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Prince Harry, Meghan Markle accused of seeking ‘best of both worlds’ with UK move: expert
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have returned to the United Kingdom with their two children, but royal experts say the move may be less about a permanent homecoming and more about securing the "best of both worlds."
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex — who are reportedly looking for a home in Britain — are expected to maintain their ties to Montecito, California, while keeping their businesses based in the United States.
Royal commentator Kinsey Schofield told Fox News Digital that the reported arrangement appears to give the couple access to Britain and the royal family while allowing them to maintain their independent lives in the U.S.
"I suspect they want the best of both worlds — access to Britain, proximity to the monarchy and the credibility that comes with Harry’s royal identity, while maintaining the freedom and commercial opportunities they associate with life outside the U.K.," Schofield said.
PRINCE WILLIAM, KATE MIDDLETON FACE 'SUSSEX CIRCUS' AS PRINCE GEORGE PREPARES FOR ETON: EXPERT
Schofield said the Sussexes’ reported plans resemble the "half-in, half-out" role that Queen Elizabeth II rejected when Harry and Meghan stepped back from royal duties in 2020.
MEGHAN MARKLE’S UK RETURN POSES PALACE CONTROL ‘NIGHTMARE,’ EXPERT WARNS
While the couple has reportedly vowed to avoid making public comments or releasing photos that could overshadow Prince George's start at Eton this month, Schofield said the Sussexes’ broader U.K. plans raise questions about whether they are truly returning to Britain for good or simply testing the waters.
"Harry and Meghan never do what they say or say what they mean," she said. "One year ago, Harry told us the U.K. was not safe enough to bring his wife and children. Now someone is briefing the Daily Mail that Harry has a 15-year plan in the U.K. Alternatively, we’re briefed this could be temporary."
"I would describe it as a trial run rather than a definitive homecoming," Schofield added.
Harry and Meghan relocated to California in 2020 after stepping back as working members of the royal family. Since then, they have released various projects, including a Netflix docuseries and Harry’s memoir, "Spare," and have pursued a series of entertainment and business ventures outside the monarchy.
However, their return to Britain has raised questions about their motives.
Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said Harry and Meghan have increasingly presented themselves as an "international" power couple, rather than tying themselves to either the U.K. or the U.S.
"They reportedly see themselves as ‘international citizens,’" Fitzwilliams told Fox News Digital. "They claim that their balance of business activities and trips abroad over the last six years is a success."
WATCH: PRINCE HARRY BELIEVED ROYAL FAMILY COULD HAVE ALLOWED A ‘HYBRID’ ROLE: AUTHOR
"Rather than planting one flag, the Sussexes appear to be keeping several doors open," Schofield added.
Helena Chard, a British broadcaster and photographer, also said Harry and Meghan are "keeping their options open."
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"Things haven’t gone to plan for various reasons, but one thing’s for sure: They need to keep relevant," Chard told Fox News Digital. "Cue travel to the U.K., be seen with the British Royal Family and push for state-funded armed police protection."
Chard said enrolling the children in a British school could benefit the family while also helping Harry pursue the security arrangements he has sought since stepping back as a working royal.
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WATCH: PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN MARKLE RETURNING TO THE UK: 'GOD HELP THE ROYAL FAMILY'
"Like a dog with a bone, Harry will fight for everything he believes his family deserves," Chard said.
The experts also questioned whether Harry and Meghan are equally invested in making Britain a permanent home.
"Harry has much more at stake emotionally," Schofield said. "Returning gives him an opportunity to reconnect with his country, his family, old friends and a version of his identity that he walked away from six years ago."
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"For Meghan, Britain carries different associations," she continued. "She has repeatedly described her royal experience as deeply unhappy, so I think it is reasonable to question whether she could ever feel the same enthusiasm Harry might feel about putting down permanent roots."
"Harry may see Britain as coming home. Meghan may see Britain as somewhere useful to spend part of the year," Schofield said. "Those are two very different emotional investments."
A spokesperson for Archewell, which handles the offices of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Father who rejected Democrats' sympathy rips 'ignorance' after emotional Capitol Hill hearing
A father rejected Democratic lawmakers' expressions of sympathy on Capitol Hill this week, accusing them of only showing concern when the cameras are rolling after his daughter was left permanently disabled in a car crash allegedly caused by an illegal immigrant.
"I reject your guys' sympathy, to be honest with you. There's no way you guys are sorry," Marcus Coleman told lawmakers Tuesday.
Coleman criticized Democratic lawmakers for what he called their "ignorance" during a follow-up interview Thursday, telling Fox News' Trace Gallagher that he struggled to make them understand his position.
"Talking with the Democrat representatives, I mean, the language they speak is ignorance, and it's hard for me to translate what I'm trying to say to them," he said. "I can explain it all day, I just can't understand it for them."
His remarks come after a heated CNN discussion about crimes involving illegal immigrants, during which podcast host Leigh McGowan described the discussion as "exhausting."
Coleman told Gallagher about his own "exhausting" experience caring for his 7-year-old daughter, Dalilah, after she was critically injured in 2024 when an 18-wheeler traveling at about 60 mph slammed into the car she was riding in.
The Department of Homeland Security identified the truck driver as Partap Singh, an illegal immigrant from India who had obtained a commercial driver's license in California. DHS said Singh was driving at an unsafe speed and failed to stop for traffic and a construction zone before the crash.
"I work on maybe about four hours of sleep every night, primarily taking care of my daughter during the daytime, trying to work at nighttime and squeeze everything in, so I'm exhausted," Coleman said.
Coleman said his daily responsibilities have made it difficult to accept what he views as indifference from lawmakers.
During Tuesday's hearing, he accused Democratic lawmakers of offering sympathy inside the committee room while failing to reach out to him privately.
"Not one of you guys have ever called me. Not one of you guys ever reached out to me," Coleman told them. "You guys do it right here while you guys are grandstanding on top of your soapbox."
"This is when you guys care," he continued. "Right here inside this room is the only time you guys cared."
At a previous sanctuary cities hearing, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., questioned why the committee was revisiting the issue.
