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Serial killer fears strike college town as school fortifies security amid popular river trail deaths
A potential "serial killer" may be stalking a popular river trail near Michigan State University, where five deaths have fueled growing safety concerns.
The Lansing Police Department announced it is investigating five deaths linked to the Lansing River Trail over the last year where a suspect may have been targeting and attacking people at night, police said.
Now, the university's Department of Police and Public Safety announced it is reminding students to be vigilant when going out at night.
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In a statement sent to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety said in part:
"The MSU portion of the River Trail has upgraded security measures to include additional LED lighting and Green Light emergency phones with public safety cameras, and it is routinely patrolled by MSU Police Officers on bike patrols. We encourage students using the trail to remain aware of their surroundings and take reasonable precautions to help ensure their safety, especially at night."
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Of the five deaths, the youngest victim was Daniel Lusk, 22, who was found fatally stabbed under the East Michigan Avenue bridge on Aug. 20.
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The stabbing occurred less than a mile from campus.
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Police arrested suspect Edward Joseph Smith, 23, on Sept. 3, in connection to that stabbing.
Smith has not been accused of any crime or involvement in the other four deaths.
In a statement sent to Fox News Digital, Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said in part:
"The Lansing River Trail and our downtown remain safe for residents and visitors. LPD has significantly increased their presence downtown and on the river trail at all hours of the day and night."
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The Lansing Police department said all of victims appear to be homeless White men.
The investigation is active and ongoing.
Rahm Emanuel challenges DSA’s influence on Democrats, warns GOP ‘wing’ is disappearing
As Democratic socialists, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, gain ground within the Democratic Party, former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argued that socialists have less influence over his party than Republicans contend.
Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and, at one point, President Barack Obama’s right-hand man, distanced himself from the more radical positions of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) while suggesting that the group could have a place within the party if it adopted more moderate positions.
"I don't believe the socialists are a wing," he told the "Hang Out with Sean Hannity" podcast. "I think they are a separate party. They believe in defunding the police, which is not the party position. They believe open borders and open prisons. That's not the party’s position."
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"When you switch that, we can talk," Emanuel added.
Conservatives have expressed concern over the rise of far-left, progressive candidates within the Democratic Party, warning that socialist-leaning politicians like Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., could overtake party moderates.
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Emanuel pushed back on the Republican Party’s characterization of the Democratic Party’s trajectory, pointing to New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger as examples of Democratic pragmatism.
"I don't think that's where the party is," Emanuel said. "I think the party is in the pragmatic wing; you can see that in the governor of Virginia, you can see that in the governor of New Jersey, how they both won their primaries."
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The longtime Clinton adviser argued that it is healthy for the Democratic Party to have debate between its progressive and moderate factions. He also warned that the Republican Party faces an exodus of its moderate wing once spearheaded by Mitt Romney and John McCain.
"I happen to think we're going to have a healthy debate in our party," Emanuel told host Sean Hannity. "We haven't had it for 20 years."
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"There is a progressive and a pragmatic wing of the party. We'll have a healthy debate. That's what we should have," he continued. "In the same way that the Romney and McCain wing of your party is leaving. They have walked away, and that's what's going to tell the story of 2026."
Emanuel’s comments come as he joins a broader group of establishment Democrats navigating an evolving Democratic Party, where Democratic socialist figures have gained prominence alongside the party’s more moderate tradition.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is turning to former President Bill Clinton as his political model as speculation builds around his potential 2028 presidential bid, telling Vanity Fair Clinton is a "master of his craft."
"I watch videos of Clinton. I seek his counsel, his advice, and even in his absence, do that. I’ve been a student of his from day one," he told the outlet.
DEPROGRAMMED: How a man radicalized by the Taliban became a counterterrorism force saving lives from extremism
Mubin Shaikh, a former Jihadist radicalized by the Taliban, details the radicalization process that enamored him with extremist ideology, before he snapped out of those views to become a counter-terrorism specialist for the United States and Canada.
"The biggest indicator [of radicalization is] what we call pathway to violence behaviors. So, doing reconnaissance on a target, looking up, you know, where's the local synagogue? Where's the local mosque?" Shaikh told Fox News Digital.
"It's very important for parents, educators and others to be aware of these signs so that they can possibly prevent the next attack," he continued.
Shaikh’s introduction to radicalization began after a house party, where his uncle "guilt tripped" him into thinking the party was the "most heinous thing possible" he could’ve done that "dishonored" his family.
"That’s what made me tell myself, I need to get religious, and that is what would start my radicalization," he continued.
That incident prompted his travels to India, Syria and Pakistan, where he was radicalized by the Taliban.
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"The city that I was sent to in Pakistan was called Quetta and was and is a Taliban stronghold… I had a chance encounter with the Taliban who basically impressed upon me that the only way for me to really be successful in this world and the next world was to be a militant, was to fight in jihad," he added.
"Me, [as] this young man looking for a sense of meaning, belonging [and] identity, these guys gave me what I thought I was looking for - and I became a supporter of their mentality," Shaikh continued.
A few years later Shaikh got married — a reality he says started to clear the smoke around his extremist views.
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"The abstract conversations around theology and geopolitics yielded to the very real reality in front of me of having a wife and the idea that I could have a future, I could start a family, and so that became more important for me in my life. And that was basically addressing intimacy needs that every human being has. And so my interest in the extremist world started to wane a bit," he said.
September 11th, 2001 would later become the biggest single catalyst in deradicalizing Shaikh. The worst terrorist attack in American history prompted him to travel to Syria, and research Islamic studies in depth.
"I would spend two years there studying Arabic and Islamic studies and would go through this period of de-radicalization," he continued.
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When he returned to Canada, "the first Canadian had been arrested on terrorism charges after the newly minted post-9-11 anti-terror legislation" - Momin Khawaja - a fellow classmate and peer of Shaikh from Quran school during his childhood.
