Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is calling on Congress to pass an internet user privacy standard as a first step toward making sure Americans are knowledgeable and their data safe amid the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. 

Blackburn is one of four Republicans on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property (IP). The panel is holding a hearing Wednesday afternoon titled, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property – Part I: Patents, Innovation, and Competition.’

‘We’re going to look at it from the IP angle because when you watch what China is doing, and how they are pushing people from around the globe to come to China and file their patents with AI, different applications and uses. And they have filed right at 1.6 million applications. That’s more than double the number that had been filed in the US…on AI uses,’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t let this issue sit out there without going further into the threat that it’s going to create for our U.S. innovators.’

The senator was referring to statistics from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that show China filed more patents than both the U.S. and Europe in 2021, more than 1.5 million. China has also filed nearly 75% of the world’s total number of AI patents in the last decade.

However, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has for years been accused of intellectual property theft of Americans — an effort Blackburn worries will only more advanced with AI.

‘I know that it’s a source of aggravation for many of our innovators — whether they’re in the consumables market or after-market auto parts, or you know, auto electric vehicle component parts or music,’ Blackburn said. ‘The thing is, a lot of people don’t know that they’re pirated until somebody sends something in for repair, and they realize they didn’t make this… It is something that is an infringed patent or copyright.’

Asked about what steps Congress could take to safeguard Americans’ IP, particularly as China’s AI capabilities grow more advanced, Blackburn suggested lawmakers start with ensuring user data are safe online. 

‘I think the first thing we’re going to have to do is pass an online consumer privacy protection standard. That law needs to be passed,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to give the individual the right to protect their information online and to hold it out of that open source, be able to firewall their information and their use in the virtual space.’

‘Secondly, there’s going to have to be a discussion, and we’ll do more of this, how you handle the patent copyright issue. Because our law doesn’t cover those that are generated through technology. They cover those that are filed by humans. So we’ve got to figure that component out,’ Blackburn added.

The AI and intellectual property hearing is scheduled for 3 p.m. this afternoon. Senators are scheduled to hear from tech policy experts as well as executives from Google and Novartis.

The Biden administration is expected to soon finalize regulations restricting which home gas-powered furnaces consumers are able to purchase in the future.

According to experts, the regulations — proposed in June 2022 by the Department of Energy (DOE) — would restrict consumer choice, drive prices higher and likely have a low impact on greenhouse gas emissions. The agency could finalize the rules targeting residential gas furnaces, which more than 50% of American households rely on for space heating, at any point over the upcoming weeks.

‘This is a classic example of one size not fitting all,’ Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘Every home is different, every homeowner is different and people are best off having a wide range of choices. They can work with their contractor to make the best decision for their home and their circumstances.’

‘The efficiency standard would effectively outlaw non-condensing furnaces and condensing alternatives would be the only ones available,’ Lieberman said. ‘Those are more efficient, but they cost more. And installation costs could be a big problem for some houses that are not compatible with condensing furnaces.’

Under the proposed regulations, DOE would require furnaces to achieve an annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) of 95% by 2029, meaning manufacturers would only be allowed to sell furnaces that convert at least 95% of fuel into heat within six years. The current market standard AFUE for a residential furnace is 80%.

Because of the stringent AFUE requirements, the regulations would largely take non-condensing gas furnaces — which are generally less efficient, but cheaper — off the market. But consumers who replace their non-condensing furnace with a condensing furnace after the rule is implemented, face hefty installation costs.

‘There are some really technical reasons why this is such a concerning rule,’ Richard Meyer, the vice president of energy markets, analysis and standards at the American Gas Association (AGA), told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘It has to do with the ability for consumers to be in compliance with this new efficiency standard.’ 

‘They’re going to have to, in many cases, install new equipment to exhaust gas out of their home. These higher efficiency units, or so-called condensing units — a lot of consumers have them in their home, but a lot of consumers don’t. So, this rule would require additional retrofits for a lot of consumers. And those retrofits can be extremely cost prohibitive.’

The AGA, whose members provide natural gas to more than 74 million customers nationwide, filed comments in opposition of the furnace rules with the DOE last year. The industry group has argued consumers would be better served if the agency allowed the free market to naturally increase product efficiency. 

Overall, between 40-60% of the current residential furnaces on the market currently would be prohibited under the proposed regulation.

‘What we’re seeing across the U.S. federal government and reflected, of course, in many states right now is an active policy push intended to address climate change,’ said Meyer. ‘But the outcome is to restrict the options and availability of the direct use of natural gas for consumers.’