"Unfortunately, this hearing is — it's the fourth time in this committee that we've had a hearing on sanctuary cities. The fourth time," Jayapal said. "And there's many other things that we could be doing other than this."
Coleman said his advocacy will continue despite the demands already placed on him at home, saying his daughter's condition is a reminder of what he believes is at stake in the country's immigration debate.
"There's no remedy with open borders at all," he said.
"Leaving your door unlocked at nighttime, you're not gonna sleep safe. Leaving the borders open at nighttime, we're not going to be safe. My daughter is the proof. There's hundreds, if not thousands, of victims right now behind illegal aliens."
Fox News' Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
Trump’s Pentagon shake-up revives a presidential power play with a long history
Dan Driscoll’s departure as Army secretary has brought new scrutiny to the Trump administration’s sweeping changes at the Pentagon, with Democrats and some Republicans warning that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s approach is creating instability among the military’s top leaders.
But the president replacing senior military leaders is nothing new. Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Harry Truman have removed commanders when they lost confidence in their leadership, disagreed over strategy or wanted a different direction.
What stands out about the current moment is the pace of the turnover — and the debate over whether the administration’s changes are putting the military on a stronger footing or creating leadership gaps along the way.
COMMANDING GENERAL OF THE US ARMY IN EUROPEAN AND AFRICAN THEATER IS UNEXPECTEDLY STEPPING DOWN
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said Hegseth is "creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks" while ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee Jack Reed of Rhode Island said, "Hegseth is cultivating a culture where dissent is punished, and competence is secondary to personal allegiance."
Under Trump's second term, at least 20 military leaders have departed over a combination of clashes, including over Hegseth's leadership, military strategy, as well as disagreements over DEI, according to a CBS report.
Parnell told Fox News Digital that the Pentagon is "unified behind" Hegseth’s vision.
"Secretary Hegseth has been a transformative leader for the Department of War and, at President Trump’s direction, has ushered in a new era of Peace Through Strength. Standards and merit are back, our arsenal is stronger than ever before, and morale and recruitment across every service are at all-time highs," added Parnell. "Secretary Hegseth has slashed bureaucracy, unleashed innovation, and delivered for our warfighters every step of the way."
Presidents dating back to Abraham Lincoln have removed senior military leaders when they believed a change in personnel was necessary — a longstanding feature of civilian control of the military, not a new invention of the current administration.
Then-President Barrack Obama accepted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel resignation in 2014 after the president concluded that new Pentagon leadership was needed amid disagreements over the administration’s strategy against ISIS, Syria policy and the management of the Defense Department.
Reports at the time indicated the departure was a forced resignation.
Following Hagel's departure, Obama said the former Defense Secretary had "guided the department through this transition" and that it was "an appropriate time for him to complete his service." He praised Hagel for helping modernize the military’s strategy and meet Obama's concern for longterm threats such as China’s rise and Russian aggression.
Harry Truman removed five-star Army general and one of the most prominent U.S. commanders of World War II Douglas MacArthur.
The two men clashed over the Korean War with Truman wanting to avoid spreading conflict to China while MacArthur advocated for the opposite.
One early example came during the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln removed Gen. George McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac after growing frustrated with his cautious approach to fighting Gen. Robert E. Lee. Lincoln later removed Ambrose Burnside after the Union’s defeat at Fredericksburg and replaced him with Joseph Hooker.
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Trump named Adam Telle as acting secretary of the Army Thursday, calling him "a Great Patriot, who is respected by all" and saying he would assume the role immediately after Driscoll’s resignation.
Telle previously was the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works.
Driscoll's exit comes after reportedly butting heads with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over concerns with the administration about the Army’s transformation and readiness, including his belief that Hegseth had hindered those efforts.
Vice President Vance said Thursday Driscoll was a "very good friend" of his and was a "great secretary of the Army."
Vance acknowledged that he agreed with Hegseth, that there is a need to "have a culture shift at the Department of War."
"Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more," White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement.
"The United States Army is more powerful than ever thanks to his work alongside the Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of War," she added.
Trumps entered his first administration with the message of peace through strength seeking to reinvent global perception of America while also modernizing the military such as creating the U.S. Space Force.
During his first term, Trump had two Senate-confirmed defense secretaries, including Jim Mattis, who resigned in 2018 after Trump announced plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, and Mark Esper, whom Trump fired in 2020 after disagreements that included the military’s role in responding to domestic unrest.
"Changes in civilian leadership at the military-service level aren’t unusual. During President Trump’s first administration alone, the Army had two Senate-confirmed secretaries, Mark Esper and Ryan McCarthy, while Robert Speer and McCarthy also served as acting secretaries during leadership transitions," a senior Pentagon official told Fox News Digital.
"There’s a reason the law is structured this way," the official added. "The Department of the Army operates under the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of the Army is specifically responsible for ensuring Army policy is consistent with the President’s and Defense Secretary’s national-security policies and that their decisions and instructions are implemented effectively and on time."
Trump came back during his second term with an aggressive approach to rebuilding the American military, tightening fitness requirements, axing DEI policies, overhauling weapons acquisition, building up recruitment and refocusing the force on combat readiness and lethality.
MARK HALPERIN: Social media damaged a generation. Are we about to let AI do the same?
Imagine: two hundred aliens land on Earth, with thousands and thousands more of them expected in looming, unstoppable waves.
And imagine, too, that we know some of the aliens are here to help us, to make our planet better, smarter, and more efficient. But we also know that some of the aliens are here to do us harm, perhaps injure us irreparably. What we don’t know is this: which aliens will be good to us, and which will be malevolent?
That is the situation with AI.
But it is more complicated than that.
Because the good aliens and the bad aliens aren’t necessarily different aliens. The same technology that can help discover a cure for cancer, give a low-income kid access to a world-class tutor, make government more efficient, and produce extraordinary new wealth also can deceive, manipulate, displace, addict, and destroy. The alien who comes bearing gifts in the morning might be the one who burns down the village at night.
And yet for the multitudes of op-eds and think pieces, the anxious parent text chains and furtive bot-synthesized office memos, the accelerating quotidian reliance on AI for driving directions, recipes, fun facts, and how-tos, we aren’t discussing AI with the frequency and intensity it warrants.