Shaikh saw reference to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and reached out to them, thinking Khawaja’s accusal a mistake. Once they confirmed his classmate’s arrest and spoke more to Shaikh, CSIS recruited him as an undercover operative in counterterrorism efforts.
"I was already online, looking at the extremism that was out there… and by 2012, started to see the rise of ISIS in real time. It was at this time that the US government reached out to me and said, 'Hey, can you help us out with what's coming?' And so from 2012 to 2020, I participated and I supported the coalition against ISIS in various anti-ISIS activities and operations," he continued.
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Shaikh works now as an exit peer specialist for Parents for Peace, a nonprofit fighting radicalization and extremism by intervening with individuals before it’s too late, most of whom "overwhelmingly are juveniles" under 18.
"What gives me hope in countering extremism is really seeing how people turn out after they've left extremist ideologies. It's like a night-and-day difference. And when they come to see the mistake that they were making, when they come to see the pathway that it was leading them towards and seeing that they have left that, their lives get better, their personal situation gets better," he continued.
"To see parents, you know, have their kid back again — that's what it's all about," Shaikh said.
America's truckers issue dire warning as soaring diesel costs threaten 'domino effect'
American truckers are warning that sky-high diesel prices are eating into their profits and putting pressure on trucking companies to cut routes, raising concerns that some drivers could be forced off the road and the pain could eventually reach Americans at the grocery store.
"Fuel prices is going up, the rates are not going up," Miami-based trucker Suave Dorsett told Fox News Digital. "So it's hurting our pockets real bad."
The warnings come as the Iran war sends diesel prices soaring, squeezing American truckers even as President Donald Trump predicts oil prices will fall "like a stone" amid expectations that the conflict could soon end. Drivers told Fox News Digital the damage is already mounting, with routes being cut and smaller operators facing mounting financial pressure.
Dorsett is among several truckers who told Fox News Digital that soaring fuel costs are cutting into their earnings and putting pressure on an industry responsible for moving goods across the country, with one driver reporting fewer routes and others warning that smaller operators could eventually be forced to park their rigs.
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The national average for diesel stood at roughly $6.32 per gallon Monday, according to AAA — up from about $3.69 at the same time last year, a jump of more than 70%. The surge has also eclipsed the previous record of $5.816 per gallon, set in June 2022 under former President Joe Biden as Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent global energy prices soaring.
For Dorsett, who has been driving for nine years, the price at the pump was even steeper. He told Fox News Digital he was seeing diesel at $7.40 per gallon while traveling through Ohio.
Dorsett said the fuel spike comes as truckers are already shouldering a long list of expenses, including diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), which helps reduce harmful emissions, parking, showers, weighing and reweighing loads, repairs and towing.
And if diesel prices remain elevated, Dorsett predicted smaller operators will be the first to buckle.
"Some of the smaller companies, like the smaller owner ops, would slowly fall off and it's going to create a chain effect," Dorsett said, predicting a "domino effect" that could eventually put pressure on larger carriers.
Tyler Rinaldi, a Louisiana trucker with about a decade of experience who transports hazardous materials and other freight for an LTL company, said he has already seen weekend routes scaled back at his company.
"I've seen a lot of routes get cut," Rinaldi told Fox News Digital. "They're not really running like they want to on the weekends right now."
"I definitely see a lot change because of it at my company, slowly, but it's starting to be more noticeable," he added.
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Rinaldi, who is married with two children, said fewer routes could eventually mean less money coming home.
"When they start cutting routes and trying to limit the expenses on what routes they send out," Rinaldi said, "that takes away from the people that work in the company's pockets."
Avante Jackson, an 11-year trucking veteran from Charlotte, North Carolina, who transports steel and other construction materials, said rising diesel prices are forcing truckers to take a harder look at whether the money they bring in is enough to keep their businesses running.
"If I'm putting all of my profit in the tank," Jackson said, "at the end of the day, what do I have left to keep the doors open?"
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Jackson cautioned against "fear-mongering" about potential shortages, but said a widespread loss of drivers could ultimately reach consumers.
"It really could hit the community," he said.
The latest diesel spike echoes a similar crunch in 2022 under former President Joe Biden, when the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent fuel prices flying. Diesel reached a then-record national average of $5.82 per gallon that June, squeezing truckers as operating expenses climbed.
According to the American Transportation Research Institute, trucking fuel costs surged 53.7% in 2022, helping drive a 21.3% jump in overall operating costs to a then-record $2.25 per mile. The latest spike threatens to revive those pressures, particularly for smaller operators with less room to absorb rising fuel bills.
As the Trump administration pushes international partners to release emergency fuel reserves in an effort to bring prices down, the truckers had their own message for the president: don't forget about the drivers absorbing the costs on the road.
"My message to President Trump would just be to think about who's keeping America moving," Jackson told Fox News Digital. "Think about the little guys out here each and every day."
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"We truly are the backbone of America, we keep America moving," he added. "We just want you just to think about us and put yourself in our shoes...Let's try to get the fuel prices down and let's try to just make more of a change," he said. "We know we can do better."
Trump defended higher fuel prices Thursday as a temporary sacrifice in the fight to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, saying on Truth Social that rising gasoline costs were "a small price to pay for Iran not having a Nuclear Weapon."
Trump said last week that European countries had agreed to release diesel from their stockpiles after he pressed them to put more supply on the market. The G7 subsequently agreed to release 100 million barrels of oil and fuel products from previously pledged emergency reserves over four months, including a substantial diesel release during the first 20 days, in an effort to ease pressure on global fuel markets.
Trump also said his administration would not pursue a diesel export ban and expressed confidence that oil prices would eventually return to levels seen before the latest spike, though energy markets remain under pressure from global supply disruptions.
Trump predicted during a Wednesday night rally in San Antonio, Texas, that oil prices would "come down like a rock" once the war with Iran ends, insisting the conflict would be over "very soon."
