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34,000 dead people found on voter rolls prompts expert to slam Dems for resisting ‘commonsense’ cleanup
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North Carolina’s discovery of 34,000 dead people on its voter rolls has sparked renewed calls for voter roll cleanup measures, including increased pressure on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act.
After a state election official said the number of dead people found on North Carolina’s voter rolls was «higher than we anticipated,» Republican Rep. Mark Harris of North Carolina called for immediate action to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, commonly known as the SAVE America Act.
«North Carolina confirms 34,000 deceased individuals on our voter rolls,» he wrote in an X post. «This isn’t a mistake—it’s a failure. Election integrity is non-negotiable. Fix it now. Pass the SAVE America Act!»
This discovery has also prompted questions about how many other states have deceased voters still on their rolls. Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections Project Action, said he is especially concerned about blue states he believes have been refusing «commonsense» measures to clean up voter rolls.
REPUBLICANS FAIL TO ATTACH SAVE AMERICA ACT TO PARTY-LINE FUNDING PACKAGE
The discovery of more than 34,000 dead people on North Carolina’s voter rolls has led to increased pressure on Senate Democrats and Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act. (Kylie Cooper-Pool/Getty Images; Philipp von Ditfurth/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Earlier this month, the North Carolina State Board of Elections submitted over 7.3 million voter records to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database as part of an initiative to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the state’s voter registration list. Following a comprehensive data comparison with the federal database, the elections board identified approximately 34,000 dead people on the state’s voter rolls.
Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a press release after the discovery, «While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated.»
«The benefit of entering into cross-state and federal database checks is that it allows us to uncover issues like this. Our goal is to use every available and legal tool at our disposal to achieve the most accurate voter rolls possible,» he continued. «Now, we must roll up our sleeves and begin the hard work to act of verifying that every person registered to vote in North Carolina is eligible. Our team, along with our state and federal [partners] will do what’s necessary to meet this responsibility.»
The state board said it will work with county boards of elections to remove the deceased individuals from the voter rolls in accordance with state and federal law.
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Voting booths are set up during a primary election. (iStock)
While North Carolina is collaborating with the federal government and taking steps to clean up its rolls, Snead expressed concern that Democratic-run states are not doing the same.
«Voter list maintenance takes effort from state officials,» he told Fox News Digital.
He called North Carolina «another example of a state doing the work to root out bad registrations using federal records like the SAVE system.»
«But too many Democrat-controlled states are refusing to do the commonsense work of cleaning up bloated voter rolls or stopping ineligible people from registering in the first place,» he said.
«That’s why it’s so important for Congressional Democrats to end their obstruction of the SAVE America Act, a commonsense, popular piece of legislation that keeps it easy to vote and makes it harder to cheat,» he added.
The SAVE America Act would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. It mandates states to verify voter rolls using citizenship data, remove ineligible registrants and impose civil and criminal penalties on officials who register voters without required proof.
The legislation is currently stuck in limbo in the Senate. Last week, a cohort of Senate Republicans joined Democrats to sink a late-night attempt to attach a version of the voter ID and citizenship verification legislation to the GOP’s bill funding federal immigration enforcement.
Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., all voted against a modified version of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act.
BLUE STATE RESIDENTS ‘FLEEING IN DROVES’ AFTER ‘INSANE’ PROGRESSIVE TAKEOVER, SAYS TOP STATE ATTORNEY
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., prepare for a floor battle over Trump-backed voter ID legislation as Senate Republicans and Democrats aim to find a compromise on healthcare after the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies expire. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu)
President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed for passage of the SAVE America Act. Last month, he vowed not to sign any other bills until it gets through, and said he wouldn’t approve of a «watered down version.»
Last month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif.; and Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., released a statement explaining their opposition to the legislation. The statement posited that the legislation would «disenfranchise up to 21 million citizens who can’t readily access their passports and birth certificates.»
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If enacted, the three asserted the SAVE America Act would be «sowing chaos in state election administration and fueling attacks against hardworking election officials by exposing them to new criminal liability.»
Schumer charged «MAGA Republicans» with «trying to make it harder for Americans to vote.» He asserted that «they know their agenda is failing, so they’re changing the rules.»
Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel and Alex Miller contributed to this report.
north carolina, voter fraud concerns, republicans elections, senate elections, midterm elections, politics, elections
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‘No credibility’: Obama’s top Iran negotiator torched by State Department after ripping Trump war plan
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As the leader of President Barack Obama’s negotiating team on the nuclear agreement with Iran, Wendy Sherman launched a no-holds-barred attack on President Donald Trump’s Iran strategy over the weekend.
