More than a dozen Republican Senators are demanding President Biden finally give an answer for why he allowed a Chinese spy balloon to float across the continental U.S. earlier this year.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chairman Marco Rubio, R-FL, Senate Committee on Armed Services Ranking Member Roger Wicker, R-MS, said in a new letter that Biden has yet to give a public accounting of the ‘flagrant violation of U.S. sovereignty.’ 

In the letter, the senators expressed their frustration with Biden, his alleged failure to confront China’s continued threats to America’s security, and are demanding his administration’s assessment of the spy balloon.  

The Republicans have written other letters to the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence and the White House.

Previous letters were sent to the White House in both March and February.

‘While four months have passed since a Chinese surveillance balloon was allowed to fly across the United States, your administration has yet to provide the American people a full accounting of how this spy platform was allowed to traverse across sovereign U.S. territory, what the balloon carried, and what it collected during its mission,’ the lawmakers said.

They continued: ‘Your administration has also not taken appropriate steps to hold the PRC accountable for this flagrant violation of U.S. sovereignty. As such, we urge you to immediately direct all relevant administration officials to release information, as appropriate, to the American public regarding the Chinese spy balloon.’

Lawmakers have described the use of the balloon as deliberate espionage by the Chinese Communist Party as it was carrying surveillance equipment. 

It was allowed to float from Alaska and across the country before it was ultimately shot down off the coast of South Carolina.

The People’s Republic of China, under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, has only increased its brazen threats to our national security.

They were joined in signing the letter by fellow Republican Sens. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Jim Risch of Idaho, Susan Collins of Maine, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John Cornyn of Texas, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Michael Rounds of South Dakota, and Jerry Moran of Kansas, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Rick Scott of Florida, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.

Read the full text of the letter below:

Dear Mr. President:

We write to express our deep concern with the lack of transparency from your administration over the information it has collected regarding the surveillance platform that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) deployed over our country.

In your State of the Union address this year, you promised the American people that you would protect the United States from the PRC’s threats to our sovereignty. While four months have passed since a Chinese surveillance balloon was allowed to fly across the United States, your administration has yet to provide the American people a full accounting of how this spy platform was allowed to traverse across sovereign U.S. territory, what the balloon carried, and what it collected during its mission. Your administration has also not taken appropriate steps to hold the PRC accountable for this flagrant violation of U.S. sovereignty. As such, we urge you to immediately direct all relevant administration officials to release information, as appropriate, to the American public regarding the Chinese spy balloon.

The People’s Republic of China, under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, has only increased its brazen threats to our national security. In addition to deploying a spy platform into U.S. territory, the PRC has conducted dangerous maneuvers against U.S. aircrafts in the South China Sea and U.S. ships navigating international waters, and continues to support Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, harass American companies operating in China, commit egregious human rights violations, all while threatening a free and democratic Taiwan.  

We note with grave concern how, in a recent report in The New York Times, officials in your administration acknowledged that a May 2023 PRC malware attack against Guam was ‘part of a vast Chinese intelligence collection effort that spans cyberspace, outer space and, as Americans discovered with the balloon incident, the lower atmosphere.’ It is time that your administration fully exposes Beijing’s efforts to collect intelligence against the United States and the threats posed by such activities.

As such, we urge you to release, to the American people, all appropriate information that the United States has collected regarding the Chinese spy balloon. In particular, we note that the Financial Times reported last April that ‘China is refusing to let U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visit Beijing over concerns that the FBI will release the results of an investigation into the downed suspected Chinese spy balloon.’ We therefore call on you to stand up to Beijing’s efforts to coerce the United States into silence on the PRC’s violation of U.S. sovereignty and to release the FBI’s findings on the PRC’s spy balloon immediately.

Furthermore, we encourage you to review all options to firmly respond to, and deter, the PRC’s significant violations that threaten American national security and interests.  Beijing continues to test U.S. resolve and tarnish U.S. credibility—we must respond with strength, or risk further aggression from America’s adversaries.  

Fox News Digital reached out to both Rubio and Wicker for additional comment but a response was not immediately received.

Fox News’ Kelly Phares contributed to this report.

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Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are planning to utilize a rare procedural maneuver next week to force Republicans to go on the record about codifying abortion rights, despite being the minority party.

