A House Committee is expected to launch an investigation into a United Nations agency that provides aid to Palestinians for alleged ties to Hamas, according to a report.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is planning to investigate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East, which is also known as UNRWA, according to the New York Post.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., told the outlet that there’s evidence of a connection between the UN agency and Hamas.

‘There is extensive evidence of a troubling connection between UNRWA and Hamas, and it is far deeper than was known,’ Issa said. ‘Congress must now investigate and uncover the extent of what UNRWA knew, what it did, and what it may be hiding from the world.’

LIVE UPDATES: ISRAEL AT WAR WITH HAMAS 

Since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel carried out by Hamas, troubling reports regarding the UNRWA have emerged.

One Israeli citizen taken hostage by the Hamas terrorist group said they were held for 50 days inside an attic belonging to a UNRWA teacher, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The State Department under former President Trump cut ties with UNRWA in 2018, with the agency calling the organization an ‘irredeemably flawed operation.’

However, President Biden reestablished the relationship in June 2021.

A spokesperson for Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., who chairs the body’s oversight subcommittee, told the Post that ‘He is also supportive of a probe, to put it mildly.’

Iran appears to have struck a ship off the Indian coast with an unmanned aerial vehicle, a U.S. official told Fox News on Saturday.

It comes as Houthi militants targeted multiple cargo ships on Saturday, as the group fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles into international shipping lanes located in the Southern Red Sea, according to U.S. Central Command.

No ships were impacted by the ballistic missiles, officials said.

The USS Laboon shot down four unmanned aerial drones on Saturday which originated from areas that the Houthis control in Yemen.

U.S. Naval Forces Central Command also received reports from two ships in the Southern Red Sea on Saturday at 8 p.m. that they were under attack.

Norwegian-flagged M/V Blaamanen, a chemical/oil tanker, reported that there was a near miss by a Houthi one-way attack drone, adding that no one was injured.

The second ship, Gabon-owned, Indian-flagged M/V Saibaba, which carried crude oil, reported it was hit by a one-way attack drone. No injuries were reported, and the USS Laboon responded to the attacks.

The incidents mark the 14th and 15th attacks by Houthi Militants on commercial ships since Oct. 17.

What a difference a year makes.

At the dawn of 2023, former President Donald Trump was the only declared candidate in the race for the Republican nomination.

But he was far from a sure thing. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, fresh off an overwhelming gubernatorial re-election less than two months earlier, was neck and neck with Trump in some of the early 2024 polls. 

The former president was still facing criticism for contributing to the GOP’s lackluster performance in the 2022 midterms.

And Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign launch at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, a couple of weeks after the midterms was panned by many pundits.

But as 2023 comes to a close, Trump is the commanding frontrunner for the Republican nomination as he makes his third straight White House bid.

Here are five moments that shaped the showdown for the Republican nomination.

March: Trump makes legal history  

Trump was indicted by a grand jury in the New York City borough of Manhattan on charges related to an alleged illegal 2016 hush money payment. Trump made history as the first former or current president to be indicted for a crime.

Trump was also indicted later in the year in three other cases, including charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss. But those cases have not deterred his support among Republican voters.

Trump’s legal controversies have had a rallying effect among Republicans, and his legal entanglements have sucked the oxygen out of the room for his nomination rivals.

‘Every time he’s targeted by legal actions, it just improves his standing with the conservative base,’ longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams said.

DeSantis, in an interview that aired on the Christian Broadcasting Network a couple of days ago, argued that ‘I think for the primary, it distorted. Yeah, I think it distorted.’

‘I would say if I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff,’ DeSantis emphasized.

May: DeSantis campaign launch panned 

After months of testing the waters with trips to the crucial early voting states, DeSantis aimed to make waves with his campaign launch on Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk.

But it didn’t go as planned.

X, then still called Twitter, couldn’t handle the surge in traffic, the app repeatedly crashed and the event eventually started 20 minutes late.

It was the first of many bad omens for DeSantis.

The Florida governor made headlines again for all the wrong reasons over the summer, with a series of campaign staff purges and resets and reports of the campaign burning through cash. 

There were more staff shakeups in autumn, this time at the DeSantis-aligned super PAC Never Back Down, which had taken over many of the traditional duties of a presidential campaign, including grassroots outreach.

DeSantis for months was the clear No. 2 rival to Trump in the Republican nomination race. But in many metrics, Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor, had surpassed DeSantis for second place by the end of 2023.

August: Trump skips the debates 

As he ran an incumbent-style campaign, Trump decided against sharing the debate stage with his GOP rivals.