‘AGA’s primary concern is, one, removing that option, that choice, from consumers,’ he continued. ‘Two, in many cases, natural gas remains the lowest cost and even lowest-emissions resource for many consumers. A lot of the policies we’re seeing that are designed to restrict natural gas may end up having a counterproductive result and could increase costs to consumers and could increase the emissions associated with the energy use by those consumers.’

In its announcement last year, the DOE claimed the efficiency standards would save the average family about $100 a year and reduce carbon emissions by 373 million metric tons and methane emissions by 5.1 million tons.

Francis Dietz, a spokesperson for the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute which represents heating equipment manufacturers, said his organization’s members are in favor of regulations that aren’t ‘overly stringent.’ 

‘Our main goal in this is to have a rule that is reasonable enough so that there are still higher efficiency choices for consumers,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘So, you know, you would have one at a level low enough where it would be more affordable for consumers and others who felt they needed even more efficiency would still have some choices there. That’s really our main goal.’

The expected rule, meanwhile, comes amid a blitz of DOE rulemaking targeting appliance efficiency standards. Over the last several months, the DOE has unveiled new standards for various appliances including gas stoves, ovens, clothes washers, refrigerators, air conditioners and dishwashers.

And in December, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm touted that the administration had taken 110 actions on energy efficiency standards in 2022 alone. The energy secretary added that the regulations strengthened U.S. leadership in ‘the race towards a clean energy future.’

According to the current federal Unified Agenda, a government-wide, semiannual list that highlights regulations agencies plan to propose or finalize within the next 12 months, the Biden administration is moving forward with rules impacting dozens more appliances, including pool pumps, battery chargers, ceiling fans and dehumidifiers.

Under the DOE’s mission statement, the Unified Agenda highlights advancing ‘energy efficiency and conservation’ as one of five central pillars. Broadly, Democrats and environmentalists have argued that electrification, banning natural gas hookups and implementing strict energy efficiency standards could help accelerate emissions reductions.

EXCLUSIVE: The Republican National Committee is launching a new campaign to focus on maximizing pre-Election Day voting to build on absentee returns and early in-person voting ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Fox News Digital has learned the RNC is rolling out a Bank Your Vote nationwide campaign, which is expected to ‘encourage, educate and activate Republican voters on when, where and how to lock in their votes as early as possible’ through in-person early voting, absentee voting and ballot harvesting where legal.

‘To beat Joe Biden and the Democrats in 2024, we must ensure that Republicans bank as many pre-Election Day votes as possible,’ RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel told Fox News Digital. 

‘The RNC is proud to build on our historic efforts from last cycle and work with the entire Republican ecosystem to reach every state.’ 

McDaniel added that ‘banking votes early needs to be the focus of every single Republican campaign in the country, and the Republican National Committee will lead the charge.’

NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson appointed Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and NRSC Chairman Steve Daines tapped Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., to co-chair the effort.

‘I am proud to co-chair the RNC’s efforts to activate Republicans to ‘Bank Your Vote’ before Election Day,’ Donalds told Fox News Digital. 

‘To take back the White House and Senate and strengthen our House majority in 2024, Republicans must play the game by today’s rules, which means maximizing our efforts to bank votes before Election Day,’ Hagerty told Fox News Digital. ‘We cannot afford to sacrifice most of the opportunities to bank votes in key states while Democrats run up the score.’

Hagerty said encouraging Republicans to ‘securely ‘Bank Your Vote’ is the only way to protect the vote and reclaim our out-of-control government.’

The campaign comes as Republicans seek to build on early voting gains from the 2022 election cycle. Republicans, at a higher rate than in 2020, opted to cast their ballots before Election Day. Nevertheless, the GOP still lagged behind Democrats.

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Election Project in November, 33.3% of early votes came from registered Republicans in states that report such information. That was up from 30.5% during the 2020 presidential election; whereas Democrats voted early at about the same rate — 40.6% in 2022 and 40.8% in 2020.

The Bank Your Vote campaign is set to build on the RNC’s Election Integrity operation, which has more than 80,000 team members to ‘protect’ the vote.

‘In the courts, we will continue to fight against bad ballot harvesting laws while also ensuring that it’s easy to vote and hard to cheat in American elections,’ an RNC official said.

The RNC says a critical part of getting voters to become pre-Election Day voters will be ‘ensuring voter confidence in elections’ through its ‘Protect Your Vote efforts.’ The RNC is expected to have staff and lawyers on the ground training poll watchers to observe every step of the election process.

