FIRST ON FOX – A bipartisan House coalition is moving to redirect COVID-19 relief money to beef up a program that helps telecom companies replace equipment made by Chinese Communist Party-affiliated companies. 

In 2020, Congress passed the bipartisan ‘Rip and Replace Program’ at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which reimburses smaller communications providers across the country for costs from removing, replacing and disposing of equipment manufactured by Huawei Technologies Company and ZTE Corporation – both of which present significant risks to U.S. national security due to their close connections to the Chinese government. 

There are roughly 24,000 pieces of Chinese-made communications equipment throughout U.S. telecom networks, and disposing them is critical to protecting the U.S. from spying and other threats. However, the Rip and Replace Program is currently facing a $3.08 billion shortfall and is only able to cover 40% of the expenses for eligible applicants – many of which operate in rural areas, putting those communities at risk for loss of service. The program has already received 126 applications beyond its budget.

On Monday, Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, as well Select Committee on the CCP Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and his Democratic counterpart, ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, introduced the Defend our Networks Act, which will identify the funding needed to close the budget shortfall in the FCC’s program and transfer $3.08 billion in unobligated emergency COVID-relief funds to ‘Rip and Replace.’ 

‘If communication flows through Huawei or ZTE equipment, it should be treated as if it is being downloaded back to a server in Beijing with a full access pass for the CCP regime,’ Hinson said. 

‘Chinese technology is embedded in communications networks across the United States, giving the Chinese Communist Party backdoor access to Americans’ personal information and sensitive data,’ she said.

‘The Defend our Networks Act will ensure compromised Chinese telecom equipment is replaced with secure systems so that Americans, especially those in rural areas, have reliable, secure, and private connectivity,’ she said. 

Krishnamoorthi said he is ‘proud to join my colleagues in introducing the bipartisan Defend Our Networks Act to safeguard our communications infrastructure from potential vulnerabilities to the Chinese Communist Party.’

‘Communications equipment produced by companies under the influence of the CCP pose a serious risk to our national security, and fully funding efforts to replace the vulnerable components with secure ones is a vital step forward in safeguarding our technological infrastructure,’ he added. 

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., who also co-authored the legislation, praised the ‘strong coalition of bipartisan partners’ moving the bill forward. 

‘This year, the Federal Communications Commission said they can only cover less than half of the costs to remove dangerous Chinese technology from American telecommunications networks. That is simply unacceptable,’ she said.

‘I am proud to co-lead the Defend Our Networks Act alongside a strong coalition of bipartisan partners. This bill would strengthen the FCC’s ability to safeguard our technology, ensuring that Americans can be confident, knowing that none of our telecommunications systems are vulnerable to attacks because they contain Chinese software,’ she added. 

Just a few months ago in July, Hinson demanded an audit of ‘potentially compromised’ government telecommunications equipment after hackers breached the e-mails of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and high-level State Department who were involved in planning the Biden administration’s trip to China.

‘If there is still telecommunications and video surveillance equipment produced by the PRC or PRC-linked entities in federal buildings it should be unplugged, ripped off the wall, and thrown where the sun doesn’t shine,’ she wrote in a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

Special Counsel David Weiss will take part in an ‘unprecedented’ transcribed interview before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning, when he will answer questions about his yearslong investigation into Hunter Biden, the Justice Department said.

Weiss, who is leading the investigation into the president’s son, will voluntarily testify behind closed doors at the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m.

‘Special Counsel Weiss is appearing voluntarily to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the scope of his authority,’ Weiss spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle told Fox News. ‘Mr. Weiss is prepared to take this unprecedented step of testifying before the conclusion of his investigation to make clear that he’s had and continues to have full authority over his investigation and to bring charges in any jurisdiction.’ 

‘Consistent with department policy and the law, he will be unable to address the specifics of his investigation,’ Hornbuckle said. ‘At the close of this matter, Special Counsel Weiss will prepare a report, which the Attorney General has committed to making public to the greatest extent possible, consistent with the law, department policy and the public interest.’

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has been negotiating with the Justice Department to have Weiss and other federal prosecutors involved in the Biden investigation to testify before his committee for months. He initially requested Weiss meet with the committee on Oct. 11. 