Pro-Choice Caucus Chairs Diana DeGette, D-CO, and Barbara Lee, D-CA, will file a discharge petition on the ‘Women’s Health Protection Act,’ which would force a vote on the abortion legislation if they can get a majority of members to sign it, DeGette’s office said in a press release. Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, the sponsor of the bill, also intends to join the petition.

‘The Women’s Health Protection Act, which was approved by the House twice last Congress, would restore the protections that were in place under Roe v. Wade by codifying a nationwide right to abortion care. Poll after poll shows that more than two-thirds of the country supports women’s right to abortion care,’ DeGette’s office said.

It continued: ‘DeGette, Lee and Chu are hoping there are, at least, six Republicans who will be willing to listen to the people of their district and help restore their right to reproductive care.’  

With 211 Democratic members already supporting a vote on the legislation, the lawmakers will need some help from their Republican peers to get to the 218-vote threshold.

‘The trio has been working closely with Democratic leadership to make the legislation a priority to help countless Americans who are suffering as a result of the GOP abortion bans that are now in place in several states across the country,’ DeGette’s office said.

Democratic lawmakers attempted to use a discharge petition to push a clean debt limit bill through the chamber, but negotiators ultimately came to an agreement before they could convince enough Republicans to join them.

The current discharge petition could pressure moderate Republicans, especially in swing districts, to go on the record.

Democrats pushed the Women’s Health Protection Act after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year in its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.

 The Supreme Court striking down the 1973 decision returned the legality of abortion to the state level.

The bill reads, ‘A health care provider has a right under this Act to provide abortion services, and a patient has a corresponding right under this Act to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability without being subject to state limitations.’

The bill would also authorize post-viability abortions when ‘in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, it is necessary to protect the life or health of the patient.’

Reaching the signature threshold of 218 would not immediately trigger a vote on the bill.

At least seven legislative days have to pass after the petition received 218 signatures before it can come up for a vote.

The Women’s Health Protection Act cleared the House in Sept. 2021, almost entirely along party lines, 218 – 211.  Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas was the only Democrat to vote against the bill. Three members did not vote.

Fox News’ Tyler Olsen contributed to this report.

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San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s verbal sparring match with a city official over the role of police in fighting the drug crisis could signal a tone shift, according to one cautiously-optimistic activist.

‘It sent a message, I think, to San Franciscans that the age of this kind of Democratic Socialist, radical politicking in San Francisco is coming to an end,’ recovering addict-turned-activist Tom Wolf told Fox News.

Breed recently committed to cracking down on open-air drug markets in San Francisco, and announced during a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday that police made 38 arrests in about one week. During a question and answer period, Supervisor Dean Preston criticized Breed’s approach as contradicting the city’s 2022 overdose prevention plan stating that ‘Black, Brown and indigenous communities nationwide’ have been disproportionately impacted by racist drug policies.

The self-described Democratic Socialist also suggested ‘punitive policies’ would lead to more overdose deaths.

‘Here we go. Another White man who’s talking about Black and Brown people as if you’re the savior of those people and you speak for them,’ Breed responded. She then defended law enforcement as a necessary component of fixing the city’s drug crisis.

‘At the end of the day, when we need to make arrests because someone’s breaking the law and needs to be held accountable and can potentially be forced into treatment services, I’m going to do so,’ she said.

Wolf was addicted to heroin and homeless in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district in 2018. He said his sixth arrest landed him in county jail long enough to get clean and reevaluate his life. Now he is a recovery advocate and has often criticized Breed and other government officials.

‘Even though she was right [on Tuesday], a lot of what we see that’s happened in San Francisco happened on her watch. So she also has to bear some responsibility for that,’ Wolf said.

DRUG RECOVERY ADVOCATE ‘HOPEFUL’ SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR CAN STOP CITY’S DOWNWARD SPIRAL:

Breed joined a chorus of liberal mayors across the country who diverted funds from police in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The next year, Breed reversed course and announced an emergency request for more money to bolster the police department and address crime.  

Wolf added that Breed’s response to Preston’s questioning was ‘somewhat performative’ but it ‘definitely needed to happen.’

San Francisco residents have complained for years about rising homelessness, crime and drug use in their neighborhoods. The coronavirus pandemic sparked a mass exodus from the Bay Area, and while the flow has slowed since the start of the pandemic, San Francisco County still lost 9,421 residents last year, according to the Census Bureau.

Far-left progressives and Socialists have controlled politics in Golden Gate City for years and ‘drove San Francisco into a ditch,’ Wolf said.