We are merely watching, transfixed and paralyzed; or turning away and scurrying back to landlines and paperback books; or playing along, sinking into the lazy comfort of an easy answer. An algorithmic echo of Ray Bradbury’s 1948 short story, "Mars is Heaven."
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There is little doubt that AI will be the next leap forward in human advancement, akin to the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, penicillin, and the internet. But we are not having the urgent, necessary conversations about what it all means.
China, meanwhile, is all in on AI, investigating its most sinister uses, learning its gifts and powers, leveraging it, weaponizing it. In the United States, however, the topic of AI veers shambolically from flippant Matrix memes to end-of-days-style apocalyptic panic, to tepid comparisons with old-school Google.
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The implications of AI are so vast, so incomprehensible, that it is unclear which entities are equipped to wrangle it, or at least enforce some regulations, whether it is the White House or Congress, the two branches united, or state-by-state legislation. Additionally, AI is changing so quickly, and government moves so slowly, that by the time any measures are passed, the technology that prompted the hearings might be several generations old.
One can look at the rise of social media to see a clear, cautionary analogy.
What began as an innocuous way to share life updates, family photos, and dog videos grew enormous and toxic, changing the way people, especially children and teens, process information. Changing their hobbies and passions and brain chemistry. Changing the way they make friends, view themselves, and interact with the world. Social media has transformed the way we get news and connect with people, but belatedly, has induced a scramble to scale back the more malignant elements of its influence, especially on the young.
The great lesson of social media isn’t simply that we failed to regulate it. It is that we waited to see what would happen.
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We let hundreds of millions of people use it, let the companies optimize it, let children become consumed by it, and then, years later, began accumulating the evidence of what it had done. Only after the patient got sick did we start looking for the right medicine.
Meta recently took a significant step and acknowledged its contribution to the crisis, following a massive nationwide lawsuit accusing the company of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to young people, along with charges that the company was intrusive and unethical with its data collection.
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In addition to paying out as much as $18 billion in damages, Meta promised to make major changes to how children and teenagers may access and use their platforms. Meta further called upon its industry competitors, YouTube and TikTok, to enact similar alterations.
For years, millions of parents, regardless of political affiliation, have pleaded for this sort of reform.
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Mark Zuckerberg and the other innovators who built the social media revolution can rightly argue that they did not know, at least in the very beginning, what they were creating or the impact it would have. Nobody in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 had a body of evidence showing what Facebook would do to the sleep patterns, self-esteem, attention spans, friendships, politics, and mental health of the children coming of age behind them.
But the people who are now building and selling AI have no such excuse.
They have the entire social media experience sitting right in front of them. They know what happens when extraordinary technology meets the human desire for attention, companionship, affirmation, stimulation, and convenience. They apprehend the commercial incentive to keep the customer engaged for another minute, another hour, another year.
And AI presents a problem that social media never did.
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Facebook can influence your child. Instagram can make your child feel inadequate. TikTok can keep your child staring at a screen until two in the morning.
AI can become your child’s friend.
Or tutor, therapist, confidant, or adviser. Or romantic interest. Or some combination of all of these relationships.
It can know what your child is afraid of. Who your child has a crush on. What your child hates about their body. What is going wrong at home. What your child hasn’t told a parent, a teacher, a sibling, or a best friend. A generation of children could grow up pouring the most intimate details of their lives into machines owned and operated by corporations.
Think about that for a moment.
The danger isn’t just what AI tells our children. It is what our children tell AI.
So far, most AI executives, with a technological power that makes the social media platforms look like humble floppy disks from Radio Shack, have not shown much interest in doing the right thing.
But they should. They should take a look around at their communities, their own children, and consider the brave new world they are poised to create.
There are obvious places to begin. Parents should know when and how their children are using AI. Children should always know when they are dealing with a machine rather than a human being. There should be serious limits on the collection and retention of children’s most personal information. AI companionship for minors deserves scrutiny of an entirely different order than asking a chatbot who won the Battle of Gettysburg. There should be limits on how aggressively these products can be designed to keep a child engaged, and how they can be used, particularly late at night and without a parent’s knowledge.
The major AI companies could agree on a set of basic rules for children, an AI Geneva Convention of sorts. Not because these companies have suddenly become charities, and not because competition has ceased to matter. As Meta urged TikTok and YouTube, if everybody plays by the same rules, nobody is forced to choose between responsible behavior and market share.
The standard Silicon Valley response to regulation has been that anything that slows American technology hands the future to China. There is truth in that. The United States cannot unilaterally disarm in the AI race while Beijing charges forward.
But protecting American children is not unilateral disarmament.
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We can race China to build the smartest AI without racing China to see who can most effectively manipulate a 12-year-old. We can lead the world in artificial intelligence without surrendering an entire generation to it.
For AI products designed specifically to interact intimately and repeatedly with children, perhaps the companies first should have to demonstrate that reasonable protections exist. The consequences of being too careful are only that a child waits a little longer for some new feature. The consequences of being too cavalier are potentially disastrous.
There is a still deeper question that doesn’t fit neatly into legislation or parental controls.
What happens to childhood when a child never has to be bored?
Or lonely. Or confused. Or stumped. Or forced to figure something out without assistance. What happens when every question receives an immediate answer, every insecurity an immediate reassurance, every empty hour an available companion?
Those things sound like problems technology should solve.
But boredom, uncertainty, frustration, loneliness, and even failure have been part of growing up since there have been children. These human challenges help produce imagination, independence, resilience, judgment, and the ability to exist inside your own head.
The strangest danger of AI may turn out not to be that it does terrible things for our children.
It may be that it does wonderful things for them, all the time, so easily and so completely that we discover too late that AI has eliminated essential parts of how children learn to become adults.
There surely will be casualties of the AI revolution. But our children should not be among them.
Charles Manson's 'Helter Skelter' motive a myth? New tapes reveal what may have sparked Sharon Tate murders
For decades, the prevailing story of the Manson murders held that Charles Manson masterminded a murderous plot to ignite a race war inspired by the Beatles. But Joe Berlinger argues the infamous story never added up.
