by | Oct 22, 2024 | Fox News
The FBI is investigating the leak of classified documents that included top secret U.S. intelligence on Israel’s planned attack on Iran, Fox News Digital confirmed.
“The FBI is investigating the alleged leak of classified documents and working closely with our partners in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community,” the bureau said in a statement. “As this is an ongoing investigation, we have no further comment.”
The Department of Defense has already confirmed it is investigating the unauthorized release.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that he did not have information on whether the unauthorized release was a result of a hack or an employee leak.
US INVESTIGATING RELEASE OF CLASSIFIED DOCS ON ISRAEL’S PLANNED STRIKE ON IRAN
“We’re not exactly sure how these documents found their way into the public domain. I know the Department of Defense is investigating this,” Kirby said. “I’m just not able to answer your question whether it was a leak or a hack. At this point, we’ll let the investigation pursue its logical course.”
“We’re deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned about any leakage of classified information into the public domain,” Kirby said. “That is not supposed to happen. And it’s unacceptable when it does.”
Kirby said he did not have any indication that additional classified documents would find their way into the public domain and that the U.S. has been in communication with Israeli counterparts about the disclosure.
IDF SAYS ‘MISSION IS NOT OVER’ UNTIL HOSTAGES ARE RETURNED: ‘WE WILL NOT REST’
“I’ll let the Israelis speak to if, what, how and when they decide to take additional military action in response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack,” Kirby said. “That’s really for them to speak to.”
The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted to the Telegram messaging app last week.
The documents were attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and noted that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. The documents were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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by | Oct 22, 2024 | Fox News
Election night is two weeks away. As Vice President Harris and former President Trump dash to the finish line, this week’s forecast looks at their outreach efforts and the latest evidence of a smaller divide between national and state polling.
Plus, rankings changes in six competitive House districts.
Last week’s Power Rankings showed that both parties’ coalitions have changed meaningfully since 2020.
For Democrats, the chief concern is that Harris still has fewer Black voters in her corner than President Biden.
To help fix that problem, the campaign dispatched its strongest surrogate, former President Obama, to Arizona and Nevada, and Harris spent an hour with Charlamagne Tha God to talk about policy, race, and religion.
The Vice President also went head-to-head with Fox News’ Bret Baier, part of an effort by her campaign to frame the candidate as tough and pragmatic. It was Harris’ highest-profile interview yet, but it will take another week before the effects show up in polls.
Meanwhile, Trump’s coalition has fewer women than in the last election, so the former President participated in a town hall with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner and an all-female audience.
Trump also continues to search for young and working-class voters. His appearance at a local McDonald’s in Pennsylvania produced some compelling imagery and was designed to paint Trump as an energetic and likable candidate.
FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: HARRIS LOSES HER LEAD AND A NEW ELECTORATE EMERGES
Right-wing voters with reservations about Trump could also make the difference on election night.
That is why Harris spent the beginning of the week with Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who urged conservatives to vote for the Democratic ticket this year. It also explains why there are rumblings about Nikki Haley joining Trump on the campaign trail.
Two polls of the national popular vote released last week show a uniquely tight race. Suffolk has Harris one point ahead of Trump at 50% to 49%; the Fox News Poll has Trump up by two, with the former president at 50% and Harris at 48%.
Results like that should make this Trump’s race to lose.
In 2020, Biden won the national vote by 4.5 points (51%-47%). That translated to very thin margins of victory in the battleground states. The president won Georgia, for example, by 0.2 points, and his largest victory in any battleground was by 2.8 points in Michigan.
Close national polls should therefore put Trump in the lead in the battlegrounds. But the statewide polls are close too.
A new set of polls show Harris ahead by 2-4 points in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia, a tied race in Nevada, and Trump ahead by 3 in Arizona and North Carolina (Washington Post/Schar).
The Power Rankings call all those states toss-ups.
Last week, the same Fox poll that put Trump ahead by two points nationally had Harris up six points among voters who live in the battleground states (52%-46%, with a 6.5-point subgroup margin of error).
Trump’s advantage primarily came from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64-35%) than Harris had in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58-39%).
A TRUMP MYSTERY MAKES ELECTION OUTCOME EVEN MURKIER
The results suggest that Trump could be banking “inefficient vote.” In other words, while the former president is performing better nationally than he was four years ago, the gains are concentrated in places he is already winning, like Florida, or rural counties.
While Harris may have lost some ground in safe Democratic states like New York, she remains competitive in the battlegrounds that decide the presidential election.
Other polls have raised the same question, but the most compelling evidence comes from the midterms.
Republicans received about 3 million more votes than Democrats in the national House vote (Cook), but eked out a balance of power win, with 222 seats to Democrats’ 213.