"This week, President Trump signed an executive order that will quickly cut diesel costs and put money directly back into the pockets of American truckers, saving them over $100 every time they refill at the gas pump. Last week, he negotiated a deal with our European counterparts to release 100 million barrels—mainly diesel—from their stockpiles to add supply to the market and lower costs," White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital.
"The President wants to see prices at the pump fall and continues to take historic action to ease temporary disruptions as oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz approaches pre-conflict levels," Rogers added.
Veteran shot 7 times in Fort Hood massacre has a warning for Americans planning to watch execution
On Dec. 3, 2026, the U.S. government intends to take Nidal Hasan to a firing range at Fort Hood and publicly execute him.
Few condemned men could make a more difficult case for mercy.
Seventeen years ago, Hasan, an Army psychiatrist at the time, walked into a soldier readiness center at the Texas Army post and opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. Now, after years of appeals, the Army is preparing to execute him by firing squad.
And Americans will be able to watch on live stream.
That last detail has transformed what might otherwise have been the long-delayed conclusion of one of the darkest chapters in the Army's history into a more uncomfortable question: How should a nation reckon with the gravity of taking a life, even when that life belongs to a mass murderer?
For Alonzo Lunsford, a former Army staff sergeant who survived being shot seven times by Hasan, the answer is complicated.
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Lunsford wants Hasan executed. He intends to witness it himself in December. He told Fox News Digital he would even prefer that one of Hasan's surviving victims or the relatives of those he killed be allowed to pull the trigger.
Despite that, Lunsford says he has forgiven Hasan.
"The weird thing about it, I've forgiven him because my faith does not allow me to heal and continue unless I forgive that man," Lunsford said.
But forgiveness, for Lunsford, does not mean sparing Hasan from punishment. What troubles him is the prospect of turning that punishment into entertainment.
"It's not a spectacle," he said. "There's nothing glorified in the smell of human flesh, blood and gunpowder. It's a smell you will never forget. It's a taste that you will never forget."
"That's not something you sit around and say, hey, let's get some popcorn and look at this execution," he continued. "We as a people, we're better than that. This ain't no country where we do public beheadings and stonings and think it's fine."
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Lunsford was working at Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Nov. 5, 2009, when Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire. He recalled watching Hasan kill a colleague before turning the weapon on him. Lunsford was shot above his left eye, fell to the floor and played dead before eventually escaping outside, where Hasan shot him again.
"I've accepted the fact I'm gonna live with the pain for the rest of my life," Lunsford said.
He has since found purpose in coaching basketball, mentoring young people and helping others struggling with their mental health.
Lunsford said he doesn't want children watching the livestream, though he believes adults can decide for themselves whether to tune in.
"This is not somewhere you all start throwing some meat on the grill, get outside and say, hey, we're gonna watch them unalive this guy by firing squad," he said. "Don't do that."
"Don't do that because when you do that, you're dishonoring those that made the supreme sacrifice, those who are no longer here. Those are heroes."
War Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended making the execution public, saying Americans should understand the consequences of Hasan's crimes.
"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public," Hegseth said in an interview this week. "Because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things."
Vice President JD Vance cast doubt Friday on whether the Pentagon would follow through with its plans to livestream Hasan's execution, saying he had no intention of watching it himself.
"I see these announcements. I don't know that that's actually going to happen," he told reporters Friday.
The decision for the first U.S. Army death by firing squad in 86 years to be live streamed has drawn opposition even from Republicans who support putting Hasan to death.
"I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that," Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., wrote on X.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., likewise said Hasan "should face the death penalty," but called publicly streaming it "beyond disgusting."
"Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do," Tillis wrote. "It should not be happening in America."
The nation's Catholic bishops have gone further, opposing both Hasan's execution and the decision to make it public. "In no way can Hassan's actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered," Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Friday.
"The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people."
The decision has also raised a more immediate national security concern.
Hasan, who was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during the 2009 attack, has previously spoken about becoming a martyr. Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury counterterrorism official and director of the Washington Institute's Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, warned that making footage of his death widely available could give terrorist groups material to exploit.
"It seems like a poor decision to provide terrorist groups with a video clip they can effectively splice into radicalization propaganda," Levitt told Fox News Digital.
"There's no tangible benefit to live streaming an execution, and it may, in fact, exacerbate the terrorist threat."
For Lunsford, however, the execution remains deeply personal.
During Hasan's 2013 court-martial, the two locked eyes. Lunsford wants Hasan to see him again before he dies.
"I want to look at him in his eyes. I want him to see me — man to man," Lunsford said. "My message to him: Dude, you failed."
"I go where I wanna go, when I wanna go, how I wanna go. With no fear," he said. "I can go outside and just smell and listen to nature. You don't have that luxury."
And despite everything Hasan took from him, Lunsford said he hopes the condemned man uses his final moments to repent.
"I want to give him the opportunity to, the last words out of his mouth is to apologize and repent," Lunsford said. "And be held accountable for his sins and for his crime. And I will be OK with that."
‘Donroe’ Doctrine and conservative victories squeeze cartels in Latin America
The cartels are losing political cover, and they know it.
The Trump administration has treated the Western Hemisphere as a security problem — rather than allow diplomatic courtesy to block needed action. Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro is in U.S. custody. Colombia elected Abelardo de la Espriella, who ran against negotiations with armed groups and won. Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and others have aligned with Washington’s enforcement policies. The Shield of the Americas coalition now coordinates intelligence and operations against cartel networks – but with a handful of exceptions: Mexico, Brazil, Cuba and Nicaragua.
That is the Donroe Doctrine in practice: American predominance in the hemisphere, applied to migration, Chinese footholds and the drug trade.
Critically, this is a major shift in the operating environments for the Sinaloa cartel, CJNG (Jalisco New Generation Cartel), and the Colombian and Venezuelan networks that fed them.