The true crime filmmaker directed a three-part Netflix docuseries titled "Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes." It features previously unreleased prison audio from the cult leader and some of his "Manson Family" members.
In 1969, the career criminal who surrounded himself with runaways and other lost souls directed his followers to commit a series of murders in and around Los Angeles. Prosecutors argued the killings were part of Manson's "Helter Skelter" plan to ignite a race war.
But after studying the previously unreleased recordings, Berlinger argues the murders were instead a desperate attempt to cover up "a series of blunders."
"This whole idea of starting a race war was a false idea," Berlinger told Fox News Digital. "He certainly believed a race war was coming, or at least that's what he told his followers to control them. But the murders, in particular the Tate and LaBianca murders, were an attempt to get associate Bobby Beausoleil out of prison. He told his followers, 'He's my friend. You guys owe me a favor. Let's get him out of prison.'"
"The truth is I believe, and others believe, that if they had succeeded in this crazy idea of getting Bobby Beausoleil out of prison, I think Manson would’ve killed him because he was a liability," said Berlinger. "But listening to those tapes made the story come alive, not these crazy conspiracy theories and myths that turned Charles Manson into the most mythologized figure in the history of true crime."
Berlinger traces the chain of events that led to the murders to a botched drug deal.
According to the documentary, Manson invited members of the Straight Satans motorcycle club to Spahn Ranch to protect him from the Black Panthers, whom he feared, offering them access to his female followers in exchange.
"[Follower] Tex Watson tried to steal money from a drug dealer named Bernard ‘Lotsapoppa’ Crowe, who wants his money back," Berlinger explained. "Manson goes out there and doesn't intend to kill him, but thinks he killed him, a Black Panther."
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According to the documentary, Watson stole Crowe's money, prompting Crowe to threaten retaliation. Manson later shot Crowe and mistakenly believed he had killed him. Crowe was not a Black Panther.
"He goes back to Spahn Ranch and becomes paranoid that the Black Panthers are going to come after him. He becomes friends with Bobby, tells him to join the family and also to help protect the ranch. Bobby becomes tight with some bikers who were also invited to protect the ranch from the Black Panthers."
But the motorcycle gang wanted more than just women. The documentary says Beausoleil brought them drugs he obtained from music teacher Gary Hinman. The bikers were unhappy with the quality of the supply, and Beausoleil was pressured to recover their money.
"Bobby tries to get his money back from Gary and can’t get it," said Berlinger.
According to court records, during the confrontation, Manson arrived at Hinman's home and slashed Hinman's face with a sword, cutting him from his left ear toward his chin. Over the course of about three days, Manson's followers tortured Hinman. Beausoleil later stabbed Hinman to death and wrote the words "Political Piggy" on a wall in Hinman's blood, along with an animal paw print intended to implicate the Black Panthers.
"Gary Hinman is killed because Manson comes in, wields a sword and then tells Bobby 'finish the job' to cover the tracks," Berlinger said.
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Beausoleil was arrested about a week after Hinman’s body was discovered. Berlinger said Beausoleil was driving Hinman’s vehicle and had "the murder weapon stupidly in the stolen car."
Berlinger said Manson wanted police to believe Hinman’s murder was the work of the Black Panthers to cast suspicion away from Beausoleil. He noted the attempt to free Beausoleil became the catalyst for the murders that followed.
On Aug. 9, 1969, Manson's followers murdered five people at a Los Angeles home previously rented by music producer Terry Melcher: actress Sharon Tate, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant; coffee heiress Abigail Folger; celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring; Polish writer Wojciech Frykowski; and Steven Parent, who had been visiting the estate's caretaker.
Melcher had previously declined to sign Manson to a recording contract.
"The murder is tried to be made to look like it was part of Gary Hinman’s murder," said Berlinger. "But when Manson picks up the paper the next day, and there’s no information about these two murders being linked, they do another murder. The logic is, ‘We’ve got to make people think that Bobby, who is sitting in prison, is not guilty.’"
"This was all a series of blunders, a bunch of bad, spontaneous decision-making."
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The next night, wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary LaBianca, were stabbed and killed in their home across town. The killers scrawled phrases including "Pigs" and the misspelled words "Healter Skelter" in blood at the crime scene.
Manson was arrested in October 1969.
Prosecutors maintained at trial that Manson ordered his followers to kill some of Los Angeles' rich and famous to trigger a race war, a plan prosecutors said grew in part from his interpretation of the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter."
Manson frequently spoke about an impending race war and interpreted songs on the Beatles' "White Album" as messages about the coming conflict, according to testimony from his followers. What remains disputed is whether those beliefs motivated the Tate-LaBianca murders or whether, as Berlinger argues, prosecutors elevated them into the central theory of their case.
"[Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi] had to come up with a legal theory to convict a guy who actually didn’t do the killings," Berlinger said. "Manson wasn’t even there when the Tate-LaBianca killings took place. So how do you convict somebody who wasn’t there? Well, you come up with this organizing principle that he convinced his followers that a race war was coming, and he was trying to make that race war happen. It was a brilliant legal theory, but it’s a false story."
"The Manson murders are much more tragic, but much more banal than this idea of some crazy cult trying to start a race war," Berlinger continued.
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"This was a drug deal gone bad, trying to cover up Gary Hinman’s killing by doing another murder the next day to make it look like a copycat murder, which were the Tate murders. And when that murder didn’t hit newspapers like a Black Panther murder, they did the LaBianca murders. It’s a series of blunders by people who were trying to cover their tracks, not this grand scheme of 'Helter Skelter.'"
Bugliosi worked with writer Curt Gentry on a book about the case. Published in 1974, "Helter Skelter" became the bestselling true crime book of all time.
Manson and three followers — Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten — were found guilty and later sentenced to death. Charles "Tex" Watson was tried separately and convicted later. Their death sentences were reduced to life in prison after the California Supreme Court invalidated the state's death penalty in 1972.
Atkins died in prison in 2009. Van Houten was released on parole in 2023. Krenwinkel and Watson remain in prison.