Sherman, who served as undersecretary of state for political affairs during the Obama administration and as deputy secretary of state under President Joe Biden, took aim at Trump’s Iran policy in recent interviews.
Sherman’s assault on the Trump administration’s war strategy in a Bloomberg News interview raised eyebrows because it comes at a time when the administration is inflicting enormous economic pressure on Tehran’s rulers via the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
TRUMP UNLEASHES ON OBAMA’S ‘DISASTER’ IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL, SAYS HE WAS ‘HONORED’ TO RIP IT APART
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman answers a question from a reporter at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 18, 2021. (Andrew Harnik/Pool via Reuters)
Having played a key role in sealing the widely criticized 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump withdrew from in 2018, she slammed Trump’s Iran plan in the Bloomberg interview. «He doesn’t have a strategy. He’s very tactical [and] very transactional — as he was as a developer. In this case, I don’t think that approach will work.»
She added, «He has cost our alliances, American taxpayers, 13 American lives, our inventory of weapons, our ability to project power abroad.»
In response to her controversial comments, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott strongly pushed back, telling Fox News Digital, «She was literally part of the team that handed the Iranian regime billions of dollars and a roadmap to a nuclear weapon. She has no credibility. The facts: Under the previous administration, wars broke out, and our enemies grew stronger. Under President Trump, historic peace deals have been signed — including an unprecedented peace plan for Gaza — and the Iranian regime will never obtain a nuclear weapon.»
NUCLEAR EXPERTS WARN IRAN’S URANIUM ‘RIGHT’ IS A MYTH, SAY TRUMP IS RIGHT TO HOLD FIRM
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who just dropped his Democratic Party membership by registering as a Republican, told Fox News Digital: «She is the primary villain of the deal that gave Iran a nuclear bomb. She has no credibility. If Iran develops a bomb, it should put her name on it.»
Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Secretary of State John Kerry and Undersecretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, second from right, at a hotel in Vienna, Austria, on June 28, 2015. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
Adding to the growing anti-Israel sentiment among Democrats, Sherman also attacked Israel in the interview. She said, without giving any evidence, «I also believe that Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] has led us down a road — and we have been part of it — that has, in essence, created a genocide in Gaza that has destabilized the Middle East.»
When asked about Sherman’s criticism of Israel, Dershowitz said, «She is a bigot and anti-Israel. She sees everything through the lens of Barack Obama.»
Obama faced criticism during his tenure for his alleged anti-Israel policies, including allowing an anti-Israel U.N. Security Council resolution to pass in the last days of his presidency.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
In a Wall Street Journal opinion article last week, Dershowitz wrote: «The Democratic Party has become the most anti-Israel party in U.S. history. Last week, all but seven Senate Democrats voted for an arms embargo against the Jewish state… There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream.»
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Asked to respond to the criticism of her remarks on Iran, Israel and Dershowitz’s comments, Solveig Reeker, a representative for Sherman, told Fox News Digital, «I’m sorry Ambassador Sherman is not available at this time and must decline.»
war with iran, barack obama, donald trump, israel, conflicts, nuclear proliferation
INTERNACIONAL
Murió Craig Venter, el científico que ayudó a descifrar el genoma humano y creó vida en un laboratorio
En mayo de 1998, Craig Venter anunció que su empresa terminaría de descifrar el genoma humano, el conjunto completo de información genética que contiene el ADN de la especie, antes que el proyecto oficial financiado por los Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, Francia, Alemania, Japón y China.
La comunidad científica quedó en shock. Ese era Venter. El científico y empresario, que murió ayer en San Diego, California, a los 79 años, “tras una breve hospitalización por efectos secundarios inesperados derivados del tratamiento de un cáncer diagnosticado recientemente”, según el comunicado oficial de su instituto de investigación.
Venter fue científico, empresario e imposible de ignorar. Quienes lo apreciaban decían que nunca filtraba sus pensamientos. Quienes no, lo llamaban egómano y hombre superficial.
Había nacido el 14 de octubre de 1946 en Salt Lake City, Utah, y creció en un suburbio obrero al sur de San Francisco, en una casa junto a las vías del tren.
En la escuela secundaria se destacó en los talleres prácticos, no en las aulas. Tras graduarse, se enroló en la Marina durante la Guerra de Vietnam y fue destinado al hospital de Da Nang durante la ofensiva del Tet.