Cuba is the weakest link in the old arc. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the regime has already fallen as a functioning state. About a fifth of the population has left since 2021. The lights fail, the peso is worthless and the government that remains specializes in jailing people. Whether the Castro apparatus collapses by December is unknowable. What is knowable is that Havana is no longer a reliable logistics or intelligence partner for anyone who needs one.
In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Morena government is increasingly alone. It keeps bilateral contacts with Washington while refusing the regional coalition, citing fear of U.S. operations on Mexican soil. If Flávio Bolsonaro wins the Brazilian runoff, Sheinbaum’s remaining major left-of-center counterpart in the region is gone. Isolation raises the diplomatic cost of open sanctuary to the drug lords.
But the cartels are already adjusting.
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In August, Spanish police rolled up a CJNG-linked cell that moved roughly 2.5 tons of methamphetamine dissolved in vanilla aroma and finished it in a lab in Lleida. Earlier Sinaloa shipments concealed in marble statues met the same end. Mexican groups are treating Europe as a synthetics market precisely because cocaine corridors face more hostile governments.
Colombia’s new president has ended the prior administration’s accommodation with armed actors. Venezuelan airspace and ports, long protected by the Cartel de los Soles network, are under direct U.S. pressure. U.S. strikes on drug running fast boats have sharply reduced Eastern Caribbean drug traffic. Routes move. Chemistry is portable — coca fields aren’t.
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Violence is scaling with the same logic. Mexican authorities have arrested clusters of former Colombian soldiers — nine of 12 in one Michoacán case were ex-military — after mine attacks that killed Mexican troops. These men are hired for ambush drills, explosives and drone work. They are not a kill team loyal to former Colombian President Gustavo Petro; Petro is out of office. They are mercenaries. Cartels pay for skills the Mexican state has not matched.
The drone piece is further along than most reporting admits. Cartel explosives drops from commercial quadcopters are already routine. French and U.S. defense outlets have documented Mexican and Colombian nationals entering Ukraine’s International Legion, some with fraudulent papers, seeking assignment to First-Person View (FPV) units. One alias, Águila-7, drew instructor suspicion in Lviv for technical proficiency inconsistent with a humanitarian volunteer. The skills learned on a brutal battlefield transfer seamlessly to the Western Hemisphere.
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And a prosecutor’s office in Tijuana has already been hit by nail-packed drones. Border sightings run into the tens of thousands. The February El Paso airspace closure was the public admission of a problem that has been operational for years.
With the cartels being squeezed, three shifts are likely.
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First, more "legitimate" business. Avocado orchards, fuel theft, mining extortion and chemical import fronts are already balance-sheet items. European logistics firms and real-estate laundering are the export version. Synthetics let production move to whatever jurisdiction still looks the other way.
Second, sharper violence where territory is contested. Leadership disruption and route competition have historically produced spikes in ambushes, not quiet consolidation. Armored "monstruo" trucks, landmines and FPV drones lower the cost of killing rivals and local police. Expect more of it in Michoacán, Jalisco and the border plazas.
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Third, heavier investment in bribery and extortion of officials on both sides of the border. Lost geographic sanctuary makes a compromised port inspector, financial regulator or federal agent more valuable. This is old cartel practice. The premium on it rises when the political umbrellas fold.
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None of this requires a Cuban collapse date or proof that Petro-era Colombian special forces are running kill teams for the cartels. Latin America’s electoral realignment, the U.S. maritime campaign, the European meth seizures, the foreign-fighter drone pipeline and Mexico’s narrowing diplomatic company are enough.
Cartels are businesses under pressure. They will trade some territory for laboratories, drones and officials who can be bought or frightened. The test is whether the Shield of the Americas coalition raises those costs faster than the cartels and their corrupted political patrons can reroute.
Inside the protest playbook to vilify Israel on 'global day of action'
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As demonstrators, including the headline-grabbing CodePink agitators, descend on the nation's capital late Saturday afternoon for a "coordinated global day of action" against Israel, they will join a worldwide wave of marches and planned disruptions that may appear to be unfolding independently.
In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Friday, anti-Israel demonstrators carried signs deploying emotionally charged language against Israel, including one featuring a Palestinian flag and a bloodied hand with the message, "STOP GENOCIDE." Nearby, two women carrying mock machine guns flanked a cardboard image of a handcuffed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a noose around his neck.
But a Fox News Digital investigation has found that, long before the first demonstrators gathered, the messages for the protest's "communications framing" and transnational action plan had already been written, the banners designed, the tactics circulated and the media strategy laid out to "turn public outrage into collective leverage."
The campaign documents reveal that coalition organizers instructed participating groups to direct protesters to "shut down city squares," "encircle government buildings" and "blockade complicit corporate hubs."
The document declares, "This is not a symbolic march and not a routine protest."
Fox News Digital identified 179 organizations in the coalition, while an interactive Google Map published by the network lists 322 events scheduled across three days through Sunday. They include a rally on an "Intifada Trail" in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, a protest in Bangladesh by the "Bangladesh Intifada Youth Collection" and actions in South Africa by "Social Intifada." All three use "intifada," a term associated with Palestinian uprisings against Israel, including periods marked by deadly terrorist attacks. Activists describe the term as a call for resistance.
The global coordination illustrates how contemporary protest movements combine international leadership, local activist networks, standardized visual branding, emotionally charged messaging and traditional news outreach into a single mobilization infrastructure in which professional political organizing amplifies the sincerely held convictions of individual demonstrators.
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Among the participating organizations is CodePink, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has received $1.33 million from Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based tech tycoon who has funneled $278 million into a network of nonprofits under scrutiny by the House Ways and Means Committee and its chairman, Rep. Jason Smith, over allegations that some operate as "Trojan horses" and proxies for the Chinese Communist Party and other malign foreign interests. CodePink and other organizations under scrutiny have denied wrongdoing.
Two days ago, CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and D.C. coordinator Olivia DiNucci dispatched a letter to members, directing them to join the "Feminist Contingent" at the Library of Congress for the "global day of action."