The DOJ initially offered Weiss for public testimony back in July. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped Weiss in August to serve as special counsel with jurisdiction over the Biden investigation and any other issues that have come up, or may come up, related to that probe.

Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, has been leading the Biden investigation since 2018. His appointment as special counsel came amid allegations that politics had influenced or hampered prosecutorial decisions in the yearslong investigation into the president’s son. 

In his first move as special counsel, Weiss charged Biden with making a false statement in the purchase of a firearm; making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a federal firearms licensed dealer; and one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

The president’s son pleaded not guilty to all charges last month. 

Weiss has said the investigation into the president’s son is ongoing. 

Weiss’ interview comes amid House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against President Biden. 

Fox News’ David Spunt contributed to this report. 

The leaders of United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations declared ‘enough is enough’ and demanded an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as the reported Palestinian death toll climbed to 10,000.

In a joint statement issued Sunday night, the U.N. leaders said that the slaughter of more than 1,400 people in Israel when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Oct. 7 was ‘horrific.’

‘However, the horrific killings of even more civilians in Gaza is an outrage, as is cutting off 2.2 million Palestinians from food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,’ the statement said.

The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war surpassed 10,000 with more than 4,000 of them children and minors, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. 

‘An entire population is besieged and under attack, denied access to the essentials for survival, bombed in their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship. This is unacceptable,’ the U.N. leaders said in the statement.

It continued, ‘We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now.’

The joint statement was signed by 18 heads of the U.N.’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths.

Israel has so far refused to agree to any cease-fire or pause in fighting, arguing such measures only serve to allow Hamas to recuperate and plan further terrorist attacks like the Oct. 7 massacre that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel and saw Hamas militants take 242 hostages from Israel into Gaza.

Critics of Israel say the civilian cost has been too high in Gaza, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the campaign until Hamas is destroyed.

FOX News’ Anders Hagstrom and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., was delivering a speech Monday when a group of pro-Palestinian protesters attempted to drown him out, demanding a cease-fire in Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza. 

‘I want to call out to everybody right now. These final hours. This is what’s on the ballot,’ Booker began his speech. ‘We should know in New Jersey how privileged we are. There are so many places in our country right now … where people want to make sure… that we have…’ 

‘Cease-fire now,’ the crowd repeatedly chanted, interrupting Booker’s speech ahead of Election Day.

‘This is what makes America great,’ Booker interjected. ‘The power to protest. The power to have free speech. The power of America.’ 

As the chants continued and grew louder, the venue began playing ‘We Are Family,’ the 1979 song by Sister Sledge, over clamors of ‘cease-fire now’ that persisted from the demonstrators. 

Booker chanted back, ‘Column A, all the way,’ meant to show support for Democratic candidates running in New Jersey local and state elections this week. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday doubled down on rejecting calls for a cease-fire in Gaza. 

‘There will be no cease-fire without the return of the hostages. This should be completely removed from the lexicon,’ Netanyahu told crews at the Ramon air force base in southern Israel, according to Reuters, reiterating the Jewish state’s long-standing position. ‘We say this to our friends and to our enemies. We will simply continue until we defeat them. We have no alternative.’

Booker on Monday said he was ‘calling for a short-term cessation of hostilities that pose high-risk to civilians,’ joining a statement issued together with fellow Democrats Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, of Virginia, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois, Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, Peter Welch, of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, Tina Smith, of Minnesota, Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, and Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire. 

‘Hamas’ horrific actions cannot be ascribed to all Palestinians,’ the statement said. ‘Indeed, Palestinian residents of Gaza have often been victimized by Hamas.’ 

‘The failure to adequately protect non-combatant civilians risks dramatic escalation of the conflict in the region and imposes severe damage on prospects for peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians,’ the senators said, joining President Biden’s call for a ‘short-term cessation of hostilities that pose high risk to civilians, aide workers or humanitarian aide delivery’ in Gaza in order to successfully deliver aid to civilians under ‘strict and necessary oversight.’ 

Two other goals listed are ‘increased focus on the release of all hostages kidnapped on October 7,’ and ‘opportunity for broader discussion among Israeli and Palestinian leadership, together with regional and global partners, about long-term strategies to reduce decades-long conflict in the region.’ 

