President Biden called the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia ‘totally illegal’ Tuesday, one day after the State Department designated him as ‘wrongly detained.’

Biden also spoke with Gershkovich’s family while on Air Force One en route to Northern Ireland for a state trip Tuesday, White House officials said. 

‘We’re making it real clear that it’s totally illegal what’s happening, and we declared it so – it changes the dynamic,’ Biden told reporters before departing for the trip. 

The ‘wrongly detained’ designation frees up different federal agencies to work collaboratively across the government toward Gershkovich’s release. 

He was detained March 29 in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in Russia. Russian authorities formally charged him last week with collecting ‘information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex,’ according to Russian state media outlet Tass. 

Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal, and U.S. officials categorically deny the spying charges. 

Attorneys hired by Dow Jones visited Gershkovich, whose parents left the Soviet Union for the U.S. in the 1970s, last week at the infamous Lefortovo prison in Moscow. 

‘Psychologically it’s very difficult,’ Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who was repeatedly interrogated at the prison for his coverage of the country’s secret services, told Fox News Digital. 

‘The history of this particular prison, many, many people were killed in the 1930s and 1940s during Stalin’s purges, so this kind of thing creates a huge psychological pressure on you, and it doesn’t help that Evan was so into Russian culture and Russian history, so maybe it would be better for someone who isn’t familiar with it.’

Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker said last week that Gershkovich is in good health despite the conditions. 

‘Evan’s health is good, and he is grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world. We continue to call for his immediate release,’ she wrote in a message to the newsroom. 

Fox News Digital’s Joseph Wulfsohn and David Rutz contributed to this report. 

Two weeks after the North Dakota House failed to pass a measure that would have provided free lunch to low-income students in public schools, the state Senate has passed a bill that would give qualifying parents private school tuition assistance.

Under the bill passed Tuesday, $10 million in state funds would be allocated to parents for private school tuition assistance. A family of four with a household income of $150,000 or less would qualify for assistance.

Parents would receive around $3,200 for each child sent to a private school of their choice, said Republican Sen. Donald Schaible, of Mott, while carrying the bill on the Senate floor.

Supporters of the proposal said they wanted to help parents make choices to connect their kids with schools that meet their unique needs — regardless of where they live, their financial status or special needs status. Opponents criticized it, saying public dollars should be used for public schools, and rural children would be at a disadvantage.

‘The city in which I live is 50 miles from the nearest private school,’ said Republican Sen. David Rust, of Tioga. ‘There may be choice for those in a large city, but there really is no choice for those in a rural area, as there is no access.’

The bill’s passage comes after House lawmakers failed to pass a bill that would have allocated $6 million in state funds to children in public schools for meal assistance.

The failed bill would have given kids free lunch if their household income was at or below 200% of the federal poverty line — or $60,000 or less for a family of four.

Senate lawmakers passed the private school bill with a 27-19 vote Tuesday. The bill still needs final approval from the House and governor to become law.

School choice legislation has become more popular in recent years. At least a dozen other states have considered similar legislation in what has emerged as a landmark year for school choice battles. Those states include Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas.

Democratic Massachusetts House Speaker Ronald Mariano unveiled a $654 million tax cut proposal Tuesday, aiming to provide relief for seniors, renters, businesses and wealthier homeowners.The plan would increase to $1.1 billion in relief come 2026.’This whole competitiveness issue is real as we face challenges from states like North Carolina,’ Mariano said, noting Americans’ continuing migration from tax-heavy blue states.

Massachusetts House Speaker Ronald Mariano on Tuesday unveiled a $654 million tax cut proposal for the 2024 fiscal year aimed at helping seniors, renters, businesses and wealthier homeowners while rewriting the law that sent about $3 billion back to taxpayers last year.

The plan, which would increase to $1.1 billion in tax relief for the 2026 fiscal year, includes a number of proposals the Democratic speaker said will help make Massachusetts more affordable and competitive.

‘We wanted to have something that we felt impacted all segments of the economy, all segments of our constituency with some fairness and some equity,’ Mariano told reporters Tuesday.

The package would change a series of tax policies, including increasing the estate tax threshold from $1 million to $2 million.

Massachusetts is one of just 12 states with an estate tax and has the lowest estate tax exemption threshold in the country, along with Oregon. Democratic Gov. Maura Healey, who released a $742 million tax relief package in February, would eliminate the tax for estates valued up to $3 million.

The House proposal would also make changes to the 1986 law designed to limit state tax revenue growth and return any excess to taxpayers. The law triggered nearly $3 billion in refunds last year.

