan funding deal would have while removing Democrats’ negotiating leverage for more guardrails on those agents.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital last week that he would support a full-year CR for DHS to ‘make sure that FEMA is funded and TSA is funded, and stop the drama.’

Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., similarly said on Wednesday, ‘I think we’d like to push it out as far as we can so we can avoid the constant uncertainty for the agency.’

‘As long as this hangs up in the air, let’s say you do it for three, four months, the Democrats are gonna want a pound of flesh to help pass whatever it is. And I think that’s gonna weaken the efforts of … immigration enforcement,’ Crane told Fox News Digital.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told reporters earlier this week that he would favor a mid-length CR over something shorter.

‘If we do two weeks and they leave for a week, it’s really a one-week CR. Nothing’s going to happen when that many important people are gone. So I think four weeks makes a lot more sense,’ Cole said.

But committee member Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., panned the idea of a CR altogether.

‘CRs don’t work. CRs are not without pain. It disrupts a lot of your supply chain and purchasing and acquisition,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘I can’t believe they’re even thinking about it.’

Rutherford, a former sheriff, argued that a shutdown or CR would harm critical national security operations during a year that’s expected to see a host of high-security events in the U.S. like America’s 250th anniversary celebration, the FIFA World Cup and others.

Johnson declined to share his thoughts on CR length when asked by Fox News Digital on Tuesday, but emphasized the House GOP’s position that the Senate should take up the bipartisan bill that Democrats initially walked away from.

‘I’m not going to prejudge the length of it or what it should be. I’m very hopeful. I mean, we still have time on the clock. When there’s a will, there’s a way. And if they can come to an agreement on this and get it done, that will behoove the whole country,’ Johnson said.

House GOP leaders will likely need nearly all Republicans on board to pass a CR for DHS, with many Democrats warning they will not support any funding for the department without seeing proof of critical reform.

Jeffries would not go into specifics about what he would support or oppose in terms of DHS funding during his weekly press conference on Monday, but he suggested to reporters that a simple stopgap funding bill with no changes to ICE funding was out of the question. 

‘ICE is out of control right now. The American people know it, and ICE clearly needs to be reined in,’ Jeffries said. ‘Our position has been clear. Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward. Period. Full stop.’

A new report from Alliance for Consumers (AFC) argues that progressive, often climate-change-related, activism and aligned trial lawyers are increasingly using lawsuits not to win big dollars but big changes.

Since the waning years of the Obama administration, AFC said that courtrooms have become the ‘battleground’ for the political left’s campaign to ‘reshape American society’ through ‘strategic litigation.’ 

AFC analyzed employment discrimination cases, environmental suits and corporate governance litigation and found that the outcomes, or sought-after outcomes, demonstrated a pattern of courtroom strategy meant to deliver policy changes that the left has been unable to achieve through state or federal legislation — particularly regarding DEI and climate.

‘If you really want to understand a substantial portion of why corporate America went really woke, there’s a story that can be told,’ O.H. Skinner, AFC’s executive director, told Fox News Digital.

Skinner said that corporate America believed President Barack Obama would be followed by ‘President Hillary Clinton’ — demonstrating continuity in many of these policy fields — leading to people leaving civil service jobs to join corporate HR and legal departments and bring their policy goals with them.

He alleged that officials in Washington signaled companies could face scrutiny if they did not align with emerging DEI priorities.

‘That’s describing a world where through government lawsuits, but also through private lawsuits, a lot of pressure was being brought on corporate America,’ said Skinner, whose previous work included time with the Arizona attorney general’s office under Mark Brnovich, who led the state’s largest consumer-protection lawsuit against Google over location tracking.

Skinner compared the strategy to ‘plaintiff-shopping’ in class-action litigation, where a firm may be paid millions in settlement while it ‘negotiates a coupon for you’ for the applicant-plaintiffs.

One of the firms cited in the study — which Skinner noted as alleged proof of its political persuasions — had filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on behalf of Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., citing the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 after Jan. 6.

AFC’s report cited a 2019 shareholder-derivative suit brought by Cohen-Milstein against Alphabet — Google’s parent — on behalf of New York union pensioners, alleging it breached fiduciary duties and covered up a data breach and sexual harassment allegations.