“La guerra de Vietnam cambió totalmente mi vida. La vida era tan barata allí. De ahí viene mi sentido de urgencia”, diría años después.
Tras dos estancias en el calabozo por desobedecer órdenes, estudió en la Universidad de California en San Diego y terminó la carrera de grado y el doctorado en apenas seis años.
En 1984 fue contratado por los Institutos Nacionales de Salud (NIH) de los Estados Unidos, donde desarrolló el método EST para identificar genes de forma más rápida y barata que el Proyecto Genoma Humano que acababa de arrancar.
La polémica fue inmediata: el NIH intentó patentar fragmentos de genes cuya función aún se desconocía, lo que desató un debate internacional.
El director del proyecto, James Watson, se opuso y renunció. Venter dejó el NIH, fundó su propio instituto sin fines de lucro, el TIGR, y en 1998 lanzó la empresa privada Celera Genomics con un objetivo claro: ganarle la carrera al mundo.
Su estrategia estaba basada en el método llamado “shotgun”: cortar el ADN en miles de fragmentos pequeños, leerlos por separado y armar el rompecabezas.
El investigador Lluís Montoliu, del Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC) de España, matizó que aquella batalla fue, en realidad, algo distinto: “No existió tal batalla y fue más una colaboración que una competición”, dijo hoy a Science Media Center España.
Celera necesitaba el mapa físico del proyecto público para saber dónde colocar sus millones de fragmentos, y el proyecto público necesitaba esos fragmentos para completar el genoma.
“Ambos proyectos se necesitaban”, explicó Montoliu. El resultado fue una publicación doble: el 15 de febrero de 2001, el consorcio público publicó el genoma en la revista Nature; un día después, Celera publicó el suyo en la revista Science.
Un detalle lo dice todo sobre quién era Venter: su propio ADN fue la principal fuente entre las cinco personas usadas para construir el genoma de Celera.
Venter nunca supo quedarse quieto. En 2010, su equipo construyó desde cero el genoma completo de una bacteria, lo fabricó con componentes químicos a partir de un archivo de computadora, lo introdujo en una célula y logró que esa célula viviera y se reprodujera.
“Un médico puede salvar cientos de vidas en toda su carrera. Un investigador puede salvar al mundo entero”, sostenía Venter.
La bacteria, llamada Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, fue la primera forma de vida controlada por un genoma diseñado digitalmente.
El campo que abrió ese experimento se llama “biología sintética”, con aplicaciones hoy en medicina, energía y alimentación.
A través de la expedición Sorcerer II, Venter y su equipo recorrieron los océanos del planeta para analizar el ADN de millones de microorganismos.
El resultado fue el descubrimiento de millones de genes desconocidos y una comprensión más profunda de la vida microscópica que sostiene los ecosistemas marinos.
Apenas tres meses antes de morir, en enero pasado, Venter lanzó su última apuesta: Diploid Genomics, Inc., una empresa que combina inteligencia artificial, secuenciación genómica e imágenes médicas para hacer los diagnósticos de enfermedades complejas más precisos y personalizados.
El doctor Montoliu lo describió como “uno de los científicos más influyentes, vehementes, agresivos y ambiciosos” de su época.
Añadió que merece ser recordado “no por sus frecuentes posicionamientos personalistas, sino por sus aportes”: haber demostrado que los seres humanos son la primera especie capaz de leer e interpretar su propio genoma.
En diálogo con Infobae, el doctor Lino Barañao, ex investigador en biotecnología del Conicet y la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales de la Universidad de Buenos Aires y actual vicerrector de la Universidad Maimónides, recordó al científico y empresario: “Conocí a Craig Venter cuando viajamos en una misión con Marcelo Criscuolo y Marcelo Argüelles, de Biosidus, para hablar sobre el proyecto de secuenciación de la bacteria antártica. Ese proyecto, llamado Genoma Blanco, se concretó en 2008 y fue la primera secuencia de un organismo local argentino en publicarse, algo que se presentó incluso en Casa de Gobierno. Fue un hito y, de alguna forma, el puntapié inicial al desarrollo de la genómica en Argentina”.
Barañao añadió: “Venter era un personaje fuera de serie. Tenía una foto de él mitad con guardapolvo y mitad con traje de empresario, y eso resumía bastante bien lo que era. Contribuyó a instalar la figura del científico empresario y a demostrar que ambos roles no eran incompatibles. Para él, la única manera de que los descubrimientos científicos llegaran a la población y tuvieran impacto real era a través de ese puente entre el laboratorio y el mercado”.