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Manson died at a California hospital in 2017 while serving a life sentence. He was 83.
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Berlinger maintained Manson's reputation as an evil mastermind was fueled more by myth than reality.
"He wasn’t killing or ordering people to kill to get some kind of satisfaction," Berlinger said. "He was covering up a series of blunders and just getting deeper and deeper into a hole. The best way to honor the victims is to be truthful about what happened."
Squatter nightmare turns DC apartment building into 'drug haven' as legal battle drags on: 'There's no help'
WASHINGTON, D.C. — FIRST ON FOX: As Washington, D.C., grapples with a persistent squatting problem, one resident in the nation's capital is speaking out about how unwelcome tenants have turned her life upside down, terrorizing her neighborhood while the city stands by and does nothing.
"I lived in several countries, including Third World countries, but it seems to me that I’m living in a Fourth World country in D.C.," Tatyana Day Velasquez, who owns a small three-unit building in Columbia Heights, told Fox News Digital.
"I’ve never seen something like it. There’s no accountability for what goes on. Everybody just throws the ball to each other, and there’s no help. So how can somebody resolve a problem like mine if you don’t get help?"
For a tumultuous eight months, Velasquez said her property's basement apartment has been overrun by strangers who refuse to leave and live rent-free with no consequences in sight.
Hidden behind a makeshift barricade built with trash cans and bricks, Velasquez said the apartment has transformed into a "drug haven," with unfamiliar faces pouring in and out in the night, constant fights breaking out, and a chemical odor seeping through the building. Photos and videos provided by Velasquez show a disheveled apartment littered with needles and drug pipes, as well as Narcan, fentanyl test strips, a machete and guns.
"They don't pay rent," she said. "I mean they're making money by drug dealing, obviously."
The dispute has since landed in D.C. Superior Court, where Velasquez is fighting to reclaim the basement apartment, arguing the courts are "overfilled with situations like mine."
Court documents show that Velasquez discovered other people had taken over her apartment after the previous tenant told her he moved out. Despite one of the men claiming the tenant gave him a key, the lease explicitly states unauthorized occupants, subletting and drug-related criminal activity are prohibited.
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Three separate tenants ultimately fled and vacated the building amid safety concerns, with one of the tenants telling Velasquez she "no longer feels safe enough to sleep here," according to court documents.
With the men never receiving approval and not paying rent, Velasquez argued this was enough reason to have them removed from the building.
"How could that be possible?" she said. "They are not guests. They're not invitees. This property is not a business. So, they are not implied consent to get inside, they are trespassers."
Police records tell a more complicated story. A June 26 Metropolitan Police Department report said one of the occupants had "established residency" by living with a tenant on the lease and therefore could not simply be removed, so police treated it as a landlord-tenant dispute and made no arrests.
Under D.C. law, property owners generally cannot remove occupants themselves and instead must go through D.C. Superior Court, a process that can take months in some cases. D.C.'s Office of the Tenant Advocate says occupants must be given an opportunity to challenge a property owner's claims in court before an eviction can be carried out.
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"I believe this is predatory tactics, and I also believe that by letting squatters have rights, it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment because you no longer have private property," Velasquez said. "The government decides what your property is going to be used as."
But the bills never stopped coming, according to Velasquez, including D.C. property taxes and trash violations connected to the debris left behind by squatters.
"I'm not making any income from the property and, as a matter of fact, I'm still being charged taxes from the D.C. government," Velasquez said.
Velasquez has now taken it upon herself to manage the chaos, driving to the building daily to confront the alleged squatters as her cries for help fall on deaf ears.
"I have to go there every day because, you know, I haven't received much help from the police and the neighbors are tired of it," she said.
The confrontations with the squatter have turned physical multiple times, according to Velasquez, who said has received pushback from the police over her continued calls reporting the squatter.
"I've been assaulted like a couple of times and there's nothing I can do because I'm responsible for the property and for the safety of other tenants," Velasquez said.
One neighbor said the incident sends a troubling message about D.C.'s priorities.
"You say you want to protect women," Lloyd, Velasquez's neighbor, told Fox News Digital. "You're so against domestic violence, you're against this and that, but then you turn around and do something like this."
The disturbances have even spread beyond the property, Lloyd said, with neighbors passing by also being antagonized.
"The way I see it, it's a domino effect, and it's an entitled domino effect, and it is an audacity thing," Lloyd said.
The ongoing legal battle is shining a spotlight on D.C.'s controversial approach to alleged squatters, with property owners left with few options while eviction proceedings play out in court and bills continue to pile up.
Lloyd said the effects of squatting can ripple through entire neighborhoods.
"It's like one negative thing permeates another negative thing, so you become a fungus in the neighborhood with nuclear waste attached to you," Lloyd said.
A D.C. police spokesperson told Fox News Digital MPD’s authority is limited once someone has established residency at a property, adding that officers can respond to calls, investigate alleged crimes and make arrests when they find probable cause, but they cannot simply remove an established resident because a property owner considers the person unauthorized.
Evictions and questions about possession have to go through D.C. Superior Court, with the U.S. Marshals responsible for carrying out court-ordered evictions. The spokesperson said the underlying problem is largely a matter of D.C. law and that any legislative change would fall to the D.C. Council.
"Squatting is not primarily a housing policy problem; it is a property-rights enforcement problem," John Gibbs, Director of the Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. "The core failure is that lawful owners often face greater burdens recovering their property than unauthorized occupants face taking possession of it. The solution is restoring the presumption that ownership matters. Expedited removal procedures, stronger anti-fraud penalties, faster courts, and clearer authority for law enforcement could significantly reduce squatting while preserving protections for legitimate tenants."
Gibbs pointed to a combination of factors he believes has fueled the growth of squatting in recent years, including the lingering effects of COVID-era eviction moratoriums, which expanded government involvement in landlord-tenant disputes and made removing occupants more difficult and uncertain. He argued those moratoriums helped foster an environment in which occupancy rights were increasingly weighed against property owners’ rights.
