INTERNACIONAL
Former Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good calls out ‘the big glaring weakness for all of Republican government’
Former Rep. Bob Good, a Republican from Virginia who once chaired the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is sounding the alarm about America’s «fiscal crisis,» accusing fellow Republicans of failing to focus on the critical issue and slash spending.
He blamed «all Republican leadership,» during an interview with Fox News Digital. «You’re not hearing a lot from Republican leadership — from the White House or from the Congress — about spending cuts,» he said.
Good praised President Donald Trump on a variety of issues, crediting the president with doing a «great job in many executive actions,» but he described the moves as «quick fix sugar highs» that could easily be undone when a Democrat wins the presidency again and said that Congress has not been codifying Trump’s policies into law.
He said that «the big glaring weakness for all of Republican government» is failing to focus on the nation’s debt and deficit, and slashing spending.
TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ PASSES KEY HOUSE HURDLE AFTER GOP REBEL MUTINY
Then-Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, attends a press conference on the government funding bill at the U.S. Capitol on March 22, 2024 in Washington, D.C. ( Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The U.S. national debt is over $36.2 trillion, according to fiscaldata.treasury.gov.
President Trump and some GOP lawmakers have been seeking to push Trump’s «One, Big, Beautiful Bill» through Congress, but other Republicans have been pressing for changes.
The House Freedom Caucus issued a statement on Sunday night declaring that the measure «does not yet meet the moment.»
«As written, the bill continues increased deficits in the near term with possible savings years down the road that may never materialize. Thanks to discussions over the weekend, the bill will be closer to the budget resolution framework we agreed upon in the House in April, but it fails to actually honor our promise to significantly correct the spending trajectory of the federal government and lead our nation towards a balanced budget,» the caucus board’s statement reads, in part, later adding, «We face a serious fiscal crisis, and we must put an end to Washington’s wasteful spending now.»
TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ WINS SUPPORT FROM POLICE FOR OVERTIME TAX ELIMINATION
Good, a fiscal hawk who has been referring to the measure as the «big, ugly bill,» indicated that if Republicans do not fight now when they only need 51 votes to pass a measure in the Senate due to reconciliation, they will not do so later.
He said most GOP figures, like most Democrats, are largely focused on their own political careers and will «be even weaker» in 2026, the year of the midterm elections.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has pushed back against criticism of the reconciliation bill.
«Critics have attacked the House’s One Big Beautiful reconciliation bill on fiscal grounds, but I think they are profoundly wrong,» he wrote in a part of a post on X last week. «The current House bill includes $1.6 trillion in savings. These are not gimmicks but real reforms that lower spending and improve the programs.»
«So after nothing happening for decades, the House bill provides a historic $1.6 trillion in mandatory savings…with a three-seat majority. $36 trillion in debt is not solved overnight. It is solved by advancing and securing victories at a scale that over time, gives a fighting shot to addressing the problem. The House’s One Big Beautiful Bill deserves passage for many reasons … tax cuts, border security funding, eliminating the Green New Deal, work requirements to end dependency … but it should not be lost on anyone, the degree to which it ends decades of fiscal futility and gets us winning again. It deserves the vote of every member of Congress,» he asserted.
‘TOO LATE’: TRUMP BACKS CHALLENGER TO FREEDOM CAUCUS CHAIR DESPITE RECEIVING PRIOR ENDORSEMENT
Good, who served in Congress from early 2021 until early 2025, lost a 2024 congressional GOP primary contest to a Trump-backed challenger.
Trump repeatedly attacked Good in the lead up to the 2024 primary contest, asserting on Truth Social that «Bob Good is BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA.»
Good ultimately lost the primary by less than 1% of the vote.
He had endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in 2023 before the governor launched his White House bid that year. In 2024, Good endorsed Trump immediately after DeSantis dropped out.
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In his endorsement post, Good called Trump «the greatest President of my lifetime,» adding, «we need him to reinstate the policies that were working so well for America.»
Good expressed interest in the prospect of potentially running for office again, telling Fox News Digital that he is keeping his «options open» and praying about it, but has not arrived at a decision yet.
Politics,Republicans,Donald Trump,Congress,National Debt
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EXCLUSIVE: This was the kind of prison break officials say could have changed the region, and perhaps even the world, overnight.
Nearly 6,000 ISIS detainees, described by a senior U.S. intelligence official as «the worst of the worst,» were being held in northern Syria as clashes and instability threatened the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the guards responsible for keeping the militants locked away and preventing a feared ISIS resurgence. U.S. officials believed that if the prisons collapsed in the chaos, the consequences would be immediate.