Put another way, the GOP banked a lot of votes in areas where it didn’t need them, and just enough in the battleground House races that would give them victory (a problem that has plagued the Democrats in the national vote for years).
The polls are all within the margin of error, and this is just one theory about the direction of the race. But on election night, a Trump blowout in Florida or a narrower spread in Virginia may not mean the race is over.
The House is still a toss-up, with 208 seats in the Republican columns, 205 for the Democrats, and 22 districts that could go either way.
In today’s forecast, six races move to new categories:
First, New York’s 17th district, in the Hudson Valley, is home to one of the most competitive races on the map. Incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Lawler has a strong bipartisan brand in a centrist district. While Democratic challenger and former Rep. Mondaire Jones has tried to head in the same direction, he’s still dogged by his previous support for defunding the police and a spat with the Working Families Party (Jones will not appear on the ballot under that party’s name, though the party is now telling voters to support him anyway). This race moves from Toss Up to Lean R.
New York’s 1st district, home to both the Hamptons and rural farmland on Long Island, remains a competitive race between Republican Rep. Nick LaLota and the Democrat, former CNN anchor John Avlon. But the majority of this district’s voters backed Trump in 2020 and 2016, and Avlon has faced questions over the extent of his residency in the district. The race moves from Lean R to Likely R.
In the battleground Rust Belt states, a pair of districts held by pro-Trump Republicans have become even more competitive. First, Wisconsin’s 3rd district flipped to Rep. Derrick Van Orden in the midterms by a tight margin. The incumbent’s presence at the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 riots is a theme in his opponent’s ads. This race moves from Likely R to Lean R.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s 10th district has been held by Freedom Caucus Rep. Scott Perry since 2013. Perry is the only sitting member of Congress whose cellphone was seized by the FBI in its investigation into efforts to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and that has also become a theme in television ads. It moves from Lean R to Toss Up.
Nevada’s 3rd district is still the best opportunity for Republicans to flip a seat in the Silver State, but a hotly competitive presidential race hasn’t so far translated into downballot success, particularly in the Senate race. This district almost touches Las Vegas, and includes Henderson. That’s favorable territory for Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in this Biden-majority district. She faces Republican Drew Johnson. It moves from Lean D to Likely D.
Finally, a sleeper race to watch in the northeast: Maryland’s 6th district, where Democrat April McClain Delaney faces Republican Neil Parrott. This should be safe territory for the left, but the party is investing here, and even made it part of one of its frontline programs. It moves from Solid D to Likely D.
As an anxious electorate counts down to election night, the political class is filling the void with data. Some numbers are more useful than others.
Harris dominates in fundraising and the ground game. Her campaign raised more than $1 billion this quarter and more than double what Trump raised in the last month, and Democrats have a much stronger get-out-the-vote operation. These are important advantages. In a tight race, they may get Harris over the line. On the other hand, Trump has won with deficits in both areas.
Comparing early vote figures to previous cycles is generally unhelpful. We expect fewer Americans to vote early, Democrats and Republicans are less likely to be divided on how they cast ballots, and breakdowns tell us the party registration of some voters, not how they voted.
Finally, since internal polls survey the same electorate as any other poll, they’re unlikely to produce a clearly different result. When they do, people should question whether the poll is an outlier, or whether the campaign that paid for the poll has a motive to characterize the race differently.
Early voting is underway in every state, with more than fifteen million voters now casting a ballot.
Next week, check back for the final Power Rankings forecast.
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by | Oct 22, 2024 | Fox News
Early in-person and mail-in ballots have begun pouring in across the country, and the tally in each state reveals mounting voter enthusiasm.
Recent polling suggests a razor-thin margin in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, and the results are expected to come down to each candidate’s performance in seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina.
States have long allowed at least some Americans to vote early, like members of the military and people with illnesses unable to get to the polls. Many states expanded eligibility in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the last presidential election, mail ballots tended to skew Democratic. In 2020, 60% of Democrats reported voting by mail, compared to 32% of Republicans, according to a 2021 study from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
As of Monday evening, more than 15 million ballots have been cast nationwide.
Here’s a breakdown of where early ballots have been cast, either by mail or in person, in the seven battleground states, according to The Associated Press:
Over the past two decades, the prevalence of early voting has skyrocketed. And while early ballots demonstrate voter enthusiasm, they don’t reliably determine which candidate is winning the race because fewer voters are expected to cast early votes than in the previous presidential election.
In 2020, the Fox News Voter Analysis found that 71% of voters cast their ballots before Election Day, with 30% voting early in-person and 41% voting by mail. This time, polls suggest that around four in 10 voters will show up before Nov. 5, according to Gallup polling.