‘Our downtown has cratered,’ he said, pointing out that the city’s most prominent mall recently opted to default on its loan and hand its property over to lenders. ‘They walked away because they had lost confidence that shoppers would return to this town.’

Wolf said progressive politicians can ‘blame the pandemic only so much’ and that public drug use, crime and homelessness have exacerbated problems downtown. 

‘You have to start thinking that it’s maybe bad policy combined with bad leadership that equals actually bad outcomes,’ he said. ‘We’re kind of scraping the bottom right now and hopefully there’s nowhere to go from here except up.’

Wolf said the ‘jury’s still out’ on whether Breed will follow through with a tough-love approach to the drug crisis, combining public health with accountability.

‘If she can figure that out,’ he said, ‘then we can maybe make some real progress in San Francisco.’

To hear more from Wolf, click here.

Ramiro Vargas contributed to the accompanying video.

As New York and California advance measures to consider state-level reparations for slavery, leading activists accuse Democrats in Congress of letting down Black voters at the federal level with the help of ‘relic’ social justice groups.

The state legislature in New York passed a bill last week that would create a commission to study the effects of slavery and racial discrimination in the Empire State and make recommendations for potential reparations, such as restitution payments from the government. The commission’s recommendations would be non-binding, meaning the legislature would decide whether to take them up for a vote.

Gov. Kathy Hochul is reportedly reviewing the bill but hasn’t commented publicly on the legislation, which needs her signature to become law. If Hochul signs the bill, New York would be the second state to establish a reparations commission, following California’s lead.

While some reparations activists see what’s happening in New York as an encouraging step, others told Fox News Digital that state and local efforts are insufficient, blaming Democrats in Washington, D.C., and even fellow activists for the lack of progress.

‘This push for local reparations has always been a way for relic reparations organizations like NAARC [National African American Reparations Commission] and N’COBRA [National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America] to avoid any confrontation with Democrats in Congress who refuse to make reparations a legislative priority,’ Yvette Carnell, president of the ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) Advocacy Foundation, told Fox News Digital. ‘When Democrats in Congress had a majority and the first Black president, they refused to engage the issue of reparations.’

Racial justice groups and some Democrats in Congress have been pushing President Biden for months to establish a national reparations commission by executive order. The White House has indicated Biden, who’s largely been quiet about the issue, supports studying potential reparations for Black Americans but has stopped short of saying he’d back a bill introduced in Congress that would create such a commission.

Reparations at the federal government level appear stalled amid widespread Republican opposition and only partial support among Democrat lawmakers.

But several blue localities across the country in recent years have broached the subject of reparations for slavery.

San Francisco could be the first major U.S. city to fund such a policy as its own local commission explores potentially doling out millions of dollars to qualifying Black residents. The Chicago suburb of Evanston in 2021 became the first U.S. city of any size to fund reparations, giving money to qualifying people for home repairs, property down payments, and interest or late penalties due on city property.

At the state level, New York and California are the only legislatures that have passed bills to formally create a commission to consider reparations.

However, Carnell argued such efforts are more indicative of surrender than progress.

‘These local reparations initiatives are a way for NAARC and N’COBRA to symbolically advocate for reparations while giving Democrats a pass for refusing to move the needle on any meaningful reparations legislation,’ she said. ‘Both organizations are putting the needs of politicians ahead of the needs of their community. Black voters are the base of the Democratic Party, and at ADOS AF, we believe that voting is an exchange, not a gift.’

Carnell added that she and her organization support a federal reparations program – including ‘direct cash payments to American descendants of slavery only, not all people of African descent’ – as opposed to the ‘sort of home refurbishment programs we see in Evanston, which has, unfortunately, been mislabeled as reparations.’

Despite such comments, other reparations activists view what’s happening in New York optimistically.

‘It’s a fabulous move that’s long overdue and hopefully will be signed by the governor into law,’ Nkechi Taifa, executive director of the Reparation Education Project, told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s good to have commissions, states and municipalities look at things within those communities, including and especially education. But this should not be an excuse to drag things out, and I consider these more local initiatives as complimentary to federal legislation.’

Taifa argued that local efforts should not be displaced by federal action, saying reparations are ‘due from any and all culpable entities, wherever there was harm that must be redressed’ stemming from slavery and subsequent discrimination.

