The Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking sensitive documents from the Pentagon is set to be arraigned Wednesday in federal court. 

The court appearance for Jack Teixeira, which will happen in Worcester this afternoon according to MassLive, comes nearly a week after he was indicted by a federal grand jury. 

Teixeira, 21, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, faces six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information. He was arrested on April 13 on suspicion of sharing highly classified military documents about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other top national security issues in a chat room on the social media platform Discord. Teixeira held a top-secret information security clearance, which granted him access to classified information. 

‘Individuals granted security clearances are entrusted to protect classified information and safeguard our nation’s secrets. The allegations in today’s indictment reveal a serious violation of that trust,’ FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement last week. ‘The FBI and our partners remain firm in our commitment to hold accountable those who endanger our national security and the security of our allies around the world.’ 

PENTAGON LEAK SUSPECT JACK TEIXIERA INDICTED BY FEDERAL GRAND JURY 

The leaked documents exposed secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the capabilities and geopolitical interests of other nations, and other national security issues. 

JACK TEIXIERA MISHANDLED CLASSIFIED INFORMATION TWICE BEFORE HIGH-PROFILE LEAK: REPORT 

Last month, a judge ordered Teixeira to remain jailed as he awaits trial, saying that releasing him would pose a risk that he would attempt to flee the country or obstruct justice. His family has expressed support for him, and his lawyers had pressed the judge to release him to his father, saying he has no criminal history. 

Air Force officials reportedly ordered Teixeira in September and October 2022, to ‘cease and desist on any deep dives into classified intelligence information,’ according to The New York Times, which reported he had been caught accessing classified materials before. 

‘Teixeira had been previously been notified to focus on his own career duties and not to seek out intelligence products,’ a superior wrote in a memo dated Feb. 4, according to the report. 

Teixeira faces more than a decade in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 if found guilty.  

Fox News’ Adam Sabes, David Spunt and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Both chambers of the Maine Legislature approved a bill requiring MaineCare to cover gender reassignments, a policy that’s already in practice but is not required by law.

The Senate voted 23-10 on Tuesday to advance the proposal. The House approved the bill 75-65 on Friday. Further votes are needed before the bill goes to Democratic Gov. Janet Mills.

The Mills administration already added coverage for mental health counseling, surgery and hormone treatments for low-income residents under MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program. The bill would codify that policy as state law by prohibiting MaineCare from declining to reimburse someone for ‘medically necessary treatment for or related to gender dysphoria.’

Maine’s actions come as a growing number of states seek to ban sexual reassignment procedures for minors.

Twenty states restrict the practice for people under 18, and about a half-dozen other states are considering bans for minors, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

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A South Carolina school district will remove unlawful critical race theory from its curriculum after a South Carolina Freedom Caucus lawsuit.

A Tuesday settlement agreement between the state Freedom Caucus and Lexington County School District One requires the district to terminate its contract with EL Education after an employee was caught describing how to circumvent South Carolina’s anti-CRT law, the Freedom Caucus said in a press release.

South Carolina has a budget stipulation which prohibits critical race theory-derived ideas through the school funding process.

The settlement in the Lexington Court of Common Pleas requires the Lexington district, which contains 31 schools and more than 28,000 students, to fully comply with all South Carolina laws prohibiting CRT instruction and training for students, teachers, and other staff. 

‘The terms of this settlement agreement show Lexington School District One was caught red-handed peddling the Left’s pernicious, racist nonsense,’ South Carolina Freedom Caucus vice chairman RJ May said. ‘This is a win for the Freedom Caucus, for parents, but most importantly, this is a win for students who will no longer be subjected to radical, liberal indoctrination by the District.’

In October, the South Carolina Freedom Caucus obtained a five-minute recording of Tarika Sullivan, a professional development specialist for EL Education, saying the education non-profit has ‘allies’ and ‘co-conspirators’ who are willing to teach outlawed CRT concepts ‘even if [they] get in trouble.’