DOJ DEPLOYS DISTRICT ELECTIONS OFFICERS TO HANDLE ‘THREATS AND INTIMIDATION’
Democrats and Republicans are expected to be less divided on early voting this cycle. Four years ago, Democrats won the total early vote by 11 points. But two things have changed: first, with the COVID-19 pandemic no longer front-of-mind, many voters will be more willing to show up on Election Day. Second, unlike in 2020, Trump and the GOP are no longer discouraging their voters from casting an early ballot. The upshot should be a smaller partisan gap once the votes are counted.
Some states also offer breakdowns of their early ballots – for example, by party affiliation, race, or age. Comparing these results to other elections might give the impression that one candidate or party is now doing better than the other.
And while early vote data shows the party registration of some voters, it does not reveal how they voted. States do not release actual vote counts until election night. The vote data that some states are releasing now shows the party affiliation of voters who have requested or returned a ballot. But that is not the same as their actual vote. For example, a voter may have registered as a Democrat decades ago, but chose to vote for Trump this year. And many voters are not registered to either party, making their vote even more of a mystery.
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by | Oct 22, 2024 | Fox News
Former President Donald Trump holds a slight lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the key swing state of Georgia, according to a new poll.
The poll, conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the University of Georgia, found Trump at 47% support in the state, compared to Harris’ 43%. A sizable 8% of respondents said they remain undecided, however.
The Georgia poll surveyed 1,000 of the state’s likely voters from Oct. 7-16. The poll advertises a margin of error of 3.1%.
The poll further found that 60% of respondents say the country is on the wrong track, and their top issues were inflation/cost of living (19%), the economy/jobs (17%), preserving democracy (17%), immigration (14%) and abortion (8%).
GEORGIA SHATTERS EARLY VOTING RECORDS AS CAMPAIGNS ENTER HOME STRETCH IN BATTLEGROUND STATE
The poll comes as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is facing pressure to release the results of a voter roll audit he announced this summer.
HARRIS INVOKES JIMMY CARTER IN BID TO GET SUPPORTERS TO VOTE EARLY
“Millions of illegal immigrants have flooded our country since 2021, and it’s well-documented that thousands of them have successfully registered to vote in multiple states. But even with early voting now underway, Georgia voters are still waiting for confirmation that non-citizens are not casting ballots in our elections,” former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who now serves as the chairwoman for the group behind the effort, Greater Georgia, said in a release obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital.
The comments come more than three months after Raffensperger announced the state was conducting a “SAVE audit” of noncitizens who may have registered to vote, which he called a “vital step in maintaining election security and integrity in Georgia.”
“We are double-checking to make sure that if any non-citizens attempt to register to vote, they will not be able to vote unless they prove that they are U.S. citizens,” Raffensberger said in a release at the time, which also warned of prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of up to $100,000 for noncitizens who register to vote in the state.
Raffensperger told NewsNation just a few weeks later that the audit was complete, boasting that he could promise residents of the state that “only American citizens are voting.”
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Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office said that Raffensperger will hold a press conference on Wednesday to announce the results of the audit.
Fox News’ Michael Lee contributed to this report.
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by | Oct 22, 2024 | Fox News
A student partying in Majorca, Spain, was likely crushed to death in a garbage truck and then incinerated at a waste disposal plant after falling into a garbage bin, according to police.
Agostina Rubini Medina, 24, was missing for nearly three weeks after she disappeared during a night out with her friends in Palma, the capital city of the island of Majorca, according to The U.S. Sun.
Spain’s National Police have a theory that Medina fell into a garbage bin while attempting to retrieve an item such as her cellphone and passed out before she and the garbage were dumped into a garbage truck, crushed in the truck’s garbage compactor and eventually dropped into an incinerator.
ITALIAN SURFER DIES IN FREAK ACCIDENT AFTER SWORDFISH IMPALES HER WHILE SURFING IN INDONESIA
A worker at a shop near a bus stop on Medina’s route home said the girl was visibly drunk and had purchased a bag of chips from the shop shortly before midnight.
A short time later, a witness told police they saw Medina’s handbag and blouse sitting by a large garbage bin about 15 minutes before workers arrived to empty it.
AMERICAN REPORTEDLY KIDNAPPED IN PHILIPPINE COASTAL TOWN; POLICE INVESTIGATING
Tracking data showed Medina’s phone was at that location for around a half hour before it moved to the incineration plant and died, which matches travel records from the garbage truck, according to the New York Post.
Authorities say she was likely killed in the truck before it arrived at the plant.
Police later discovered human skeletal remains at the incinerator plant and have sent them off for DNA testing to determine if they belong to Medina.
Medina was a thin woman with a low tolerance for alcohol and was on medication, police said, adding that this may have caused her to pass out.
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