«If these 6,000 or so got out and returned to the battlefield, that would basically be the instant reconstitution of ISIS,» the senior intelligence official told Fox News Digital.
In an exclusive interview, the official walked Fox News Digital step by step through the behind-the-scenes operation that moved thousands of ISIS detainees out of Syria and into Iraqi custody, describing a multi-agency scramble that unfolded over weeks, with intelligence warnings, rapid diplomacy and a swift military lift.
US MILITARY LAUNCHES AIRSTRIKES AGAINST ISIS TARGETS IN SYRIA, OFFICIALS SAY
ISIS wives and children remain in «fragile» Syrian detention camps under Damascus control while male fighters transfer to Iraq, leaving detention crisis unresolved. ( Santiago Montag/Anadolu via Getty Image)
The risk, the official explained, had been building for months. In late October, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began to assess that Syria’s transition could tip into disorder and create the conditions for a catastrophic jailbreak.
The ODNI sent the official to Syria and Iraq at that time to begin early discussions with both the SDF and the Iraqi government about how to remove what the official repeatedly described as the most dangerous detainees before events overtook them.
Those fears sharpened in early January as fighting erupted in Aleppo and began spreading eastward. Time was running out to prevent catastrophe. «We saw this severe crisis situation,» the official said.
U.S. ANNOUNCES MORE MILITARY ACTIONS AGAINST ISIS: ‘WE WILL NOT RELENT’
A fighter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holds an ISIL flag and a weapon on a street in the city of Mosul, June 23, 2014. (Reuters Photo)
According to the source, the ODNI oversaw daily coordination calls across agencies as the situation escalated. The official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was «managing the day to day» on policy considerations, while the ODNI drove a working group that kept CENTCOM, diplomats and intelligence officials aligned on the urgent question: how to keep nearly 6,000 ISIS fighters from slipping into the fog of war.
The Iraqi government, the official said, understood the stakes. Baghdad had its own reasons to move quickly, fearing that if thousands of detainees escaped, they would spill across the border and revive a threat Iraq still remembers in visceral terms.
The official described Iraq’s motivation bluntly: leaders recognized that a massive breakout could force Iraq back into a «2014 ISIS is on our border situation once more.»
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the official said, played a pivotal role in smoothing the diplomatic runway for what would become a major logistical undertaking.
Then came the physical lift. The official credited CENTCOM’s surge of resources to make the plan real on the ground, saying that «moving in helicopters» and other assets enabled detainees to be removed in a compressed timeframe.
«Thanks to the efforts… moving in helicopters, moving in more resources, and then just logistically making this happen, we were able to get these nearly 6000 out in the course of just a few weeks,» the official said.
ISIS FIGHTERS STILL AT LARGE AFTER SYRIAN PRISON BREAK, CONTRIBUTING TO VOLATILE SECURITY SITUATION
A view of Hol Camp, where families linked to the Islamic State group are being held, in Hasakah province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Izz Aldien Alqasem/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The SDF, he said, had been securing the prisons, but its attention was strained by fighting elsewhere, fueling U.S. fears that a single breach could spiral into a mass escape. Ultimately, detainees were transported into Iraq, where they are now held at a facility near Baghdad International Airport under Iraqi authority.
The next phase, the official said, is focused on identification and accountability. FBI teams are in Iraq enrolling detainees biometrically, the official said, while U.S. and Iraqi officials examine what intelligence can be declassified and used in prosecutions.
«What they were asking us for, basically, is giving them as much intelligence and information that we have on these individuals,» the official said. «So right now, the priority is on biometrically identifying these individuals.»
The official said the State Department is also pushing countries of origin to take responsibility for their citizens held among the detainees.
«State Department is doing outreach right now and encouraging all these different countries to come and pick up their fighters,» he said.
While the transfer focused strictly on ISIS fighters, the senior intelligence official said families held in camps such as al-Hol were not part of the operation, leaving a major unresolved security and humanitarian challenge.
ISIS EXPLOITING SYRIA’S CHAOS AS US STRIKES EXPOSE GROWING THREAT
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters pose for a photo with the American flag on stage after a SDF victory ceremony announcing the defeat of ISIL in Baghouz was held at Omer Oil Field on March 23, 2019 in Baghouz, Syria. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
The camps themselves were under separate arrangements, the official said, and responsibility shifted as control on the ground evolved.