‘The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had,’ Trump wrote on his social media site ahead of the first debate in August. ‘I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!’

The former president ended up skipping all four candidate showdowns held this year while hosting competing events on the debate nights.

Trump’s absence didn’t seem to hurt him. He emerged relatively unscathed by his rivals, and his lead over the rest of the field has only grown since the first debate was held.

While the debates didn’t affect Trump, they did help winnow the field of contenders, as nearly all the candidates who failed to qualify for the showdowns dropped out of race. A field of more than a dozen candidates in August was down to just five major contenders by December.

November: Youngkin falls short

As summer turned into autumn, speculation and buzz about Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin potentially making a late entry into the 2024 GOP nomination race was the talk of the party’s donor class.

As a first-time candidate from the party’s business wing, Youngkin edged out former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021 to become the first GOP candidate in a dozen years to win a gubernatorial election in the one-time swing state that had trended toward the Democrats the previous decade.

Youngkin became an instant Republican Party star, and pundits immediately viewed him as a potential GOP 2024 contender. 

But Youngkin dismissed the speculation, and he repeatedly said his only political mission was to win outright control of his state legislature in Virgnia’s 2023 off-year elections.

After investing plenty of political capital on behalf of Republican legislative candidates as he criss-crossed the state holding rallies, Youngkin became the face of his party’s push to win total control of the state government in Richmond. 

But he failed in his mission, and the buzz about Youngkin parachuting into the White House race instantly dissipated.

December: Haley surges

Haley enjoyed plenty of momentum in the polls this autumn, thanks in part to well-received performances in the first three Republican presidential primary debates. 

She leapfrogged DeSantis for second place in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and votes second after Iowa. And she’s in second place in her home state, another crucial early voting state that holds the first southern contest.

But things accelerated for Haley soon after Thanksgiving.

That’s when she was endorsed by Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Action, the political wing of the influential and deep-pocketed fiscally conservative network founded by the billionaire Koch Brothers. AFP Action has pledged to spend tens of millions of dollars and mobilize its formidable grassroots operation to boost Haley and help push the Republican Party past Trump.

A couple of weeks later, Haley landed the much coveted endorsement of popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who spent three straight days teaming up with her on the campaign trail in the Granite State.

The governor’s endorsement of Haley appeared to give her campaign an extra boost as well as a high-profile and energetic surrogate who has been tireless in touting her during national and local media appearances.

It all seems to be clicking for Haley. She’s soared in the latest polls in New Hampshire and is now within striking distance of Trump. 

And in Iowa, whose Jan. 15 caucuses lead off the GOP nominating calendar, she’s pulled even with DeSantis.

Christmastime is a season of joy and merriment for Americans across the country.

However, everyone has their own Grinch waiting to put a damper on their holiday.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has a unique one following him this holiday season after his historic ouster from the speakership in October.

McCarthy had a rough go as House speaker.

After the lackluster 2022 midterm elections didn’t yield the impactful majority Republicans were trying to manifest, McCarthy had to fight tooth and nail with 15 ballots to take the gavel from an apprehensive GOP conference.

McCarthy’s tenure behind the gavel was further complicated by a four-seat majority that only got smaller as the year marched on.

The slim majority required the now-former speaker to wheel and deal to get GOP priorities across the finish line – but deal-brokering in Washington comes with its pitfalls.

Different wings of the GOP wanted different things on a variety of issues, including government funding.

McCarthy’s speakership was blown up by Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, who dropped a privileged resolution to remove the now-former speaker after the House passed a continuing resolution to fund the government.

Seven other Republicans joined Gaetz on the move, leveraging the slim GOP majority in the House with Democrats in the chamber joining them to oust McCarthy from his job.

The move sparked a near-month-long fight to replace McCarthy that saw three top Republicans rejected from the job and culminated with the historic mid-Congress election of Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

The former speaker announced after his ousting that he would be resigning from Congress.

McCarthy tended his resignation from Congress on Dec. 20, with his official last day in office being set for Dec. 31. His resignation further slims the GOP’s House majority, especially in the wake of disgraced New York GOP former Rep. George Santos’ removal from Congress.

However, the former speaker is not going quietly into the night.

McCarthy has taken parting shots at Gaetz as he’s headed for the exit door, telling Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade this month that history will not look back fondly on the Florida man’s move.

‘History will judge him,’ McCarthy said. ‘And history will judge all of us.’

Kilmeade asked McCarthy about the ‘very real math problem’ that comes with his departure.

‘Gaetz is never a serious person,’ McCarthy responded. ‘I mean, when you think about what has transpired, and you talk about someone being selfish, this is all about an ethics complaint that he had with Congress before, that he looked at just himself, that he doesn’t want it to come forward for America to know.’