Sullivan touted the tenets of CRT, including ‘culturally relevant pedagogy’ and considering what ‘parts of your identity are privileged.’ EL Education works with a number of South Carolina schools in developing curriculum that ‘goes against mainstream teaching,’ she said. 

 ‘Antiracism’ is ‘at the core’ of EL Education’s curriculum, its website says. 

Freedom Caucus chairman Adam Morgan said the caucus will continue fighting for parents, teachers, and students. The Freedom Caucus is part of an ongoing lawsuit with the Charleston County School District for also teaching suspected CRT-derived ideas.

‘Career politicians, afraid to take on the teacher unions and education establishment, gaslit parents across South Carolina when we filed this lawsuit by claiming CRT wasn’t in our classrooms,’ Morgan said. 

The Lexington County district’s curriculum includes several books which promote critical race theory, according to the Freedom Caucus’ 31-page complaint. 

Students read ‘This Book is Anti-Racist’ by Tiffany Jewell, which teaches children that ‘if you are white,’ one automatically has ‘internalized racial superiority,’ and ‘The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person,’ which states, ‘We have a White people problem.’ 

Teachers in the district have also conducted ‘privilege tests,’ in which White students were separated across a room from ‘oppressed’ minority students, the Freedom Caucus complaint says. 

‘Despite the naysayers, the Freedom Caucus persevered, and won,’ Morgan said. ‘It’s time for our moderate Republican colleagues to support the conservative values the SCFC is championing.’

EL Education and Lexington County School District One did not respond to Fox Digital’s request for comment by time of publication. 

The number of people arrested in FY 2023 by Border Patrol at the southern border who are on the FBI’s terror watchlist has hit a new record at the end of May, according to new data released on Tuesday.

As of the end of May, there have been 125 arrests at the southern border between ports of entry by Border Patrol since the fiscal year began in October. 

That is higher than FY 2022’s 98 encounters, which itself broke a record. In FY 21 there were just 15 arrests and in FY 20 just three. In FY 19, there were zero at the southern border between ports of entry.

Numbers of encounters of those on the watchlist entering through ports of entry and encountered by Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) typically eclipse those encountered between ports of entry.

So far in FY 2023, there have been 337 encountered at the northern and southern ports so far, compared to 380 in FY 2022 and 157 in FY 21.

The watch list, officially called the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) is the government’s database that ‘contains sensitive information on terrorist identities.’

‘The TSDS originated as the consolidated terrorist watchlist to house information on known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals,’ CBP says.

While the number is relatively small, compared to the millions of migrants encountered at the borders in recent years, Republicans and former border officials have raised concern about the numbers of those on the terror watch list who are getting past Border Patrol agents.

There were at least 599,000 illegal immigrants who escaped Border Patrol custody in FY 2022, after more than 390,000 in FY 2021.

Overall in May at the southern border, there were 204,561 migrant encounters at both the ports and between them, bringing the total for the fiscal year so far to 1.6 million encounters. That’s compared to nearly 2.4 in FY 2022 and over 1.7 in FY 2021.

The data comes as DHS announced that Deputy Secretary John Tien is retiring in July – marking another high-profile loss for the agency, which has already announced the departures of its Border Patrol chief and acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director.

FIRST ON FOX: The co-chair of the House Border Security caucus is raising the alarm about reports of ‘unattended’ ports of entry at the northern border with Canada – even as migrant encounters have increased significantly in recent years.

‘We are concerned with recent reports from concerned citizens and members of the public that ports of entry (POEs) along the United States’ border with Canada are being left open and unattended for extended periods of time,’ Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Troy Miller.

‘This information accompanies publicly available reporting on increases in illegal border crossings along the Northern border, including by foreign nationals from countries in Asia and the Middle East,’ he said, along with Reps. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., and Tom Tiffany, R-Wis.