La participación en la carrera por el genoma humano en la década de 1990 “aceleró los tiempos y tuvo un efecto mediático enorme. Sin esa competencia entre lo público y lo privado, difícilmente la opinión pública habría prestado tanta atención. En ese sentido fue positivo”.
Aclaró que la decodificación del genoma “no fue el negocio que Venter esperaba. ”Recién ahora empiezan a comercializarse productos basados en genes específicos. Pero Venter tuvo esa visión y dejó una contribución real: cambiar el estereotipo del científico como alguien ajeno al mundo de los negocios”.
venter genome
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Rubio warns China after Panama ship detentions, calls hemisphere sovereignty ‘non-negotiable’
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned China that «the sovereignty of our hemisphere is non-negotiable» after the U.S. and regional allies accused Beijing of detaining Panama-flagged ships in a dispute tied to canal port control.
In a joint statement with Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago, the U.S. said China’s actions targeting Panama-flagged vessels were a «blatant attempt to politicize maritime trade» and infringe on regional sovereignty, framing the dispute as a broader strategic test over control of one of the world’s most critical commercial arteries.
While the Panama dispute centers on shipping detentions rather than a physical blockade, critics increasingly view it alongside battles over other strategic choke points, such as the Strait of Hormuz, as part of a widening contest over whether Beijing or Washington will shape the rules governing global trade and energy corridors.
IRAN’S $800M OIL SMUGGLING SCHEME USES TANKERS POSING AS IRAQI SHIPS TO DODGE BLOCKADE
Containers and cranes at the Port of Balboa at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal in Panama City, Panama, Feb. 25, 2025.
The confrontation follows Panama’s Supreme Court decision earlier in 2026 to invalidate the legal framework behind Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison’s long-held control of the Balboa and Cristobal terminals flanking the Panama Canal, a choke point that handles roughly 5% of global maritime trade.
U.S. regulators have monitored nearly 70 Panama-flagged vessels detained by Chinese authorities since March 8, according to Reuters — a surge American officials say appears designed to retaliate against Panama and pressure global shipping.
«China has used Iran to destabilize the Middle East. In effect, Iran has been China’s proxy,» China expert Gordon Chang told Fox News Digital, arguing Beijing’s actions in Panama fit a broader global pattern in which China uses economic leverage, trade pressure and regional partners to expand influence while condemning similar tactics from Washington.
Chang said Beijing is now facing growing resistance as the U.S. increasingly moves not only against China directly, but also against governments and geopolitical flashpoints he argues have strengthened Beijing’s hand.
«Trump apparently decided that he would counter this sly tactic by taking China’s proxies — Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran — off the board,» Chang said.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS INTRODUCE BILL TO REPURCHASE PANAMA CANAL AFTER TRUMP RAISES CONCERNS OF CHINESE CONTROL
An aerial view shows the port of Rodman in Panama City Jan. 30, 2026. (Martin Bernetti/AFP)
He also framed pressure on Iran and threats to the Strait of Hormuz as part of a larger strategic effort aimed at both Tehran and Beijing.
«Closing the Strait of Hormuz is a two-fer, starving Iran’s regime and shaking China’s already fragile economy,» Chang said. «Trump is using energy to reorder the world.»
Chang also accused Beijing of hypocrisy over trade.
«China’s Communists invented hypocrisy. Nobody does hypocrisy better than the Chinese Communists,» he said, arguing China long benefited from a global trading system it increasingly weaponized for geopolitical purposes.
«The elemental truth is that China started this cycle of action and retaliation,» Chang said. «If China had not threatened America, America would not have leaned on Panama. If America had not leaned on Panama, China would not have detained Panamanian vessels.»
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Two cargo ships enter the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal in Panama City on Jan. 22. (Martin Bernetti/AFP)
China has rejected accusations that it is politicizing trade, with its foreign ministry arguing U.S. criticism reflects Washington’s own strategic ambitions around the canal.
China’s foreign ministry called the statement on Wednesday «entirely baseless and misleading», said it would take steps to safeguard China’s interests in Panama, and accused the United States of politicizing ports, according to Reuters.
«China also urges the relevant countries not to be deceived or exploited by malevolent forces,» added Lin Jian, a foreign ministry spokesperson.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Reuters contributed to this article.
china, taiwan, trade, marco rubio, secretary of state, geopolitics
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