The campaign’s website, BankYourVote.com, is encouraging voters to pledge to ‘bank’ their votes, which will activate digital reminders from the RNC about all applicable pre-Election Day voting options.

The campaign will have the RNC partner with state parties and campaigns to create pages outlining pre-Election Day voting processes for the 56 states and territories with links to state government sites where voters can request their ballots directly.

The RNC also plans to ‘aggressively target young voters on social media platforms and minority voters at our RNC Community Centers.’ The community centers were created in an effort to promote minority engagement in Asian-Pacific American, Black and Hispanic communities in key states across the nation.

An RNC official told Fox News Digital that the RNC’s field operation made more than 300 million volunteer door knocks and phone calls during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman early Wednesday during his second trip to Saudi Arabia as America’s top diplomat.

Blinken arrived in the kingdom Tuesday amid strained relations between Riyadh and Washington, D.C. as Prince Mohammed has clashed with the Biden administration over its supply of crude oil to global markets, its willingness to partner with Russia in OPEC+ and its China-mediated détente reached with Iran.

Tensions also are still present following President Biden’s pledge to make Saudi Arabia ‘a pariah’ following the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Despite conflict, a relationship remains due to Saudi Arabia’s reliance on America as a security guarantor for the wider Middle East in response to Iran’s nuclear program, and shared common interests in striking a lasting cease-fire in Sudan and ending the kingdom’s war in Yemen, according to The Associated Press.

‘Under the hood, especially when it comes to security and a few other matters like that, the relationship is stronger than it was a year ago,’ said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. ‘It looks more strained – and in some superficial ways it is – but it is overall stronger.’

In Blinken’s meeting with Prince Mohammed early Wednesday, the countries discussed their ‘shared commitment to advance stability, security, and prosperity across the Middle East and beyond,’ according to the State Department.

‘The secretary also emphasized that our bilateral relationship is strengthened by progress on human rights,’ a statement added.

A statement from Saudi Arabia acknowledged the meeting, but further details were not included, The AP reported.

Since oil prices are well below $100 a barrel, it’s unlikely that discussions included immediate concerns over gas prices. 

It is possible Washington will try to leverage its security relationship with Saudi Arabia as it gets warmer with China and Russia, but, in return, the Saudis will likely want guarantees that Biden can’t provide when it comes to Congress stopping arms sales to the kingdom, Ibish said.

When asked about the possibility of Blinken bringing up human rights issues, including Khashoggi’s death, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Arabian Peninsula Affairs Daniel Benaim declined to discuss specifics, but told journalists last week that ‘human rights are a pillar of how this administration engages with countries around the world and in this region.’

‘I think what you’ll see on this trip is a vision of the U.S.-Saudi relationship that’s both rooted in our historic mainstays of cooperation in areas like defense and security and counterterrorism, includes ongoing important regional diplomacy when it comes to Yemen and Sudan, and looks for opportunities for regional de-escalation and regional integration,’ Benaim said.

He added: ‘We will not leave a vacuum for our strategic competitors in the region.’

Blinken’s visit comes nearly a month after Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to Jeddah to meet with Prince Mohammed, which kicked off a list of international meetings for the prince.

Within the past month, the kingdom has hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russia’s sanctioned interior minister Vladimir Kolokotsev. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro also met with Prince Mohammed on Monday, according to Saudi state television.

During the visit, Blinken is also scheduled to attend an anti-Islamic State meeting in Riyadh and a meeting with foreign ministers from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Someone left a dead raccoon and a sign with ‘intimidating language’ that mentioned a Black city councilor outside the law office of an Oregon mayor, police said.

Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch found the raccoon and the sign on Monday, the Redmond Police Department said in a news release. The sign mentioned Fitch and Redmond City Councilor Clifford Evelyn by name, police said.

Fitch called the sign’s language ‘racially hateful.’ He declined to elaborate but told The Bulletin, ‘I feel bad for Clifford. It seems there’s some people in town that can’t accept the fact that Clifford is Black and is on the City Council.’

Police aren’t revealing the sign’s exact language in order to maintain the integrity of the investigation, city spokesperson Heather Cassaro said. Police said they are investigating the act as a potential hate crime.

Evelyn, a retired law enforcement officer who was elected to the council in 2021, described the act as a hate crime but said he has confidence in the police investigation, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

Raccoon imagery has long been an insulting, anti-Black caricature in the United States. With roots in slavery, it’s among ‘the most blatantly degrading of all Black stereotypes,’ according to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery in Michigan.