"And don't forget to WEAR PINK!" they noted.
The network's connections were also visible last week, when CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans, who married Singham in 2017, joined an anti-Israel protest in New York City, marching behind a band of activists from Revolutionary Communists of America as they chanted, "Long live the intifada."
Evans told Fox News Digital Singham supports CodePink's efforts and the "amazing work" nonprofits are doing to "stand up when violent things are happening."
Taken together, the documents reveal a coordinated protest and influence campaign spanning continents, combining accusations of Israeli "genocide," attacks on the news media, workplace and university walkouts, blockades, political lobbying and carefully orchestrated publicity.
A review of the planning documents for the global protests reveals the machinery behind the wave of anti-Israel demonstrations across continents as not only a protest campaign but a psychological operation: a common playbook combining strategic accusations of Israeli "genocide," attacks on the news media, workplace and university walkouts, blockades, political lobbying and coordinated publicity.
At the center of the international mobilization are three organizations identified in the campaign documents: the "Global Alliance for the Palestinian territories," launched in July 2025 in London as a "truly international popular front for Palestinian liberation"; the "Anti-Apartheid Movement for Palestine"; and the "Global Coalition to End the Occupation of Palestine."
An online directory displays 179 organizational logos from participating groups worldwide. Fox News Digital extracted the names from the logos and built a database of the coalition.
The same pattern of coordinated organizing has emerged in another international protest movement: the so-called "student protests" rolling through France.
A separate Fox News Digital investigation identified a network of 50 organizations coordinating and amplifying those demonstrations. Only 15 were classified as youth- or student-led groups, while the remaining 35 included communist organizations, labor groups, political organizations and professional protest coordinators.
Organizers supplied participating groups with campaign materials, coordination and strategic support to "turn public outrage into collective leverage."
In an August "Launch Statement," the alliance laid out a strategy to synchronize student demonstrations, workplace actions, rallies and civil disobedience across Asia, the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The stated objective wasn't simply to organize demonstrations, but to add Israel's war in Gaza to the international media agenda, turning separate protests into a coordinated communications effort intended to shape what audiences around the world see, hear and think about the conflict.
But the most revealing aspect of the operation may be its stated objective: shaping what the world sees, hears and thinks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In a "Launch Statement" in August, the alliance declared that the demonstrations are intended to return Israel's military campaign against Palestinians to the international media agenda.
The campaign materials describe a strategy of synchronizing protests across continents, connecting student demonstrations, workplace actions, rallies and civil disobedience from Asia to the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The result is a coordinated communications campaign designed to transform demonstrations organized by separate groups into the political impact of a single international mobilization.
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Weeks before the demonstrations, the alliance had already prepared a collection of campaign posters in seven languages – English, Arabic, Turkish, Finnish, French, Portuguese and Spanish. They supplied graphics for a large street banner carrying carefully selected slogans, along with protest-sign designs from folders marked "HANDHELD PLACARDS" and "STREET DEMANDS."
One of the downloadable images is a poster with the message "GAZA GENOCIDE" next to graphics of barbed wire and watermelon, both symbols of Palestinian "resistance" against Israel.
In Malaysia, a woman wearing a black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh raised her fist while holding a printed version of the watermelon-and-barbed-wire placard], with the organizers' branding in smaller letters on her sign: "GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR PALESTINE."
Behind her, other women carried the same sign and other signs featuring additional graphics from the same campaign materials.
Other placards held by protesters in Malaysia yesterday, read, "HUMANITY IS NOT A CRIME" and "STOP THE GENOCIDE WAR!"
Another downloadable sign, carried in Malaysia, reads: "LET GAZA LIVE!"
The campaign's "Communications Framing" employs familiar techniques of political persuasion: repetition, emotional imagery, collective identity, moral urgency and the portrayal of inaction as complicity.
The materials offer a window into the battle for public attention that increasingly accompanies international conflicts.
One poster declares, "You cannot erase a homeland."
Another commands, "End the genocide. Defend the land."
A third combines an image of a child with the message, "Defend the land. Protect its children."
Another repeats the words "Silence normalises" across the background before presenting the word "genocide" in oversized red lettering.
But the campaign's internal messaging guidance goes further, prescribing accusations against Israel and the news media in a section called "Slogans & Hashtags," with "Call to Action & Core Street Demands."
Among its recommended slogans is the blunt declaration: "Israel Kills. The Media Justifies."
Another declares, "1,100 Days of Israeli Genocide — The Killing Continues."
Yet another calls for action under the message, "1,100 Days — From Every Street, One Demand: End Genocide, End Occupation."
Together, the slogans strategically combine accusations of "genocide" with demands for political action, while claiming the media "justifies" Israel's conduct.
In its "Concept Paper," the alliance describes Israel's actions as a "war of extermination" and calls for countries to stop providing weapons to the Israeli state.
The same document instructs participating organizations in its "Communications Framing" to use language that is "disciplined, credible, urgent and impossible to ignore."
It also directs organizers to portray "institutional silence" as part of the problem and public mobilization as necessary to confront what the alliance calls continuing complicity.
The objective isn't simply to communicate a political position, but to encourage audiences to emotionally identify with a movement and participate in its activities.
The campaign presents its allegations of "genocide" and other violations of international law as established claims.
On Friday, South African human rights lawyer Navi Pillay received the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her work, which included arguing that Israel has committed a "genocide" against Palestinians. Israel disputes the "genocide" accusation.
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The organizing documents go beyond encouraging supporters to attend demonstrations.
Instead, organizers describe a campaign intended to "interrupt business-as-usual" and organize "high-visibility rallies, marches, picket lines, sit-ins and peaceful blockades" at "civic sites, government offices, financial hubs and corporate locations" that its organizers have "identified as complicit in sustaining or normalising Israeli violence."
They also recommend synchronized "workplace, campus and creative interruptions," including "silent walkouts," banner drops, nighttime projections, street theater, "die-ins" and "other highly visible public actions that interrupt normal routines and make the political demand impossible to ignore."