‘Based on the consensus opinion of U.S. and international aid officials, it is nearly impossible to deliver sufficient humanitarian aid to protect civilian life under current conditions,’ the senators said. 

The White House is silent after pro-Palestinian demonstrators vandalized its gates with signs and paint during a rowdy protest over the weekend.

Tens of thousands of people descended on Washington, D.C., on Saturday to demand a cease-fire between Israel and terror group Hamas.

Protesters could be seen vandalizing the White House fence and wrenching at the gate as antisemitic graffiti was left on several buildings along the protesters’ path through the city.

Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi told Fox News Digital on Monday that the federal law enforcement agency made no arrests.

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the demonstration.

Just one arrest was made public throughout the hours-long ordeal – that of an adult male by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. The man was arrested on a destruction of property charge.

The department also said it is further investigating acts of vandalism at the McPherson Metro Station and on multiple police vehicles.

‘The Metropolitan Police Department handles hundreds of protests, demonstrations, and other events every year, and we support and facilitate people safely and peacefully exercising their First Amendment right to protest,’ Acting Chief Pamela A. Smith said.

Activists were heard accusing President Biden of enabling a ‘genocide’ of Palestinians and calling for the U.S. to end its aid to Israel.

Hamas militants infiltrated Israel’s borders on Oct. 7, slaughtering 1,400 people – mainly civilians, including children and the elderly. Hundreds of Israelis were taken hostage and many remain so.

Tel Aviv responded to the surprise attack with military strikes that have killed more than 8,500 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

The protesters on Saturday could be seen defacing multiple statues in downtown Washington as well, wrapping Palestinian flags around a statue of Benjamin Franklin and another of General Marquis de Lafayette near the White House.

Top Hamas officials are hiding out across the Middle East and away from the danger of Israeli’s offensive into Gaza.

High-ranking political leaders of the terrorist organization are spread out in Iran, Qatar, Lebanon and Turkey, far away from a battle that started when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel last month, according to an Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate press release.

According to the release, the top Hamas leaders manage budgets, direct terror operations and run public relations campaigns from safe locations away from Gaza, noting that the organization’s leaders do all of this while ordinary residents of Gaza are prevented from evacuating or defending themselves.

Israel’s ground offensive into Gaza began more than a week ago and has so far claimed the lives of 30 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) personnel. The invasion has also sparked what many have characterized as a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, leading to protests in multiple countries and demands for a cease-fire.

The IDF announced Monday that it has reopened an evacuation route for civilians in Gaza to ‘move south for their safety,’ noting that Israeli troops are ‘not at war with the people of Gaza.’

‘The IDF has repeatedly called on the residents of Gaza City to evacuate from the area, and continues to urge them to do so,’ the IDF said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

ISRAEL’S MILITARY COULD ENTER GAZA CITY THIS WEEK, ISRAELI MEDIA SAYS 

Meanwhile, many of the leaders of Hamas are enjoying safety while continuing to grow more wealthy. According to a post by the Embassy of Israel to the United States last week, multiple leaders of the terror group have net worths in the billions.

The list includes Deputy Chair of the Hamas Political Bureau Abu Marzuk, who has an estimated net worth of $3 billion. Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh, two senior leaders of Hamas, are estimated to be worth about $4 billion each.

That post, which was shared on X, also notes that many of those leaders live far away from the battlefield in Qatar, helping Hamas pull in upward of $1 billion per year and making it the second-richest terror organization in the world.

‘So, why is Gaza one of the worst places in the world to live?’ a video attached to the post asks. ‘Instead of digging wells to provide clean water to their people, Hamas digs tunnels so their leaders turn a profit off of smuggled goods. The result: 12% of childhood deaths in Gaza are due to contaminated water. So, if they’re not using all that money to take care of their citizens, where is it going?’

House Republican leaders aim to bring a short-term government spending bill up for a vote by the end of this week, three sources told Fox News Digital on Monday.

The House and Senate are working toward a deal to fund the government for fiscal year 2024, which began on Oct. 1. The lack of a deal at the time prompted Congress to pass a stopgap spending bill to extend last year’s priorities, known as a continuing resolution (CR), on Sept. 30, narrowly avoiding a partial government shutdown.