According to the official, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian government reached an understanding that Damascus would take over the al-Hol camp, which holds thousands of ISIS-affiliated women and children.
«As you can see from social media, the al-Hol camp is pretty much being emptied out,» the official said, adding that it «appears the Syrian government has decided to let them go free,» a scenario the official described as deeply troubling for regional security. «That is very concerning.»
The fate of the families has long been viewed by counterterrorism officials as one of the most complicated, unresolved elements of the ISIS detention system. Many of the children have grown up in camps after ISIS lost territorial control, and some are now approaching fighting age, raising fears about future radicalization and recruitment.
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Iraqi security forces pose with ISIS flag which they pulled from University of Anbar on July 26, 2015. Forces clashed with ISIS militants inside the compound. (Reuters)
For now, the official said, intelligence agencies are closely tracking developments after a rapid operation that, in their view, prevented thousands of experienced ISIS militants from reentering the battlefield at once and potentially reigniting the group’s fighting force.
«This is a rare good news story coming out of Syria,» the official concluded.
syria,iraq,isis,national security,fbi,terrorism
INTERNACIONAL
El frío, el hielo y el misterio del ARN: cuáles son los experimentos que buscan conocer el origen de la vida
En el debate sobre el origen de la vida, el ácido ribonucleico (ARN) ocupa un lugar central gracias a sus cualidades excepcionales. Aunque en la biología actual el ADN es el protagonista, muchos investigadores sostienen que el ARN desempeñó un rol decisivo en los primeros pasos evolutivos.
Posee la capacidad de almacenar información genética y de actuar como catalizador en reacciones químicas, lo que dio origen a la hipótesis del “mundo de ARN”: moléculas capaces de codificar su propia composición y de impulsar su reproducción, sentando así las bases de los procesos evolutivos que llevaron a organismos cada vez más complejos, afirma Science.
Durante los años noventa, equipos liderados por Jack Szostak (hoy en la Universidad de Chicago) y David Bartel (hoy en el Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts) analizaron trillones de secuencias de ARN, identificando algunas capaces de realizar funciones necesarias para la autorreplicación.
No obstante, estas moléculas presentaban una limitación clave: tenían entre 150 y 200 bases, lo que implica que eran demasiado grandes, y ese tamaño las hacía poco plausibles como productos espontáneos de la química de la Tierra primitiva. Además, probablemente se degradarían antes de poder ser completamente sintetizadas.
En este contexto, los bioquímicos Edoardo Gianni y Philipp Holliger de la Universidad de Cambridge, junto con su equipo, se propusieron superar ese obstáculo y acercar la experimentación a condiciones más similares a las de la Tierra en su origen.
Su trabajo, publicado en la revista Science, logró que ciertas moléculas de ARN generen copias complementarias de sí mismas y, a partir de esas copias, restauren la secuencia original. Este avance acerca la hipótesis del “mundo de ARN” a la realidad experimental y refuerza la idea de que el ARN pudo ser el primer motor de la evolución biológica.
En principio, la clave de este logro fue la reducción significativa del tamaño de las moléculas de ARN utilizadas, que pasaron a ser de 45 bases. Gerald Joyce destacó que “eso es una innovación significativa”, ya que moléculas tan pequeñas tienen una mayor probabilidad de surgir espontáneamente, a partir de los componentes básicos que abundaban en los inicios del planeta. Esto abre nuevas posibilidades para comprender los orígenes químicos de la vida.
Los experimentos se realizaron bajo condiciones de bajas temperaturas. Trabajar con frío ralentizó las reacciones que degradan el ARN y permitió aprovechar un fenómeno físico donde, al congelarse el agua, los nucleótidos y otros componentes quedan excluidos de los cristales de hielo, concentrándose en canales microscópicos llenos de solución. Estos microambientes no solo favorecen la síntesis de nuevas cadenas de ARN, sino que también protegen a las moléculas de su rápida degradación.
El diseño incluyó la utilización de tripletes de nucleótidos, fragmentos formados por tres bases fusionadas, que permitieron que algunas cadenas de ARN permanecieran desplegadas y disponibles como moldes para la copia, mientras que otras conservaron la estructura plegada necesaria para actuar como catalizadores. Tras examinar alrededor de un billón de secuencias aleatorias bajo estas condiciones, el equipo identificó tres ARN capaces de completar este proceso de copia complementaria y restauración.