The credit is applied to the personal income tax liability on a proportional basis, resulting in higher credits for those who paid more in taxes. The bill would credit an equal amount per taxpayer.

‘That whole package is based on the success of the economy,’ he said of the 1986 law. ‘It only gets triggered when the economy is very, very successful and we wanted everyone to share in that success.’

The House proposal would also combine the child care expenses credit with the dependent member of household credit to create one refundable $600 credit per dependent, double the senior circuit breaker tax credit from $1,200 to $2,400, increase the rental deduction cap from $3,000 to $4,000, and boost the earned income tax credit from 30% to 40% of the federal credit.

The package proposes lowering the short-term capital gains tax rate from 12% to 5%, and phasing in that change over two years.

The bill would also make changes to the state’s stabilization fund — also called the rainy day fund.

Under existing law if the amount remaining in the state’s stabilization fund at the end of a fiscal year exceeds 15% of budgeted revenues, the excess funds must be transferred to taxpayers through one time increases in the personal exemption. The bill would adjust the cap to 25.5%, allowing the state’s savings account to keep more money.

Mariano said some of the tax changes were meant to attract workers and encourage people already living and working in the state not to flee.

‘This whole competitiveness issue is real as we face challenges from states like North Carolina,’ he said.

James Rooney, President and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce said the group was pleased with changes to the tax code that he said have put employers at a disadvantage to other states.

‘Massachusetts needs to take proactive, meaningful action to ensure that employers and people will start, stay, and succeed here,’ he said.

The House is expected to vote on the proposal on Thursday. The bill then heads to the Senate, which will write their own tax package before hammering out a compromise proposal to send back to the governor for her signature.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin briefed reporters on the leaking of dozens of sensitive and highly classified documents Tuesday, saying they were ‘somewhere in the web.’

‘Well, they were somewhere…in the web and where exactly and who had access at that point, we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point,’ Austin said.

Fox News learned earlier Tuesday through conversations with a variety of American defense and intelligence officials that as many as 53 documents were posted online, which were dated between Feb. 23 and March 1. 

The documents, officials told Fox News, may have come from outside the Pentagon.

Austin addressed the leak at the beginning of a news conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo and Philippine Officer in Charge of the Department of National Defense Carlito Galvez, regarding the additional sites being established on the island nation to help facilitate training opportunities and improve disaster response.

Austin told reporters he was first briefed about the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified material on the morning of April 6.

‘Since then, I’ve been convening with senior department leaders daily on our response, and I’ve directed an urgent cross department effort,’ he said. ‘We’ve referred the matter to the Department of Justice (DOD), which has opened a criminal investigation.’

One reporter asked him how he was only just made aware of the documents a week ago when leaked classified documents from the Pentagon had been posted online for months.

Austin told the reporter the documents his department was aware of were dated Feb. 28 and March 1, adding that he did not know if there are other documents that were online before those dates.

‘These are things that we will find out as we continue to investigate,’ he said. ‘We take this very seriously and will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it.’

Austin said he could not say much more about the leaked documents because of the open investigation.

LEAKED PENTAGON DOCUMENTS PAINT GRIM PICTURE OF UKRAINIAN AIR DEFENSE SUPPLIES 

‘Nothing will ever stop us from keeping America secure,’ Austin said.

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to questions regarding the timeline of the leak and why Austin was notified of the leak weeks after allegedly being posted.

The briefings from the DOD are typically distributed to anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 people with necessary security clearances and include details on the war in Ukraine and battlefield assessments.

DOD briefings are also delivered electronically on secure iPads, and if printed out, investigators can track where they were printed from because they must run through secure printers that are often numbered.

Fox News learned that within the classified documents published online, there is intelligence that was not part of the DOD briefing books that appears to be produced by agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency.

Milancy Harris, the deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, is leading the Pentagon’s internal investigation, coordinating with the DOD’s office of Intelligence and Security, Public Affairs, Office of General Council, Legislative Affairs and the Joint Staff. 

A defense official said each agency will have their own point person for the investigation, and that there is not yet any one person leading a whole interagency effort. 

Greg Norman and Jennifer Griffin of Fox News contributed to this report.

Indiana lawmakers gave final approval Tuesday to a Republican-backed proposal that would require voters to submit more identification information to obtain mail-in ballots, rejecting arguments that the tougher rules would make voting more difficult for many people.

Indiana House members voted 64-30 along party lines in favor of the bill previously endorsed by the Senate. The vote sends the bill to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb for his consideration.