There have so far been over 98,000 migrant encounters at the northern border this fiscal year, after 109,535 encounters in FY 2022. While only a fraction of the millions encountered at the southern border, it marks a sharp increase from the 27,000 encountered in FY 2020. The border, which is 5,525 miles, only has 115 ports of entry. 

Biggs said that his sources have indicated that CBP agents and staff ‘may have been instructed to open POEs for periods up to 24 hours per day, and citizens are concerned about the long periods of time when POEs are open without sufficient supervision or surveillance by CBP personnel.’

As part of the House’s oversight duties, Biggs asks for information about hours of operation for ports, as well as information about staffing levels and documents related to the opening hours of ports of entry at the northern border.

In a statement to Fox, Biggs said that Americans ‘deserve to know why their borders are not being secured.’

‘Now that the Biden Administration has dismantled our southern border security, they have moved to dismantle our northern border security,’ he said. ‘It’s unconscionable to hear that the Biden Administration would authorize inadequately supervised or even completely unmanned ports of entries. The American people deserve to understand the extent of this problem. There are numerous recent intelligence reports revealing that the northern border is experiencing an unprecedented surge in illegal border crossings—including by foreign nationals from terror-prone countries.’

The northern border was at the center of a new agreement with Canada in March that means that migrants who attempt to cross illegally between ports will be returned as part of an effort to deter illegal migration at the border. It updates a 2004 Safe Third County Agreement, which did not deal with illegal immigration.

Earlier this year, Fox News reported that Border Patrol was appealing for volunteers to deal with the surge, which was attributed to ‘Mexican migrants with no legal documents.’ One sector reported an 856% increase in encounters at the border.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have launched a Northern Border Security Caucus to come up with solutions to the ongoing challenges faced at the often overlooked border. 

Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed into law a bipartisan proposal to provide financial aid to Milwaukee, as well as allow the city and county to raise the local sales tax.The move is intended to allow Milwaukee to avert looming threats of bankruptcy. ‘For far too long, our local communities have been forced to do more with less,’ Evers said, adding that ‘we’ve seen the consequence of that play out in communities across Wisconsin.’

Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called it a ‘historic day’ before he signed a bipartisan bill on Tuesday that sends more money to Milwaukee and gives both the city and county the ability to raise the local sales tax in an effort to avoid bankruptcy.

The measure also sends 36% more money overall to every other smaller city, town, village and county in Wisconsin, part of a deal Evers struck with Republican legislative leaders to also increase funding for K-12 public schools and send more money to private schools that accept voucher students.

Evers signed the bill surrounded by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers, Milwaukee leaders and local officials in Wausau. Local governments have been clamoring for more state aid following years of cuts or stagnant funding that have forced cuts to essential services like police and fire protection.

‘For far too long, our local communities have been forced to do more with less,’ Evers said. ‘And we’ve seen the consequence of that play out in communities across Wisconsin.’

He said communities have been ‘forced to make impossible decisions about what essential services to fund.’

Milwaukee’s leaders had warned of catastrophic cuts if the bill was not enacted. Milwaukee is struggling with an underfunded pension system and not enough money to maintain essential police, fire and emergency services.

State Sen. LaTonya Johnson, of Milwaukee, said at the bill signing ceremony that the city was ‘on the verge of insolvency’ that would have required laying off hundreds of police and firefighters, among others. The additional funding provides a lifeline, she said.

‘It is our city’s opportunity to start over,’ Johnson said.

The roughly $1 billion in aid to local governments — known as shared revenue — would be paid for by tapping 20% of the state’s 5-cent sales tax. Aid would then grow along with sales tax revenue. The measure increases current aid by about $250 million statewide.

The new law also allows the Milwaukee Common Council and Milwaukee County Board to vote on raising local sales taxes, a power they did not have.

Some Republicans in the Legislature had wanted to require a vote of the people before those local sales taxes could be raised. But Milwaukee leaders, Democrats and some Republicans argued the need for more funding was too critical to leave to a referendum vote that could fail.