Additionally, Gibbs pointed to a growing reluctance among authorities to treat unauthorized occupancy as a property-rights issue, along with changes in policing and prosecution that he said have weakened deterrence. At the same time, he said social media has made it easier for would-be squatters to learn how to exploit eviction procedures, pointing to reports of fake leases, online tutorials and organized schemes that have made the tactics easier to replicate.
Fox News Digital reached out to multiple members and committees of the D.C. City Council for comment.
The mayor's office declined to comment.
Last week, the U.S. Marshalls served an eviction at the property, and one of the squatters was also arrested for violating the protective order on the location, but the problem has not been resolved as he and his acquaintances have returned to the property multiple times, Velasquez says. Additionally, Velasquez says her protective order has been dismissed due to clerical errors in the courts.
For Velasquez, the dispute is one of many "horror stories" facing DC property owners that have been reported in local media over the past few years with no resolution in sight.
"These small landlords cannot survive in D.C.," Velasquez said. "I don't know what the end game is from the city, but they don't care about the small guys, the small landlords."
Fox News Digital reached out to the alleged squatter for comment but did not receive a response.
Russia's shadow war is putting Europe on edge as Germany confronts a growing threat
Germany is pushing European partners to create a rapid-response task force in the Baltic Sea region as Berlin confronts what it says is an escalating campaign of Russian hybrid warfare, including an attempted explosives-laden drone attack on one of the country's most important cargo airports.
The initiative, proposed by German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt following an Aug. 28 meeting in Flensburg, is intended to allow Baltic Sea countries to rapidly exchange information and coordinate responses to hybrid threats ranging from drones and sabotage to cyberattacks, disinformation and attacks on critical infrastructure.
"We want to turn this shared threat environment into a shared security environment," Dobrindt said, warning that hybrid threats were becoming more frequent and sophisticated.
The proposal has taken on new urgency after Germany formally accused Russia this week of responsibility for an attempted Aug. 4 attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport involving a drone carrying explosives.
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German officials said police findings, intelligence information and the methods used in the attack led Berlin to conclude Russia was responsible. The government said aspects of the drone, explosives and detonation technology were consistent with methods seen in previous Russian hybrid operations and in Moscow's war against Ukraine.
Germany has not publicly released much of the underlying evidence, saying details including information about suspected perpetrators, travel routes, surveillance footage and DNA evidence are being withheld to protect the investigation.
Latvia characterized the Leipzig attack in even stronger terms.
"The attack in Leipzig confirms once again that Russia poses a direct threat to the security of all of Europe. This was not merely a hybrid attack, but state-sponsored terrorism on German soil," Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže said in a statement published by Latvia's Foreign Ministry.
Braže also called for continued efforts to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities and for additional sanctions aimed at limiting Russia's ability to produce missiles, drones and other weapons.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Richard Newton told Fox News Digital that the episode reflects what he described as a widening pattern of hostile activity.
"We are clearly seeing an escalation in the scope and intensity of Russian gray-zone hostile actions across Europe," Newton said. "Russia has long used a variety of non-military, covert, and hybrid tactics – cyberattacks, information operations, sabotage, other covert means – to create disruption while staying just below the threshold of open conflict with NATO."
Newton called Germany's attribution of the Leipzig plot "particularly serious," saying it "demonstrates how dangerous these operations are becoming."
Germany responded by announcing the closure of Russia's consulate general in Bonn and ending the arrangement governing the Russian House cultural center in Berlin. Berlin also said it would tighten entry controls for Russian nationals and increase pressure on Russia's so-called shadow fleet.
Russia has denied responsibility for the Leipzig incident, calling Germany's accusations "entirely fabricated" and accusing Berlin of escalating tensions, according to Reuters.
The heightened concern comes as German police separately investigate a cluster of suspected sabotage incidents targeting the country's electricity infrastructure this week.
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Authorities were investigating a suspicious device found near a substation in Dormagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, on Friday, following incidents in Bergheim and Brandenburg.
In Bergheim, deliberate interference temporarily forced lignite-fired generating units representing about 4,200 megawatts of capacity offline, though no broader blackout occurred.
German authorities have not publicly connected those power-grid incidents to Russia, a distinction Newton said was important.
"We need to be careful when attributing these hostile acts and ensure we have indisputable intelligence information that clearly leads to the source of these belligerent actions," Newton said.
"The incidents involving Germany’s power infrastructure are still under investigation and have not been publicly attributed to Russia, or any other source for that matter," he added.
The German government nevertheless said Friday that the country faces a persistent hybrid threat.
"Germany is not at war, but it is a daily target of hybrid warfare," the government said, citing attacks on communications systems, disinformation and arson targeting the defense industry.
EUROPE BANKROLLS PUTIN'S WAR MACHINE EVEN AS NATO RACES TO BOLSTER DEFENSES
Retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told Fox News Digital that Moscow has increasingly sought to pressure Western countries while avoiding conventional conflict.
"We do know that Russia is trying to fight the Western world below the line of kinetic conflict and their methods are getting ever bolder, whether through cyber operations, sabotage, drones and other forms of pressure across Europe," Breedlove said. "We’re even becoming aware of things they are doing inside the United States."
Breedlove said Russian President Vladimir Putin has long sought to exploit divisions within NATO, "especially between the United States and Europe."
"The Western world has got to step up to counter the Russian threat," he said.
The Baltic initiative comes amid broader efforts by NATO and regional governments to protect an area increasingly associated with threats to undersea cables, pipelines, shipping and other critical infrastructure.
NATO already operates Baltic Sentry, an enhanced vigilance activity launched in 2025 to strengthen protection of critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.
In February, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden agreed to accelerate the acquisition and integration of new technologies for Baltic naval operations. NATO said that initiative built on testing involving roughly 70 aerial and maritime drones in 2025.
Breedlove said Germany's proposed task force could help bridge intelligence, law-enforcement and military responses among regional partners.
"Germany’s Baltic initiative makes sense," he said. "The value is also for partner countries to share information faster, connect the intelligence, law-enforcement and military pieces, and make decisions before Russia can take advantage of confusion or delay."
Newton similarly said the task force could complement NATO's existing military activity by improving governments' ability to rapidly share intelligence and coordinate security responses.