A detailed logistical plan urges organizations to "allocate funds," arrange transportation and establish "legal, stewarding, and participant support."
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The organizing documents go beyond encouraging supporters to attend demonstrations.
The campaign's organizational structure brings together prominent political figures with longstanding backgrounds in international politics and anti-Israel activism in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
A press release for the protests identifies seven members of the international steering committee, including: former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who joined a coalition supporting the Communist Party of Cuba; pro-communist former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis; former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams; Palestinian political leader Mustafa Barghouti; former South African government minister Ronnie Kasrils; Indian activist Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla; and Italian politician Angelo Bonelli.
Anas Altikriti serves as secretary-general.
Jessica Breakey, the campaign's public relations officer, didn't respond to a request for comment.
Beyond the streets, the alliance's strategy documents lay out a plan to convert the demonstrations' visibility into "sustained political pressure" on lawmakers and government institutions.
In a separate advocacy document, organizers urge participating groups to mobilize protesters to write lawmakers, submit coordinated institutional letters and arrange meetings with elected representatives.
The campaign calls for "immediate, total arms embargoes" and "comprehensive state sanctions" against Israel for alleged violations of international law.
It also urges governments to suspend preferential trade agreements and institutional partnerships associated with Israeli policies.
The alliance demands an end to what it calls Israel's "genocide and occupation," without specifying whether its reference to occupation encompasses Gaza, the West Bank or the entire State of Israel. The distinction takes on particular significance amid chants of "from the river to the sea" at anti-Israel demonstrations.
Organizers encourage participating groups to use "targeted, template-driven letters" and "digital briefing toolkits" to support "localised political campaigning," adapting them to their national political systems.
The documents provide direct instructions that participating organizations issue local press releases, distribute "ready-made social-media toolkits," share "graphics across digital channels" and hold briefing sessions to "ensure clear, aligned messaging ahead of the weekend."
Former MN state trooper tears into Dems as Somali gang violence terrorizes Minnesota: ‘Where is Ilhan Omar?’
Former state trooper John Nagel pointed the finger at his opponent, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and the Democratic Party for allowing Somali-American gang-linked violence to escalate in the Twin Cities.
Residents of Eden Prairie and surrounding Twin Cities suburbs have been left fearing for their safety after a string of gang-related incidents this month, including the shooting of two teens shot outside an Eden Prairie high school football game and more than 100 shell casings recovered in a Bloomington neighborhood.
"Where is Ilhan Omar in all of this?" Nagel, a Minnesota native who spent 30 years as a state trooper, asked in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I would think that as a congressman that represents this particular area that she'd be at these meetings or she'd have a statement or she’d be sitting down and saying, ‘Hey, how can we help this? How could we stop this?’ And I don't see her."
Nagel accused other Minnesota Democrats, including Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, of having their "heads in the sand" and preventing law enforcement from stopping the violence before it got out of control.
"They're being restrained by politicians, people that are trying soft on crime, people that're trying to send somebody other than a police officer to take care of issues, and it's not working," Nagel said.
Looking at the responses of statewide leaders, including Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, Nagel said the majority of Democrats "don’t want enforcement."
"The people do," he said. "They're tired of it."
Democrats have been too lenient on crime for years, according to Nagel, which he said has "emboldened" gang members to break the law without serious consequences.
"Because of how the Democrats have run Minnesota over the years, these gang members and then just crooks in general, they’re emboldened by this," he said.
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Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher spoke at a press conference this week, highlighting that a "big chunk of the problem" is failing to hold gang members accountable, saying Moriarty's office needs to be more "aggressive" with prosecuting juveniles.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Daniel Borgertpoepping, a spokesperson for Moriarty’s office, said that no cases related to the Bloomington incident have been submitted for charging consideration, but "they’ll be thoroughly reviewed" if they are.
Adam Abdihakeem Adam, 18, was charged on Friday in connection with the Eden Prairie homecoming football game shooting with two counts of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and second-degree riot.
"Mr. Adam will be held accountable," Moriarty said in a press release Friday. "Violence in our communities is completely unacceptable and it requires a professional, coordinated response, which happened here."
Fletcher also pushed back on "East African" being used to generalize the gang members’ ethnicity, adding that "98% of these gang members are Somali" and that the broader label isn’t "fair."
"I think we just have to say what it is and not run away from the term," he said.
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Nagel said people are afraid of being called "racist" for referring to the gangs as Somali, arguing that law enforcement is simply going after those committing the crimes rather than blaming an entire community.
"I mean, we have Latino gangs and Asian gangs and Black gangs, and we have Somali gangs. This is not being prejudicial."
He said it’s a "Somali problem" because that’s "who's showing up."
"It's ridiculous," he said. "I'm a police officer. I don't care who you are. I don't care what color you are."
Nagel said a "gang task force" could be part of the solution and argued, "We don't need to pass any more laws. We don't need any more people asking for money to help their group. We need to take the laws that we have and prosecute people."
As gang violence spills into Minnesota communities, Nagel said it can’t continue to go on like it has.
"We need enforcement, we need arrests, and we need incarceration," he said. "Otherwise, this is going to continue to spiral."
Nagel will face off against Omar and Independent candidate DeVelle Jackson in the upcoming midterm elections for the U.S. House seat representing Minnesota's 5th Congressional District.
Fox News Digital reached out to Omar, Walz and Ellison’s offices for comment.
Plague mystery revives concerns over not-to-secret Russian bioweapons program
Marshall Billingslea was a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer in the 1990s when he sat down with one of the highest-ranking defectors from the Soviet biological weapons program and began learning the extent of what Moscow had secretly built.
And what he found out from Ken Alibek, the former No. 2 official in the Soviet biological weapons apparatus, is raising red flags for Billingslea over the Oct. 2, 2026, death linked to an anti-plague institute in Russia.