With Evers’ signing the bill, the focus now shifts to those Milwaukee governing boards to see if they will vote to approve the increase.

The shared revenue program to fund local governments, created in 1911, has remained nearly unchanged for almost 30 years, despite overall growth in tax revenues. Shared revenue for counties and municipalities was cut in 2004, 2010 and 2012 and since then has been relatively flat.

The Legislature passed the bill on a bipartisan vote last week.

While the focus of the new law is sending more money to Wisconsin’s local governments, it also includes a wide array of other provisions.

Those include cutting aid to communities that reduce the number of police officers and firefighters and banning public health officials from ordering businesses closed for more than 30 days without approval from a local governing board, which could extend closures for only an additional 30 days.

The law also forbids local communities from putting advisory referenda questions on the ballot, except those related to certain projects that would be funded with property tax money. The bill would not allow questions on hot-button issues like whether voters support abortion rights, accept Medicaid expansion or legalize marijuana, which many communities across the state have put forward in recent years.

The law also targets diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

It prevents Milwaukee from using tax money for ‘funding any position for which the principal duties consist of promoting individuals or groups on the basis of their race, color, ancestry, national origin or sexual orientation.’

The law also says that no local government ‘may discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment on the basis of, race, color, ancestry, national origin, or sexual orientation in making employment decisions.’

It further requires Milwaukee Public Schools to return at least 25 police officers, known as school resource officers, to its schools by Jan. 1.

Evers also signed the measure increasing funding for schools, which some Democrats objected to because it also increases funding to private schools that accept voucher students. Evers, a former state education secretary, heralded the additional $1 billion in money for K-12 schools, including more for special education, literacy programming and mental health services.

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A proposed tax credit to recruit new teachers, nurses and police officers passed through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives with bipartisan support on Tuesday, but leaders of the Republican-controlled Senate have suggested it lacks support in the caucus.

The bill passed 137-66, with every Democrat and about one-third of Republicans supporting it.

The tax credit is a key element of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal that he hopes will attract more people into Pennsylvania’s ranks of police officers, nurses and teachers amid nationwide shortages in the fields.

The bill would provide a tax credit of up to $2,500 annually for three years for a Pennsylvania resident after they become certified, or after they move to Pennsylvania with a state-recognized credential.

To earn the full tax credit, however, a worker would have to make almost $82,000 — far above the starting salaries of the vast majority of nurses, teachers and officers.

Still, Democrats said that the legislation would help address the ‘acute shortages’ in the addressed industries.

‘In no area are those shortages more painful and potentially more dangerous than the area of policing, nursing and the teachers that provide for our children,’ said House Majority Leader Matthew Bradford, D-Montgomery.

Republican leadership criticized the legislation as not helping the workers already in the field.

It next goes to the Senate, where Republican leadership has referred to the measure as a ‘Band-Aid approach,’ and said it lacks the caucus’s support.

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Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed a $15.2 billion two-year state budget into law Tuesday, capping off a surprisingly smooth legislative session.

It was the first time since 1999 that lawmakers sent the governor a budget without having House and Senate negotiators craft a compromise between the two chambers. The cooperation displayed by the 400-member House was particularly notable, given that Republicans hold such a slim majority that attendance often has determined which party prevailed on any given day.

Sununu called it a ‘bipartisan miracle budget’ that serves families, students, workers and businesses well.

‘Everyone gave a little to get a lot. This budget proves that with a near evenly split legislature, here in New Hampshire, we’re able to come together and deliver for the people of the Granite State to unlock unprecedented opportunity,’ he said in a statement. ‘Today is proof that with the right approach, good government is still possible.’

Highlights include the largest increase in state worker salaries in nearly 50 years, elimination of the interest and dividends tax by 2025, $141 million for public schools as well as investments in affordable housing.

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