Breedlove warned that Moscow would continue searching for opportunities to exploit uncertainty.
"Without question, the Russians will keep looking for places where they can create uncertainty and hesitation," he said. "We need to get better at recognizing their actions with speed – and responding forcefully with the strength of our allies."
Fox News Digital reached out to the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment but did not receive responses by publication time.
How Dolly Parton used her authentic country wit to beat Hollywood critics to the punchline
Long before Dolly Parton became a global superstar, she mastered the art of beating others to the punch line, making her humor nearly as recognizable as her country music.
Following the country icon’s death at age 80, directors, country legends and media experts recalled how Parton built a down-home comedic persona that helped her break stereotypes and find success in Hollywood without abandoning her roots.
As fans mourn the loss of a cultural icon, those who worked with Parton remember a professional known for her self-deprecating wit. Parton, best known for her legendary country music career, also appeared in several comedy films, including "9 to 5" and the romantic comedy "Straight Talk." She also hosted the country-variety show "Dolly," which debuted in Sept. 1976 and aired for one season. Another series bearing her name followed in the 1980s.
DOLLY PARTON'S LIFE IN HER OWN WORDS: FROM SMOKY MOUNTAINS POVERTY TO COUNTRY MUSIC IMMORTALITY
By then, Parton was no newcomer to comedy and variety television. She appeared on "The Porter Wagoner Show" from 1967 to 1974, where she spent years refining her comedic persona and quick wit. As a young performer from Sevierville, Tennessee, Parton entered a Nashville country music scene where larger-than-life comedy was already a tradition.
Country Music Hall of Famer Ray Stevens, the two-time Grammy winner behind novelty hits including "The Streak," worked with Parton on some of her early recordings in Nashville. He told Fox News Digital that the young Parton he met was far different from the international icon she later became.
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"The young 19 or 20-year-old Dolly Parton I met in 1965, when she first came to Nashville and I produced her first recordings, was not the internationally known Dolly Parton we just lost," Stevens told Fox News Digital. "Young Dolly from Sevierville, TN, had not yet created and perfected the persona we all loved."
Stevens worked with Parton on early recordings, including "Busy Signal" and "I’ve Known You All My Life." He also appeared with Parton in comedy sketches on "Dolly," and said she understood the larger-than-life tradition of country comedy.
"All country comedians have always been outrageous characters, like Speck Rhodes and his wild suits, or Minnie Pearl in her hat with the price tag still hanging down and her loud ‘Howdy,’" Stevens said.
"Dolly also liked to laugh and make other people laugh, and she knew her audience because she grew up making the people around her laugh. She knew what they found funny because she found it funny too, so her comedy was authentic," he added.
DOLLY PARTON REFUSED TO PICK POLITICAL SIDES FOR DECADES: ‘I’M NOT IN POLITICS, I’M AN ENTERTAINER’
Stevens said Parton also found humor in her own larger-than-life image. "Dolly's secret is that she thought the Dolly with the big hair, big personality, and other big assets was funny. She was outrageously dressed and endowed and liable to say anything," he said.
Stevens said the contrast between Parton’s larger-than-life image and her thoughtful songwriting helped make her "one-of-a-kind." That Nashville persona eventually followed Parton into Hollywood.
DOLLY PARTON’S SIX-DECADE LOVE STORY WITH CARL DEAN BEGAN AT A LAUNDROMAT
In the 1992 romantic comedy "Straight Talk," Parton played an upbeat small-town woman who moves to Chicago and accidentally becomes an on-air radio advice host named "Doctor Shirlee." Director Barnet Kellman said Parton understood exactly how to use her public persona for comedy.
"To say Dolly was in on the joke doesn’t begin to cover it," Kellman told Fox News Digital. "She designed the joke."
"She was super-intelligent and could explain to you everything about the ‘Dolly Parton character,’ why her costume and makeup and hair and figure had the effect on people that they did," he said.
Kellman said Parton was always willing to try new things, "as long as it didn’t require taking off the high heels," and noted that she knew what made her character funny and how to "deploy her magic."
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"She was a terrific comic writer and gave me pages and pages of down-home truisms that were — at the end of the day — just good advice and precepts that Dolly herself lived by. We used those comebacks as answers to the questions the callers to her radio advice show would ask," Kellman added.
"Straight Talk" was part of a larger film career that included classics like "Rhinestone," "Joyful Noise," and "Steel Magnolias." Kellman said that on set, Parton often had an "openness as a scene partner" and never approached anyone with judgment. "She turned cynical men into adoring puppies," he said.
"The Dolly that came to work was a committed professional — she came in character and stayed in character — she was the character — yet somehow that ‘Dolly character’ she’d crafted was authentically who she was. That’s what made her so exceptional," he added.
While her films expanded her Hollywood career, television helped Parton reach an even broader audience. Jason Lynch, curator at the Paley Center for Media, said Parton used television appearances, from award shows to talk shows, to reach audiences far beyond country music.
"One major reason that Dolly enjoyed the degree of crossover success that eluded so many other country artists was her mastery at using her varied television appearances to build her appeal with audiences," Lynch told Fox News Digital. "And by showcasing her comic sensibility and sharp wit, she managed to even win over audiences that weren’t country music fans."
CARRIE UNDERWOOD HONORS DOLLY PARTON'S FAITH AND LEGACY DURING EMOTIONAL CONCERT TRIBUTE
Lynch pointed out that Parton strategically used self-deprecation to control her own narrative.
"One of Dolly’s greatest tools was her use of self-deprecating humor — she knew all the jokes that people could make about her chest and her upbringing, so she made them first," Lynch said. "In doing so, she was able to dismantle and rise above so many of the stereotypes that existed about country artists like her."
He said the "universal adoration" Parton received across generations and political divides made her a unique kind of celebrity.
"And she smartly connected with audiences by popping up on a variety of beloved shows over the decades, including ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Reba,’ ‘Designing Women,’ and most recently, the series finale of ‘Grace and Frankie,’ where she reunited with her ‘9 to 5’ costars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin," Lynch added.