"I think one of the most important things that Ken shed light on was the sheer scale of the Soviet program, which then Russia inherited," Billingslea told Fox News Digital. "Just mammoth."
Three decades later, the mysterious death of a researcher at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East has put new attention on what became of that program — and Billingslea argues the world should be demanding answers from Moscow.
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"It's not acceptable in this day and age for the Russians to have a biological warfare program," said Billingslea, who previously served as President Donald Trump's special presidential envoy for arms control. "They need to cut it out, and they need to tell us. They need to come clean about what they're doing at this lab and whether this lab is still involved in their warfare program."
The U.S. government says Russia's offensive biological weapons program did not disappear with the Soviet Union.
"Russia maintains an offensive biological weapons program and is in violation of its obligations under the BWC," a State Department official told Fox News Digital this week.
BWC, or Biological Weapons Convention, is an international treaty that prohibits the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons.
State's 2025 arms control compliance report assessed that the Soviet-era program was "absorbed, not dismantled" by Russia after the collapse and has "continued and evolved" since then.
There is no evidence linking the Irkutsk researcher's death to Russia's biological weapons program, and Billingslea told Fox News Digital he has seen no evidence that the the institute remains involved in the program today.
But the unexplained death has revived scrutiny of the Soviet program's work and the network of ostensibly civilian laboratories that Billingslea said Alibek identified as also performing classified work.
Alibek's disclosures included Soviet efforts to alter pathogens to make them more lethal, transmissible or difficult to treat, Billingslea said, adding that some of the most troubling revelations involved plague.
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"The goal was to render the plague bacteria far more resistant to antibiotics," he said.
Billingslea said Soviet researchers also experimented with combining plague with toxin-producing pathogens, with the aim of making infections even harder to treat. "They took the plague bacteria and they merged it with a non-dangerous bacteria," Billingslea said.
"The goal was to render the plague bacteria far more resistant to antibiotics."
According to Alibek's account, researchers also worked on combining plague with toxin-producing pathogens so that treating an infected person with antibiotics could trigger the release of toxins.
Billingslea said that U.S. officials were not relying solely on Alibek for their understanding of the program and that there were "multiple other sources of information" that made him "very confident in the basics" regarding the disclosures regarding Soviet-era research.
"So this doesn't all derive from Ken Alibek," he insisted when speaking with Fox News Digital.
By the time Billingslea was interviewing Alibek in the mid-1990s, he said, Washington had already confronted Moscow over its biological weapons work. "We knew about the plague programs, we knew what they were up to, and we knew where the sites were," he said.
Among the facilities Alibek identified were at least six Soviet Ministry of Health laboratories that had legitimate civilian public-health missions while also performing classified work connected to the biological weapons program, according to Billingslea.
The Irkutsk institute was among the facilities Alibek identified, but Billingslea cautioned he does not recall the Soviet defector saying that antibiotic-resistant plague or plague chimeras were specifically developed there.
That distinction has become particularly important following the unexplained death of a 28-year-old researcher at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute.
Russian authorities have said they found no microorganism linked to the woman's professional activities, while the World Health Organization has sought additional information from Moscow about what caused her fatal pneumonia.
Billingslea said the pressure for answers — and for Russia to end its offensive biological weapons program — should not come from Washington alone.
"It's very, very important that this is not viewed as a U.S. versus Russia discussion," he said. "This is a topic of grave concern to the entire international community."
He also said that Russia needs to release the genetic sequence of the pathogen that killed the researcher, along with information about contact testing, the timeline of her illness and the institute's biosafety procedures.
The genetic sequence could allow outside experts to determine "what it was and whether it was modified," he said.
Billingslea called on countries outside the traditional U.S. alliance system, including Brazil and Mexico, to press Moscow for greater transparency, and pointed to a December meeting of parties to the Biological Weapons Convention as an opportunity for countries to confront Russia over the program.
"At the December meeting, Russia is going to get grilled," he said. "And they should."
France is devouring itself as school riots reveal a crisis far bigger than broken classrooms
Student protests over crumbling schools despite billions in public spending are fueling a broader crisis in France, as experts warn that the country's mounting financial troubles, President Emmanuel Macron's weakened political center and radical movements are pushing the unrest far beyond its original educational grievances.
Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' senior envoy for Europe, told Fox News Digital in an interview from Paris that what began in September with legitimate complaints about school conditions has increasingly been exploited by political forces seeking confrontation with the state.
"Overall I'd say the anger is real but the violence I would say is organized," she said, adding that destroying schools would do nothing to improve the education system.
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Seventy-two percent of education expenditure went toward salaries, social contributions and pensions for teaching and non-teaching personnel, while just 8.5% went toward investment, including infrastructure and equipment. The figures cover the entire education system, not just high schools, according to France's Education Ministry's 2026 statistical overview.
Harvey Feigenbaum, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and an expert on French politics, told Fox News Digital that France's underlying problem is a government caught between expensive social commitments, sluggish economic growth and mounting pressure to cut spending.
"France is in deep debt. It wants to cut its expenses," Feigenbaum said, explaining that years of financial pressure and neglected school facilities have fueled frustration among students.
The scale of the financial predicament is striking. According to Eurostat, French public debt stood at 117.6% of GDP in the first quarter of 2026, the third-highest ratio in the European Union, behind Greece and Italy.
Reuters reported October 8 that rising borrowing costs and investor concerns have severely limited the government's ability to resolve unrest through additional spending, a strategy employed during previous waves of French protests.
The financial squeeze has collided with an increasingly fragmented political system, creating opportunities for parties at both ends of the political spectrum to capitalize on public dissatisfaction.
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For Feigenbaum, the long-term roots of the crisis lie in Macron's political legacy.
When Macron won the presidency in 2017, he promised to move beyond France's traditional left-right divide, combining policies from both sides into a new centrist political movement.
But Feigenbaum argues that the strategy produced an unintended consequence: weakening France's established moderate parties without creating a durable governing coalition to replace them.