The statement from Cohen-Milstein on the suit alleged Alphabet ‘fostered’ a misogynistic ‘‘brogrammer’ culture,’ and later celebrated the settlement ‘fundamentally altering Alphabet’s workforce policies,’ including a $310 million ‘financial commitment to DEI initiatives’ and its position toward ‘workplace equity.’

AFC found the lawsuit ‘functioned as a tool for advocacy groups to push a comprehensive expansion of the DEI agenda at one of the biggest companies with a massive budgetary commitment, all through litigation rather than legislative action or shareholder demand.’

Cohen-Milstein did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Skinner’s team also cited a case in which the Obama Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) allegedly did an end run around legislators and established new DEI practices at another major company through aggressive litigation.

Bass Pro/Outdoor World agreed to pay $10.5 million and provide ‘other significant relief’ to settle a hiring discrimination suit brought by Obama’s EEOC, according to the agency.

The administration claimed Bass Pro Shops discriminated against minority applicants, but instead of a strictly cash settlement, it reached agreements to mandate EEO training, affirmative diversity outreach and the appointment of a DEI director, according to AFC’s research.

In an ongoing climate-related suit — in which Honolulu is suing Sunoco via the Sher-Edling firm — the Hawaiian capital reportedly alleged public nuisance claims and sought to hold oil companies responsible for climate damages.

AFC’s report found the suit seeks not only monetary damages for ‘climate-related infrastructure costs,’ but also disgorgement of profits, climate-mitigation actions and other corporate reforms.

‘These cases attempt to use courts to impose climate policy, effectively putting judges in charge of energy and climate regulation rather than elected legislatures and administrative agencies with technical expertise,’ the report said. Fox News Digital reached out to Sher-Edling.

In another case, red-state government employees were granted access to transgender health care after a staff accountant surnamed Rich and other plaintiffs sued over a health plan that denied coverage of transgender care.

A $365,000 settlement was lodged and split among the defendants and an LGBTQ-rights group, while Georgia agreed to make sweeping policy changes to cover transgender care — something that would have typically gone through the legislature and likely failed with a Republican majority in charge.

The main litigant in that case was the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) — which has now merged into Advocates for Trans Equality (ATE).

‘Strategic litigation by advocacy organizations successfully bypassed Georgia’s legislative process to impose highly contested healthcare policy through judicial decree, demonstrating how activist organizations achieve policy goals through courts rather than democratic processes,’ AFC found in its reporting analysis.

ATE did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Impact litigation has long been used by advocacy groups across the political spectrum to advance policy goals through the courts. Right-leaning groups have also been successful in forging settlement agreements that secure policy-related outcomes rather than strictly cash settlements.

In CRPA v. LASD, a district court ruled that members of a Second Amendment advocacy group may apply for non-resident concealed-carry permits in California.

The 2025 case saw a judge rule in favor of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, requiring Sacramento to accept permit applications from any out-of-state resident who is a member of a number of Second Amendment organizations.

Skinner told Fox News Digital that the tide, at least at the EEOC, has changed, citing recent remarks by new Trump-appointed Chairwoman Andrea Lucas, saying that her tack instead will be to probe corporate diversity programs and enforce against DEI.

‘That’s the crucial part about each of [the report’s] cases, it’s not, oh, some company allegedly discriminated against women or minorities — they might have, right. The problem with those cases and something that I think you would want to highlight is it’s not that somebody allegedly was mistreated and got money. It’s that the lawsuit was used to unlock all sorts of other bells and whistles that were not directly about anybody who was hurt, if they were hurt.’

In Lucas’ comments to Reuters in December, she said she would ‘shift [EEOC] to a conservative view of civil rights.’

AFC’s report concluded by summarizing that ‘lawsuits are increasingly used not to resolve disputes or compensate victims, but to impose policy changes that advocates have been unable to achieve through democratic processes.’

‘This transformation represents a fundamental challenge to democratic governance. When lawyers and activists can impose sweeping policy changes without having to go to the ballot box, or even after having been denied at the ballot box, the everyday consumers stop having a direct say in the products and choices that are before them on a daily basis.’