A pesar de este avance, el experimento presenta limitaciones; ninguna de las moléculas aisladas logró realizar el ciclo completo de autorreplicación por sí sola, y la síntesis de las nuevas cadenas de ARN tomó hasta 72 días en condiciones de frío extremo. Sin embargo, estos resultados son compatibles con la hipótesis de que la vida pudo originarse en ambientes sometidos a ciclos de congelamiento y deshielo, donde los componentes químicos se concentraban y protegían por los propios procesos físicos del entorno.
Jack Szostak considera que el reto siguiente será “lograr que este sistema, o uno similar, sea suficientemente eficiente como para observar ciclos repetidos de replicación”. Si se alcanza ese objetivo, el ARN podría consolidarse como el vínculo más probable entre la química prebiótica y la biología.
El hallazgo del equipo de Cambridge fortalece la hipótesis del “mundo de ARN” y abre nuevas rutas para investigar los orígenes de la vida. Al demostrar que moléculas relativamente pequeñas pueden acercarse notablemente al proceso de replicación, los investigadores ofrecen una base concreta para comprender cómo la evolución pudo comenzar a partir de sistemas moleculares sencillos, incluso en las condiciones más desfavorables del planeta primitivo.
cirugía molecular
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Senate Democrats and the White House remain locked in a standoff over proposed reforms to immigration operations nationwide — a dispute that could carry unintended consequences for disaster response efforts.
Without a fresh infusion of funding, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could soon face constraints on its disaster relief operations. As hurricane season approaches, limited funding could hamper the agency’s ability to respond to major storms and other emergencies.
The partial government shutdown — affecting FEMA’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — entered its fifth day with no resolution in sight.
GOP WARNS DEMOCRATS USING DHS SHUTDOWN TO STALL SENATE VOTER ID PUSH
Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the White House are in a standoff over DHS funding as the partial shutdown drags on. And as the closure continues, disaster funding at FEMA could run dry. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP; Alex Brandon/AP)
Before the shutdown began last week, a top FEMA official warned lawmakers that shuttering DHS could significantly strain the agency’s disaster response capabilities.
Office of Response and Recovery Associate Administrator Gregg Phillips told a House panel examining the effects of a DHS shutdown that while FEMA’s disaster relief fund currently holds roughly $7 billion — enough to sustain emergency responses for the «foreseeable future» — a catastrophic event could quickly exhaust those resources.
«That said, if a catastrophic disaster occurred, the [disaster relief fund] would be seriously strained,» Phillips said.
For comparison, the federal government spent more than $50 billion on disaster relief during the last fiscal year. Phillips also noted that during his nearly two-month tenure, FEMA had already spent $3 billion in 45 days across roughly 5,000 projects.
THUNE GUARANTEES VOTER ID BILL TO HIT THE SENATE DESPITE SCHUMER, DEM OPPOSITION: ‘WE WILL HAVE A VOTE’
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters is photographed on Oct. 8, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump said that FEMA would play a «key role» in responding to a sewage spill into the Potomac River, where roughly 200 million gallons of raw sewage have poured into the waterway that runs through the nation’s capital.
The cost of FEMA’s involvement in that cleanup effort has not yet been determined, a DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, the current DHS funding bill, which Senate Democrats rejected last week, includes roughly $26 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund. But negotiations remain stalled as Democrats push for reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
‘IT’S ABSURD’: DHS SHUTDOWN BEARS DOWN ON US AS LAWMAKERS JET OFF TO EUROPE
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., walks toward the House chamber on Capitol Hill on Dec. 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
There has been little progress this week. Congressional Democrats sent a counterproposal to the White House late Monday, responding to an offer from the administration made last week.
A White House official told Fox News Digital that «the parties are still pretty far apart.»
«The administration remains interested in good-faith conversations to end the Democrat shutdown before more Americans feel the impacts,» the official said. «But the administration also remains committed to carrying out the president’s promise to enforce federal immigration law.»
Spokespeople for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said congressional Democrats have «been clear for weeks about the reforms needed to rein in ICE and stop the violence.»
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«We’ve continued working through language and additional issues to make progress, but Republicans have largely ignored the core guardrails Americans are demanding,» they said. «Dems are negotiating in good faith. It’s time for Republicans to do the same.»
Unless a deal is reached before next week, the Senate is expected to vote Monday on the original full-year DHS funding bill — a measure likely to be blocked again by Schumer and his caucus.
politics,senate,government shutdown,fema
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