In recent years, a Black Redmond teenager found a threatening message on her doorstep, while a failed Deschutes County Commission candidate displayed a Confederate flag at the city’s Fourth of July parade.

‘The people in this part of the country are just gonna have to catch up,’ Evelyn said. ‘It’s just the knuckleheads that can’t get on track. And they’re causing harm to everyone and making us look bad.’

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Texas has officially become the latest state to ban gender transitioning treatment for minors, including puberty blockers and sex change surgeries.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 14 into law on Friday, adding his state to a growing list of more than a dozen other states that have enacted similar measures to halt what many have referred to as ‘child abuse.’ Texas is the nation’s second-largest state by population, after California.

The law will go into effect on Sep. 1, and will prohibit any sort of procedures like double mastectomies, puberty blockers, sex change surgeries and cross-sex hormones from being performed on underage girls and boys. The law will also prevent state funds being used on such procedures.

An exception is included in the law for minors that are already receiving puberty blockers or hormone treatments, as well as those that have already attended at least 12 mental health counseling sessions within six months prior to beginning treatment. It would, however, require those already receiving such care to be ‘weaned’ off in a medically appropriate manner. 

The medical licenses of those convicted of breaking the law could be revoked.

The bill passed the Texas state legislature last month with support from some Democrats, including Rep. Shawn Thierry – who represents the Houston area. 

‘I just don’t think this is something that we can play politics with. Children are not political pawns,’ Thierry said during an appearance on ‘Fox & Friends First’ ahead of the bill’s passage.

Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

A northern Indiana abortion clinic will close nearly a year after the state approved a ban on the practice, with ‘unnecessary’ and ‘politically driven’ restrictions on abortions forcing its closure, according to a Monday announcement.

Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, said in the statement that staff have seen over 1,100 women for medication abortions ‘in our small but mighty South Bend clinic’ since it opened seven years ago.

Staff at Whole Woman’s Health Alliance — which has clinics in Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia — will still provide remote services, such as referring patients to other abortion clinics in Indiana or states where abortion is legal. Patients have not been able to physically visit the Indiana clinic since December 2022.

‘While we will no longer provide abortions at our South Bend clinic location, our resolve to help Hoosiers is as strong as ever,’ Hagstrom Miller said.

The Indiana clinic was one of seven abortion clinics in the state and the sole provider in South Bend, a city close to the Michigan border and north of Indianapolis by approximately 147 miles.

Indiana lawmakers pushed ahead a ban on abortions last year, with the state’s Republican governor approving the law in August. The law only permits abortions in cases of rape and incest before 10-weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the woman; or if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.

A judge in September 2022 blocked those restrictions one week after the law went into effect, siding with abortion clinic operators — including Whole Woman’s Health — in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

Abortion clinics would also have lost their licenses under the law, but whether it will go back into effect rests on a decision from the Indiana Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in the case in January.

Until then, the practice remains legal up to 20 weeks. Clinics like Whole Woman’s Health have struggled to remain adequately staffed while navigating the changing laws across the country after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

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Maine’s Democratic secretary of state was questioned after claiming No Labels, a centrist group vying for a third-party spot on the 2024 ballot, was tricking voters into registering with the party.

‘I am concerned about whether the secretary of state is creating concerns among voters who have voluntarily signed cards supporting the No Labels efforts.’ Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine., co-chair of No Labels, told a local news outlet after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows raised concerns about the group.

‘I don’t know whether she sends a letter like that out to someone who registers for the Green Party or the Libertarian Party,’ Collins added, revealing she found Bellows’ letter ‘surprising.’

Bellows initially suggested several complaints were made from concerned voters who did not realize they had been registered with the No Labels Party. Democrats then reached out to 6,456 Maine voters who were registered with the centrist group to verify whether they had knowledge of their political party affiliation and reportedly received about 300 calls and emails in response.

‘Voter after voter is telling my team that they were instructed that they were merely signing a petition. They were not told they were changing their political party,’ Bellows told NBC Monday. ‘We have had enough similar complaints from voters and clerks alike that it raises serious concerns in our office about No Labels Party organizers.’ 

Democrats for months have called No Labels a spoiler effort designed to hurt President Biden in the 2024 election, but the group insists the U.S. is ready for a moderate alternative to both Republicans and Democrats.

Despite Bellows’ claims the group was ‘highly misleading’ in its voter registration efforts, No Labels insists it was never made aware of any organizers asking Maine voters to sign a ‘petition.’