Her television reach also extended to younger generations through her recurring role on Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana," where she played Aunt Dolly alongside her real-life goddaughter, Miley Cyrus.
"But the TV show role that might have had the most seismic impact in endearing her to a new generation of fans was ‘Hannah Montana,’ when she played Aunt Dolly to her real-life goddaughter, Miley Cyrus. Suddenly, a generation who wasn’t even born when ‘Jolene’ or ‘9 to 5’ came out was able to discover and fall for her, just like audiences had done decades earlier," Lynch said.
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"Whether it was her ‘Tonight Show with Johnny Carson’ appearances — which dominated social media feeds this week after her passing — her two variety shows she hosted, teaming up with other legends like Carol Burnett and Kenny Rogers, the TV movies she produced in the 2010s — like Dolly Parton’s ‘Coat of Many Colors’ — or her unforgettable turns in shows like ‘Hannah Montana,’ Dolly was one of the most cherished TV personalities of all time," he added.
American Airlines passenger duct-taped to seat after alleged racist, homophobic midair outburst
A passenger on an American Airlines flight was restrained to his seat with duct tape and zip ties after a midair outburst, forcing the plane to be diverted.
The flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Newark, New Jersey, had to make an unexpected stop in Baltimore late Thursday night due to the unidentified disruptive passenger who witnesses said was putting others at risk.
The man was allegedly screaming racial and homophobic slurs during the outburst, according to TMZ.
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Video footage of the incident shows crew and passengers strapping the man to his seat as he appeared to put up a fight.
Photos show the man secured to his seat with duct tape and zip ties, with even his head held to the seat.
Witnesses said the chaos erupted about two hours into the flight, when the man began yelling at a male passenger next to him. According to TMZ, the man was screaming about Jesus and going to hell, prompting a flight attendant to walk over and attempt to calm the situation.
The man called the flight attendant, who is Black, a racial slur and also shouted anti-gay remarks, according to the outlet. The man also reportedly became violent as he hit the passenger next to him.
A female passenger jumped in to help, but the man pushed her, leading to three other male passengers stepping in, the outlet reported.
"Just like a light switch, all of a sudden, it went from quiet to yelling and chaos," one of the men, retired law enforcement officer Juan Mejia, told CBS Texas. "I turned around to look, and the poor gentleman that was sitting next to him in the aisle seat, the individual had his hands around his neck and was, like, assaulting him."
Flight attendants handed duct tape and zip ties to the three male passengers, who restrained the unruly man to his seat and held him down as he attempted to break free.
American Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the plane was diverted to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where law enforcement took the man into custody.
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"On Sept. 3, American Airlines flight 618 diverted to Baltimore (BWI) due to a disruptive customer," the airline said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Upon arrival, law enforcement met the aircraft and assisted with deplaning the customer before the flight continued to its destination."
"The safety and security of our customers and team members is our top priority and we do not tolerate violence. We thank our team members for their professionalism and our customers for their understanding," the statement added.
The FBI said that the Maryland Transportation Police arrested and booked the man on state charges.
"The FBI is currently conducting interviews to gather the facts and will consult with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland to determine if federal charges will be filed," a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement to CBS Texas.
Missouri AG files petition asking Supreme Court to revive Trump-backed redistricting map
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway on Friday filed an emergency appeal urging the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the new congressional map backed by President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders to be used in November's midterm election.
The appeal comes after Missouri's high court blocked the redistricting map and ordered a statewide vote in November on whether to keep it.
Hanaway asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the state high court's decision immediately.
"We have just appealed yesterday's catastrophic ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States. We look forward to the Court's prompt review of this critical matter, as our ability to hold timely and lawful congressional elections hangs in the balance," Hanaway, a Republican, said in a statement.
State law sets a Tuesday deadline to make changes to the November ballot. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who hears appeals of cases from the region and can decide alone or refer to the full court, asked opponents of the new map to respond to the appeal by Monday.
The Missouri high court ruling on Thursday was among the latest rulings in a national redistricting battle backed by Trump. The GOP had aimed to use Missouri’s new congressional map to help win an additional seat and hold onto its slim House majority.
The state Supreme Court ruled that the referendum petition, filed in December after opponents submitted more than 300,000 signatures, prevented the new districts from taking effect unless approved by voters.
Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins waited until primary Election Day last month to reject the petition, arguing that Missouri's constitution does not allow referendum petitions on congressional redistricting. A lower court sided with Hoskins, but the state Supreme Court overturned his decision.
"The referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, and the secretary incorrectly concluded otherwise," the court said in its ruling. The measure with the new districts "did not go into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters."
Missouri’s new districts were used in the primaries last month, but the state Supreme Court said they cannot be used again unless voters first uphold the new districts passed by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe last September.
Now, the congressional map adopted after the 2020 census "remains in full force and effect for the November 2026 general election," the court said.
Five of the seven current justices on the Missouri Supreme Court, including the chief justice, were appointed by Republican governors.
Hanaway said no other court has ordered congressional maps after a primary but before a general election.
"No court in American history has ever given such an extraordinary remedy, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri," her office wrote in the appeal. "Looking forwards, the State is genuinely unsure whether it can switch its governing congressional map in time to run a timely federal election."
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Congressional districts are typically redrawn at the start of each decade, based on new census data, but Trump's mission to tip the scales in favor of Republicans in the midterm election sparked a mid-decade redistricting battle that spread to more than a dozen states across the nation.
Trump called Thursday's ruling "ridiculous" and argued it was unconstitutional, saying there will not be enough time to change the map before November's elections. Missouri's governor said he is "extremely disappointed" in the decision "by unelected judges and their lack of respect for the legislative process."
The new Missouri map targeted longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's Kansas City-area district by shifting it eastward to include rural right-leaning voters. The map was intended to make Cleaver's district more favorable to Republicans, who hoped it would produce a 7-1 advantage in the state's congressional delegation.
"More than 305,000 Missourians demanded a say in who will represent them in the halls of Congress," Cleaver said on Thursday. "Despite the cynical and deeply shameful attempt to silence many of our neighbors, the people fought back and won. This reaffirms that the people should choose their politicians, not the other way around. Democracy prevails."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.