‘The harms of the enslavement era and its living legacies are multifaceted and, thus, ways to address it now must be multifaceted,’ she continued. ‘Reparations require a comprehensive approach. It’s up to New York what they want to do, but we talk about a number of areas: the wealth gap, educational inequity, health disparities, the eradication of language and religion … but it’s important redressing these issues is not a substitute for ordinary public policy – reparations are something more, extra.’

Critics argue it doesn’t make sense for people who never owned slaves to pay reparations to people who never were slaves themselves to make amends for slavery, saying that measures such as restitution payments won’t ultimately address the problem. They also say programs would simply be unaffordable.

Hochul and New York state lawmakers recently approved the state’s mammoth budget of $229 billion. According to a new budget projection, New York’s expenses will outpace revenues by $9.1 billion next year and $13.9 billion the following year.

It’s unclear how much a New York reparations plan would cost. In California, the reparations task force has called for initial ‘down payments’ of up to $1.2 million for qualifying Black Californians while they wait for the purported full amount of money lost due to slavery and subsequent racism to be calculated. Estimates have put the total cost of such calculations at about $800 billion, nearly triple California’s total annual state budget of roughly $300 billion.

Last month, Newsom announced that the state’s budget deficit has grown to nearly $32 billion, which is about $10 billion more than he anticipated in January when he offered his first budget proposal.

Carnell seemed to acknowledge the fiscal complications presented by large-scale reparations, particularly for more local proposals.

‘At the ADOS Advocacy Foundation, we view local reparations programs as an oxymoron because it is unlikely that any of these programs can achieve the goal of compensating American descendants of chattel slavery,’ she said. ‘States have enormous budgetary constraints when confronting cash payments, the most materially significant component for repairing past harms anchored in the institution of American slavery.’

Minnesota’s Department of Education agreed to halt enforcement of an anti-religious school law as part of a federal court injunction, which religious liberty advocates say is a win for Christian education.

For two Christian colleges in Minnesota who were singled out by the law and sued the state, the Wednesday ruling marks a victory for religious liberty protections.

‘It’s not every day that a state asks a federal court to tie its hands to prevent it from enforcing its own anti-religious law—but Minnesota has done just that,’ said Diana Thomson, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed the lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Education. ‘As this effort to walk back demonstrates, the state didn’t do its homework before it passed this unconstitutional law. The next step is for the court to strike down this ban for good.’ 

The Minnesota legislature amended the eligibility requirements for schools who are part of a state-funded program offering college courses free of charge to high school students. An education finance law signed in May stipulated that participants in Minnesota’s Postsecondary Enrollment Options program (PSEO) ‘must not require a faith statement from a secondary student seeking to enroll in a postsecondary course,’ or base admissions decisions on religious beliefs, race, ethnicity, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

The law would have made it impossible for high school students to attend two Christian colleges in Minnesota — the University of Northwestern-St. Paul and Crown College, both of which joined the legal challenge to the law — once it took effect July 1.

Several parents and the two schools sued the state soon after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed the legislation. The injunction from U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel allows the colleges to continue offering on-campus courses under the PSEO program.

‘We are glad that Minnesota has agreed not to punish our children and many students like them for wanting to learn at schools that reflect their values,’ parents and plaintiffs Mark and Melinda Loe said. ‘They should be able to pursue the same great opportunities as all other students in the state without politicians in St. Paul getting in the way. We hope the court will eventually strike this law down for good and protect all religious students and the schools they want to attend.’ 

While the plaintiffs celebrated the ruling, the state asserted it would defend the new rule in the courts.

‘The Minnesota Department of Education believes no students should be discriminated against based on their religion. The new law is designed is to defend the rights and individual liberties of Minnesota students, and today’s action will allow for a thorough legal review of the statute as passed during the 2023 legislative session,’ said Kevin Burns, communications director for the Minnesota Department of Education. 

Attorneys for the parents and schools say the state’s agreement to the injunction is a good sign for the future disposition of the case.

‘I’ve been litigating for 14 years, I’ve never seen a government defendant agree to a preliminary injunction,’ Thomson told Fox News Digital. ‘That said, I think the law is pretty egregious.’ 

Recent Supreme Court rulings have held that ‘once a state opens funding to private institutions, the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause forbids excluding participants based on their religion,’ according to the Becket lawsuit.