Approval of the tighter mail-in voting rules comes after previous attempts failed the past two years in the Republican-dominated Legislature, even as former President Donald Trump and many of his supporters stoked false claims that fraud led to his 2020 election defeat.

The bill which would require Indiana voters submitting a paper application for a mail ballot to include a photocopy of a government-issued identification card or at least two ID numbers, such as their 10-digit driver’s license or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Bill sponsor Republican Rep. Tim Wesco of Osceola has maintained the step was aimed at increasing voter confidence in elections by putting identification requirements for mail-in ballots in line with those for in-person voting.

The changes would take effect July 1 and be required for mail-in ballots cast in this fall’s city and town elections around the state.

Democratic Rep. Tonya Pfaff of Terre Haute said she believed it was ‘unnecessary to make it more difficult’ for older voters and those in the military to cast ballots by mail.

‘It won’t make elections safer and only serves to hamper democracy,’ Pfaff said.

Voting rights groups argued that the stricter ID requirements aren’t necessary because county election workers already must confirm that a person’s signature on an application matches their voter registration record. Those groups unsuccessfully pushed, instead, for lifting the state’s restrictions on who may cast mail-in ballots as a way of improving Indiana’s low voter turnout rates.

Opponents said they believed the changes would increase the chances for ‘voters to be tripped up because of a bureaucratic problem.’

Some who testified before lawmakers in support of the bill argued that the current signature matching process is not stringent enough and that voters are ‘screaming’ for tighter rules around mail voting.

A wealthy former Maine gubernatorial candidate charged with possession of images depicting child sexual abuse reached an agreement with prosecutors in which he’ll spend some time incarcerated, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The hearing for Eliot Cutler, who previously pleaded not guilty, is scheduled for May 4 in Superior Court, a court clerk said.

Hancock County District Attorney Robert Granger declined to get into specifics but said there ‘will be some level of incarceration’ along with probation for Cutler. Cutler’s attorney, Walter McKee, declined to comment on the agreement.

The 76-year-old Cutler, who remains free on bail, was arrested last year at his waterfront home in Brooklin, a coastal community 130 miles from Portland.

Under the agreement, Cutler is expected to waive indictment and plead guilty or no contest to each of four counts of possession of sexually explicit material of a child under 12, Granger said. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Cutler, a lawyer, ran for governor twice as an independent and used his personal wealth to bankroll both campaigns. He lost by less than 2 percentage points to Republican Paul LePage in a multi-candidate race in 2010. He lost again in 2014.

Years earlier, Cutler served as an aide to the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie, of Maine, and later as former Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s top adviser for environmental and energy issues. Cutler went on to serve as an environmental attorney and helped found a law firm in Washington.

After a career in Washington, the Bangor native later returned to Maine and resided in Cape Elizabeth, where he owned a mansion that he later sold for $7.55 million to a nephew of former President George H.W. Bush.

His fall from grace began with a two-month investigation that started with a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That led to search warrants for his homes in Brooklin and at another home in Portland that he later sold.

A law enforcement affidavit indicated that Cutler explained to his wife in the presence of investigators that the search warrant was for images depicting child sexual abuse and that investigators ‘would probably find some on one of his computers.’

While on bail, Cutler convinced a judge to let him back online, with restrictions, even though the affidavit indicated he possessed thousands of videos of children being sexually abused.

Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is on his way out as Gov. Kevin Stitt’s secretary of education.

Stitt on Tuesday announced in a press release that he is appointing Oklahoma State University professor of education Katherine Curry to serve on his cabinet in the role Walters has held since 2020.

Walters, a Republican, was elected in November as state superintendent of public instruction and will continue to serve in that position overseeing the State Department of Education and K-12 public schools in Oklahoma.

Stitt spokeswoman Carly Atchison said the governor was ‘thrilled with Ryan’s service on the cabinet’ and that he will remain a close advisor to Stitt on education matters.

‘We’re simply adding another player to our team to push the governor’s education freedom agenda forward,’ Atchison said.

Walters’ inflammatory rhetoric accusing teachers of indoctrinating students with liberal ideology and providing access to ‘pornographic material’ has rankled many lawmakers, including Republicans. The secretary of education must be confirmed by the Oklahoma Senate, and it’s not clear that Walters had enough support in the 48-member body.

Curry has been a professor at Oklahoma State since 2011. She has taught masters and doctoral courses in the College of Education and Human Sciences and currently serves as a professor and program coordinator of the Educational Leadership/School Administration Program.