‘Your office’s apparent effort to leak your letter immediately to the press without affording No Labels any opportunity to respond also raises legitimate questions about your objectivity,’ the group said in a written response to Bellows. ‘No Labels provided detailed written guidance to all organizers in Maine on following all applicable laws and specifically instructed all organizers to ask voters to join the No Labels Party.’

No Labels said it complied with the state laws on voter registration and provided a copy of the packet that is referenced by its organizers when speaking with voters.

The ‘ask’ portion of the packet directs the No Labels organizers what to say when speaking with voters. 

‘Can you take 60 seconds to update your voter registration and change your party affiliation to the No Labels Party? If we can get just 5,000 voters to register with the No Labels party we can ensure you have more than just two options come the next election,’ the packet says.

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a No Label co-founder, recently told Fox News Digital Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland ‘would be naturals to consider’ for the 2024 No Labels ticket if the party decides to run a candidate.

It’s take two for Chris Christie as the former two-term New Jersey governor officially launches his second White House bid, joining a crowded field of presidential hopefuls vying for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Christie formally declared his candidacy Tuesday evening during a town hall event at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, the state with the first presidential primary.

‘I can’t guarantee you success in what I’m about to do. But I guarantee you that at the end of it, you will have no doubt in your mind who I am and what I stand for and whether I deserve it,’ Christie told the crowd.  

‘So, that’s why I came back to Saint Anselm’s, and that’s why I came back to Manchester, and that’s why I came back to New Hampshire, to tell all of you that I intend to seek the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2024, and I want your support,’ he said.

In his speech, Christie railed against the division that he said has driven Americans into smaller groups, brought about by the likes of former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. He also touted America’s role throughout its history in ‘fighting evil’ across the world.

He focused a portion of his speech on taking jabs at Trump, describing him as a ‘leader who won’t admit any of his shortcomings’ and referring to him as ‘Voldemort,’ the infamous villain in the ‘Harry Potter’ novels.

Christie, who held New Jersey’s highest office from 2010 to 2018 and was the deep-blue state’s last Republican governor, first ran for president in the 2016 cycle.

He placed all his chips in New Hampshire, but his campaign crashed and burned after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in New Hampshire, far behind Donald Trump, who crushed the competition in the primary en route to the nomination and eventually the White House.

Christie became the first among the other GOP 2016 contenders to endorse Trump, and for years he was a top outside adviser to the then-president and chaired Trump’s high-profile commission on opioids. However, the two had a falling out after Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to now-President Joe Biden. For the past two years, Christie has become one of the most vocal Trump critics in the GOP.

Christie has been publicly mulling a 2024 presidential run for more than a year, and he recently has repeatedly chimed in on his dissatisfaction with the state of the race. He’s expressed discontent with the Republican field, accusing candidates of not being willing to take on the front-runner directly.

Christie, who is considered one of the best communicators in the GOP and was known during his tenure for the kind of in-your-face politics that Trump has also mastered, has argued that he’s got the debate chops to potentially take down Trump should he face off with the former president.

Trump, who in November launched his third straight White House run, remains the overwhelming front-runner in the early GOP presidential nomination polls.

‘I know what I’m good at. I know how to articulate an argument. I know how to make it. I know how to land it. And I feel like I have the ideas that people are genuinely attracted to. So, if you have those things, you have a good chance to be able to do it. No guarantees, but a good chance,’ Christie told Fox News Digital during an April stop in New Hampshire.

Pointing to his potential rivals, Christie said, ‘[A]s to the others, you guys will have to judge the others. I just know who I am, and I think you all know who I am and what I’ve been able to do before under the brightest of lights … lots of people can do things when the lights aren’t the brightest. But when those lights get really bright and everybody’s watching, can you perform or can’t you? And that’s a lot about what these races have to do with.’

Christie also recently lashed out at Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who recently announced his own White House bid, over his attacks on Disney and it’s ‘woke’ antics.

Since leaving office, Christie has worked for ABC News as a contributor and as a lobbyist.

It’s likely that going forward Christie will once again spend much of his time campaigning in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP nominating calendar.

When asked in April if he would concentrate a 2024 campaign in New Hampshire at the expense of the other early voting states of Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, Christie told Fox News, ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought that all the way through yet. But I like New Hampshire.’

Christie joins a field that also includes former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former two-term Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, multimillionaire entrepreneur and conservative commentator Vivek Ramaswamy, and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson. Former Vice President Mike Pence and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum are expected to enter the race this week.