‘This law pretty blatantly violates that, so I think they may have seen the writing on the wall,’ Thomson added.

Both Crown and Northwestern require statements of faith for on-campus students. Northwesterns’ undergraduate application form asks students if they have entrusted themselves to Jesus Christ, and asks if they agree that ‘the Bible alone is the final authority and standard in all matters of faith and personal conduct.’ 

Under the new law, Northwestern and Crown would be forced to choose between offering courses under the PSEO program or ‘give up their religious identity by abandoning faith-based requirements for on-campus admission,’ according to the lawsuit.

During a May 9 hearing in the Minnesota legislature, amid months of debate over the law, Democratic state Sen. Erin Maye Quade decried what she considered threats from the two Christian schools to take away options from ‘because organizations may not be able to require these faith statements,’ Maye Quade said.

As part of their biblical principles, Crown and Northwestern also state that marriage is between a man and a woman, and ask students to commit to moral behavior, which Maye Quade referenced in her defense of the law. 

‘[L]imiting the pool [of PSEO options] based on their specific faith and the specific tenets of that faith, or gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation — It’s just not OK,’ Maye Quade said.

If the law is enforced and the schools ceased to offer PSEO the effect would likely be fewer options for Minnesota students to take college courses, leading to greater competition at other institutions, Thomson said.

‘We are thankful that Crown can continue welcoming PSEO students who seek to join our Christian community and earn college credit without taking on debt. The law protects our current and future PSEO students’ ability to use PSEO funds at schools that reflect their beliefs and values,’ said Crown College president Andrew Denton.

A bill that would require the replacement of lead pipes across Rhode Island was approved by the state’s House of Representatives..The bill would require Rhode Island water suppliers to create a service line inventory no later than October 16, 2024, to determine where the lead contamination is taking place.Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee will now decide whether the bill becomes law.

A bill that would require the replacement of lead pipes across Rhode Island over the next decade has been approved by state lawmakers.

The bill that passed the House on Thursday would create a lead water supply replacement program for both public and private service lines, with a requirement that all affected lines be replaced within 10 years. The Senate previously approved the bill.

Under the bill, financial assistance for lead pipe replacement would be provided through the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank, including no-cost options for property owners. To help develop the state’s workforce, the legislation would set requirements for water suppliers and contractors to participate in apprenticeship programs.

The bill would require water suppliers to create a service line inventory no later than Oct. 16, 2024, to determine the existence or absence of lead within each water connection in its service area.

It would also establish new notification and reporting requirements for suppliers to ensure transparency in the identification and replacement of service lines containing lead.

The bill would also require a lead risk assessment be conducted for any home built before 2011 as part of any transaction involving the property. Currently, those assessments are required only for homes built prior to 1978.

‘No family should have to worry that their home’s water supply may be poisoning their children,’ Democratic Senate President Dominick Ruggerio said after the Senate approved the bill.

‘This legislation will provide new urgency, and much-needed additional resources, to this effort, helping us protect our children’s well-being and the health of all Rhode Islanders,’ he added.

The bill now heads to Gov. Dan McKee’s desk.

About 9.2 million lead pipes carry water into homes across the U.S., according to an Environmental Protection Agency survey that will dictate how billions of dollars to find and replace those pipes are spent.

The survey will be used to steer billions of dollars from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to water infrastructure upgrades in states that need it most. Previously, a state’s share of lead pipe funds was based on its general infrastructure need and didn’t consider how many lead pipes the state had.

The General Assembly has also approved a package of three bills aimed at reducing childhood exposure to lead poisoning by making sure landlords comply with lead-safety laws.

Lead can cause brain damage, and the EPA says no amount is safe for children’s bodies.

One of the bills would create a statewide rental registry where landlords who own non-exempt buildings built before 1978 would be required to file certificates already required by law showing that they had conformed to lead safety laws.

The second would let tenants pay their rent into an escrow account when there are unaddressed lead hazards in their homes. Tenants would have to remain current on their rent payments, but landlords wouldn’t be able to access the funds until they resolved the lead hazards.

A third bill would let families affected by childhood lead poisoning recover up to three times their actual damages if their landlord is found to have violated lead safety laws.

‘For more than 20 years, Rhode Island has had strong lead poisoning prevention laws on the books, and with the passage of these bills today, we will finally have the tools we need to enforce compliance with these laws,’ said Attorney General Peter Neronha, who pushed for the measures.

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