‘But it’s going to come forward,’ Kilmeade said.

‘Yeah, it’s more serious than Santos…’ McCarthy replied.

‘I think they’ll see I’m Irish and Italian. I like a good fight,’ he said, referencing the time it took to land the speakership. ‘But then they took down Steve Scalise. They took down Jim Jordan. They took down Tom Emmer. I mean, these are the best players on the field.’

‘But this is your party,’ Kilmeade said.

‘Yeah, but the challenge is, it was eight people and every single Democrat. Eight Republicans joined the Democrats to create this mess. That’s part of things that people have to look at to be able to change.’

Fox News Digital’s Taylor Penley contributed reporting.

For a prominent pro-life group, recent setbacks at the ballot box have not tampered spirits for the future of the movement to create a culture that protects unborn life in the womb.

The March for Life — the organization and the annual event that attracts tens of thousands of people (at least) from across the country each January — has grown significantly in the 50 years since the first march in 1974.

Activists assembled on the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which effectively made abortion legal in every state across the country. Since then, the march always had Roe as its chief point of protest, but in the year and a half since the Supreme Court overturned Roe’s precedent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the energy surrounding the march has not waned.

‘The march for life was born in a moment after Roe was overturned, and there was a lot of confusion about choosing life, and the unborn child,’ March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘We think this particular moment calls for these marches, and that the pro-life grassroots needs strengthening and even a little direction right now. That’s where we see the state march program as being so critically important.’

In the past five years, the March for Life has expanded to the state level, hosting annual rallies in cities across the country organized by state chapters of the national organization.

The state-level expansion is moving fast. In 2018, March for Life Virginia held an inaugural march. In 2023, eight states held marches, and next year March for Life will be in 17 states, and Mancini has plans to be in every state in the union in the next six years or so.

Following the Dobbs decision in June 2022, pro-life leaders and conservative politicians have sought to redirect activism to state-level political battles and focus on creating a ‘culture of life.’ March for Life’s goal, Mancini said, is to create a world where ‘abortion is unthinkable.’

That effort is as much about helping women with unexpected pregnancies as it is about changing laws around abortion.

‘There’s so much confusion about what it means to be a woman, and frankly, what it means to be pro-life. The heart of pro-life is supporting women and wanting what’s best for them,’ Mancini said.

The political fight over abortion does not appear to be going away, and pro-life leaders are far from giving up on pushing for state or national pro-life legislation.

However, pro-life causes have had a series of setbacks in statewide ballot initiatives in the past two elections. Most recently, Ohio voted to enshrine a right to access abortion into its state constitution in November.

‘With the ballot initiatives, we’re learning a lot,’ Mancini said. ‘As we’re moving and changing culture, we’re going to have lessons along the way.’ 

As many pro-life leaders have pointed out, Mancini noted that public opinion surveys show most Americans are not in favor of completely unrestricted abortion.

‘For at least 12 years strong, 7 out of 10 Americans would limit abortion at most to the first three months of pregnancy. And that’s not our national law,’ Mancini said. ‘Some states do enact protective laws of life prior to that moment, which is wonderful, but our national law is not in line with most of Europe.’ 

The theme of the 2024 March for Life is ‘with every woman, for every child.’ It aims to address the confusion and show that being pro-life is not only about political fights without regard to the difficulties of an unplanned pregnancy.

‘We see two patients when someone is facing an unexpected pregnancy, and we want both of those patients to fully flourish.’

The Charlotte Lozier Institute released a report earlier in December about the impact nearly 3,000 pro-life pregnancy centers across the nation have had serving women.

The report showed that in 2022 alone, the network of mostly locally-run pregnancy centers provided nearly 800,000 new client consultations, 700,000 pregnancy tests, half a million ultrasounds, and hundreds of thousands of STI tests, parenting classes and sexual risk avoidance education.

Pregnancy centers also provided ‘after-abortion support’ to 20,000 clients.

The centers also delivered $358 million worth of material support for new mothers, including cribs, strollers, diapers, baby formula and car seats, the report said.

Mancini said there was a distinction between advocacy for abortion access, and the pro-life movement. Abortion access tends to prey on women’s fears, implying that those carrying an unplanned pregnancy are not capable of bearing or raising children, Mancini said.

‘The pro-life movement is the opposite,’ Mancini said. ‘We want to encourage and support women, come alongside them and strengthen them; and tell them ‘you can do this. You have what it takes to do this. This is going to be hard, but it will be beautiful, and we will be here with you.”