"What he ended up doing was attracting the moderate voters from the parties of the moderate left and the parties from the moderate right, and essentially destroyed those parties," Feigenbaum said.
He argued that the collapse of the traditional political center helped create space for more ideologically polarized movements. "Macron is a smart man, but he's a terrible politician," the professor added.
Macron's controversial pension reforms illustrate the difficulty of persuading French voters to accept reductions in longstanding public benefits, Feigenbaum argued. Those efforts triggered widespread protests, while implementation of the 2023 retirement changes has since been suspended until 2028.
The situation became especially difficult after Macron called snap parliamentary elections in 2024, producing a deeply divided National Assembly without a governing majority.
"Even if the government wanted to do something coherent, they simply don't have the votes to do it," Feigenbaum said.
That paralysis has left Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu handling the immediate unrest while Macron faces questions about the stability of the political system he helped reshape.
The protests began in the Paris suburbs in September amid complaints about overcrowded classrooms, inadequate heating and cooling, aging buildings and teachers who were not replaced when absent.
Rodan-Benzaquen said the anger reflected years of educational instability, frequent ministerial changes and reforms that have failed to resolve persistent school problems.
She also pointed to a broader sense of anxiety among young people about their economic future, artificial intelligence, climate change and international conflicts.
According to the OECD's September 2026 Education at a Glance report, France spent $16,674 in funding per student in general upper-secondary education in 2023, compared with an OECD average of $12,421, adjusted for purchasing power.
Yet teachers and students continue to complain about basic shortages.
Responsibility for public high school buildings and equipment falls to regional authorities, while the national government oversees much of the education system, including teacher staffing.
Feigenbaum said France's centralized education structure makes national leaders the focus of public anger when schools fail to deliver.
The pressure has already forced a concession.
Reuters reported Friday that Education Minister Édouard Geffray announced an emergency plan to deploy 3,000 qualified educators to particularly affected schools, costing several dozen million euros.
Student unions welcomed the measure as an initial victory but pledged to continue demonstrating.
The spending figures raise broader questions about whether France's financial and political priorities have left sufficient resources for maintaining school infrastructure and meeting students' needs. They do not, however, establish that teachers' unions or other organized constituencies have improperly diverted funding.
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As the demonstrations expanded, the involvement of France's hard-left La France Insoumise party, known as LFI, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, became an increasingly contentious issue.
Reuters reported October 1 that French intelligence agencies had told a government crisis meeting that LFI and affiliated activists played a role in fomenting the unrest. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez also cited agitators moving between schools to encourage violence.
LFI has denied responsibility and accused authorities of aggravating tensions through their response.
Rodan-Benzaquen said far-left movements were capitalizing on students' frustration.
"There is an obvious instrumentalization, obvious manipulation," she said, arguing that activists were seeking to push some protesters toward violence.
She linked the unrest to what she described as Mélenchon's broader political strategy ahead of France's 2027 presidential election.
"His idea is that on the one hand he will scare voters on the right and on the far right, who will then go to vote for the far-right, and on the other hand he would mobilize his own camp," she said.
Rodan-Benzaquen argued that intensifying political confrontation could help Mélenchon consolidate his support among younger voters and immigrant communities, while portraying the far right as an increasingly serious threat.
She described it as a calculated political strategy rather than a spontaneous response to students' concerns.
The involvement of LFI politicians has been documented by French media, although there is disagreement over whether the party helped initiate the demonstrations or became involved after the protests began.
An October 2 investigation by Le Monde examined a police intelligence assessment describing radical-left activity around schools in Seine-Saint-Denis but questioned whether the evidence established that the movement itself was politically orchestrated.
Feigenbaum offered a more cautious interpretation, describing some of the violent perpetrators as fringe provocateurs who exploit broader demonstrations without necessarily directing them.
"They're not being organized by some, you know, some mastermind at the national level, at least as far as anyone knows," he said.
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The demonstrations have also raised questions about whether Islamist groups and pro-Palestinian activists are seeking to use the unrest to advance broader ideological causes.
Rodan-Benzaquen argued that Mélenchon's emphasis on Gaza and the Palestinian cause has helped bring together political constituencies that might otherwise have little in common.
"It's sort of the idea of sort of an intersection of different movements where they manage to bring together the different groups, the far left, Islamist movements, pro-Palestinian activists," she said.
She pointed to Palestinian flags appearing during the demonstrations as an indication of how the movement has expanded beyond its original educational demands.
The FDD expert argued that Islamist elements were attempting to capitalize on the turmoil, although she cautioned against reducing the entire crisis to immigration or religion.
"But this goes far beyond the issue of immigration, it goes far beyond the issue of Islamism, it goes far beyond the issue of Islam," she said.
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The government's latest concessions have not ended the protests.
According to Reuters on Friday, 141 schools remained closed while students continued demanding broader reforms. Nearly 10% of teaching hours in French public high schools remained unstaffed.
For Rodan-Benzaquen, one of the greatest dangers is that the demonstrations reflect a society increasingly divided into competing political realities.
She described how her 17-year-old son created separate left-wing and right-wing Instagram accounts and encountered radically different portrayals of the same unrest: one emphasizing police violence and the other violence by protesters.
"Now, if you live in two drastically different realities, it is very complicated to come to any form of dialog and end agreement," she said.
Her warning extends beyond France's current protests.
"We are in an extremely polarized environment," Rodan-Benzaquen said, noting that social media can deepen divisions and allow confrontations to escalate rapidly.
Feigenbaum sees an additional structural danger: a government burdened by accumulated financial obligations and deprived of the political consensus needed to reform them.
The result is a country spending heavily to sustain its public institutions while struggling to deliver the services citizens expect — and a political system increasingly consumed by conflict over how to fix them.
What began as a rebellion against broken classrooms has become a test of whether France can reconcile its costly promises with its financial reality before the divisions consuming its schools deepen further.