That CR is due to run out on Nov. 17, and the House and Senate are still far apart on an agreement.

‘The plan is to get something together we can pass this week,’ one of the three sources told Fox News Digital.

The other two sources both indicated that Thursday is the likeliest day to see a vote.

Details on the length or any added measures to the CR were not immediately clear. Two of the sources suggested that plans to pass a CR would be a main topic of discussion at House Republicans’ closed-door meeting Tuesday morning.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has previously not ruled out needing another short-term bill to keep the government open while House Republicans continue to pass their 12 appropriations bills. He suggested on ‘Hannity’ that such a move would need to come with some kind of conservative goals – but he did not elaborate on whether those would be in the form of spending cuts or policy riders.

Johnson told Fox News Digital in an interview last week that discussions on what a CR would look like would begin ‘in earnest,’ adding, ‘I think, at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is ensure that obviously the government remains in operation, but we do it in a fiscally responsible manner. And we cannot just print and borrow money and spend it anymore. We’re past that.’

Johnson had floated the idea of a ‘laddered’ CR last week. When Congress passes one of its 12 spending bills, agencies and departments covered by that bill would be funded at that new level. Until then, they would remain at the previous year’s spending levels.

However, two of the sources who spoke with Fox News Digital indicated that such a move is unlikely at this point.

One thing that’s shaping up to be clear is that GOP hard-liners who rebelled against ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for passing the Sept. 30 CR appear poised to give Johnson more grace.

‘If Speaker Johnson comes to me and explains to me the situation, and I feel comfortable in what he’s saying, then I would never say never on this go-round just because it’s a different situation,’ Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., one of the Republicans who voted against McCarthy’s ‘clean’ CR and later voted to oust him, told Fox News Digital late last month.

House Republicans have passed seven of 12 spending bills so far as part of a promise not to wrap all of the year’s government funding priorities into one large ‘omnibus.’

In the beginning of voting in America, votes were cast by voice and not paper ballot and were typically done at a local courthouse and recorded in poll books.

This remained the case in most states until the 19th century. According to the University of Virginia, even as oral voting waned, it was still used for 10% of the vote in the 1860 presidential election.

It was feared that both voice voting – and the fact that it was not secret – left people open to intimidation. Voice voting was fully extinct by the end of the 19th century and replaced by the secret ballot.

Over time, the voice vote was replaced by paper ballots, first with tickets and eventually more standardized voting forms that could be used in combination with voting machines – which would become the standard way of voting in the 20th century.

As voting itself evolved, so did the polling places, going from the courthouses of the early days of American democracy to hundreds of thousands of polling places across the country today.

A report on the 2018 election by the Election Assistance Commission found there were more than 200,000 polling places in use on Election Day and more than 600,000 workers providing assistance.

Less than 1% of those were at election offices, with the remaining 99.4% at other locations, including community centers, schools and churches.

Polling locations are typically chosen as central, easily accessible places for voters who are assigned their location. Schools, churches and community centers will typically be easily accessible, people in the community will be able to identify them, and they will typically be more likely to be accessible for the disabled – as well as being large enough to cope with larger numbers of people safely and comfortably.

However, rules guiding polling places differ by state. Article 1, Section 4, of the Constitution states that the rights to conduct elections are reserved for the states, meaning that each state may dictate the regulation and locations where polling locations are held. Texas requires schools to serve as polling locations, but other states do not.

Want to know where your polling place is? Check here on Vote.org/.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

If you are a U.S. citizen and are not registered to vote and wish to be, then here is the best way to go about exercising your constitutional right.

The U.S. government has set up a website, vote.gov to begin the voter registration process. There you can register to vote, find voter registration deadlines, and register after having moved to a different area.

You can also change your political party affiliation and learn how to get a voter registration card. If you are living outside the U.S., you can also request an absentee ballot by completing a separate application.

All states except North Dakota require that you register before voting in an election.

The website will show you how to register to vote, including online, by mail or in person. Rules differ by state, so you can choose the state in which you reside to discover where to go and what rules apply in terms of deadlines.

There is no national voter registration deadline, and so voters in each state and territory must adhere to the laws where they live.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.