Embattled Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed Thursday that border encounters with individuals from ‘targeted countries’ had ‘dropped significantly’ over the past two weeks, citing announced action by the agency to combat the border crisis.

Mayorkas, who is facing widespread calls for his resignation and impeachment over his handling of the border crisis, didn’t provide any figures to support the claim nor which ‘targeted countries’ he was referring to.

‘We’re executing a comprehensive strategy to secure our borders and build a safe, orderly and humane immigration system,’ Mayorkas said while speaking to the U.S. Conference of Mayors at its winter meeting in Washington, D.C.

‘Two weeks ago, we announced new lawful pathways for non-citizens seeking relief in the United States, accompanied by a consequence regime for those who do not avail themselves of those processes. Since then, encounters from the targeted countries have dropped significantly,’ he added, while also referring to the U.S.’s immigration system as ‘broken’ and ‘in desperate need of legislative reform.’

Fox News Digital reached out to DHS and asked it to provide the figures supporting Mayorkas’ claim, as well as which nations were part of the list of ‘targeted countries,’ but did not receive a response.

Mayorkas only used one minute of his approximately 13-minute speech to address the border crisis. He instead focused more time addressing ‘domestic violence extremism,’ which he said is ‘one of the most persistent threats’ facing the nation.

Newly elected Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy previously called on Mayorkas to resign from his post, and one congressman, Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, has already filed articles of impeachment against him. It’s unlikely the articles will be taken up by the House before any investigations take place, which McCarthy has vowed if Mayorkas doesn’t resign.

Mayorkas has so far resisted calls for his resignation, and he has insisted that he is prepared for any potential investigations by House Republicans.

Migrant encounters in December smashed previous records, exceeding 250,000 for the first time ever recorded. That number tops the most recent record of 241,136 in May 2022, according to Customs and Border Protection.

Conservatives are reacting to a new report by the U.S. Supreme Court stating that it has been unable to identify the individual who leaked a draft opinion to Politico last year.

The report, released by the U.S. Supreme Court Marshal on Thursday, states that an investigative team hasn’t been able to ‘identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence’ who leaked the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization draft opinion.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said on Twitter that the court’s inability to find the leaker is ‘chilling.’

‘The Supreme Court’s report indicates that they cannot isolate the culprit among the over 80 possible suspects for the Dobbs leak. It is an admission that is almost as chilling as the leak itself,’ Turley said.

‘It will likely revive concerns over whether the FBI should have been asked to take the lead on the investigation. The Court is only a few blocks from the world’s leading forensic investigatory body. What is clear is that any hope for a deterrent on such unethical conduct has been dramatically reduced. Thus far, the culprit succeeded in not just leaking the opinion but evading detection.’

David Marcus, a columnist, asked ‘Can Congress investigate the Supreme Court leak?’

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., tweeted that the leak will put the court’s future operations at risk.

‘This breaking news is a dangerous & inexcusable development that will jeopardize the future operations of our nation’s highest court. Justice has clearly not been served here & the guilty party remains at large,’ Johnson said.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

Fox News’ Brianna Herlihy and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice on Thursday appointed William K. Marshall III as the commissioner of the state Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Marshall replaces Betsy Jividen, who resigned in August after four years.

The corrections division operates 15 prisons, work-release centers and related facilities. It has more than 2,000 employees.

Marshall previously served as the division’s assistant commissioner, with the Bureau of Juvenile Services, and as criminal investigation director for the now-state Department of Homeland Security. He retired in 2017 after 25 years with the West Virginia State Police.

A man told jurors Thursday that a death threat he made against U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner came from God, prompted by the Kansas Republican ignoring concerns about sorcery, wizards, extraterrestrials and a war for people’s souls.

Federal prosecutors say Chase Neill, 32, from Lawrence in northeastern Kansas, fixated on LaTurner before leaving an after-hours voicemail with the congressman’s Topeka office that included, ‘I will kill you.’ Neill’s trial comes amid a sharp rise in reported threats against elected officials and their families.

Representing himself in court, Neill admitted that he left that message and others with more death threats the next day. But he told jurors that he was merely the messenger, telling LaTurner and other officials that they faced death by an act of God, such as a tornado or hurricane, for attacking God’s creation.

‘I’m not going to try to pursue him for some sort of violent crime,’ Neill said.

Presiding U.S. District Judge Holly Teeter had Neill present his case as a narrative from the witness stand because he is acting as his own attorney. He interrupted his comments to get documents projected on four big screens behind him and to conference with the judge and prosecutors over what evidence he could present. Prosecutors did not cross-examine him, clearing the way for closing statements.

He is charged with a single count of threatening a public official, punishable by 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The jury will have to decide whether his June 5 voicemail represented a true threat meant to interfere with LaTurner’s official duties.

Threats against members of Congress have increased since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In October, an intruder severely beat former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer in their San Francisco home.

Local school board members and election workers across the nation also have endured harassment and threats. Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this week arrested a failed Republican legislative candidate over a series of shootings targeting elected Democratic officials’ homes or offices.

In Neill’s case, he said his concerns about a war for souls were sparked by a May 13 story on the Kansas Reflector news site about a legislative debate in which a western Kansas lawmaker urged colleagues to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a measure that would have restricted public health officials’ power in epidemics following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Republican state Rep. Tatum Lee, was quoted as saying, ‘The war is real you all. We are fighting for the soul of our nation.’

In court Thursday, Neill told jurors he values his soul and was required by God to act when he ‘heard the sound of the trumpet.’

He also showed jurors a LinkedIn page for himself, saying he dealt with ‘matters concerning over 400 million lives lost with high sorcery.’

‘I am held to an obligation by our Creator,’ Neill said.

LaTurner testified Wednesday that the June 5 voicemail made him concerned about the safety of his family and staff and prompted him to beef up security at his home and Topeka office. Cross-examined by Neill, the congressman said he considered some of Neill’s language ‘ridiculous talk’ but added, ‘I’m more focused on the the threats of death.’

A U.S. magistrate judge said in an August order refusing to release Neill from custody that Neill had suffered a head injury four or five years ago ‘characterized as a head fracture.’ Neill told jurors Thursday that in 2018, ‘God came to me very directly,’ without elaborating.

But the trial judge concluded last month that Neill is capable of following what goes on in court and assisting his lawyers, making him mentally competent to stand trial. She granted his request to act as his own attorney, starting Wednesday.

Neill, a convert to Judaism, said his special relationship with God causes natural events, including a hurricane and fires. He said he conveyed messages to LaTurner even though he knew it would likely result in his being prosecuted.

‘I’m really trying to explain how I interact with God, and it’s a difficult explanation,’ Neill told jurors. ‘I apologize.’

The White House deflected all questions Thursday regarding classified documents found in the possession of President Biden.

During a press gaggle with White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton, reporters attempted to ask several questions about inquiries from the House Oversight Committee.

‘Can you guys help us understand whether the White House or Biden or his attorneys notified the intelligence community of these documents?’ one reporter asked.  ‘If you don’t view that as your role, did you ask the FBI or the Justice Department to alert them just so that the intelligence community has a sense of classified documents that have been found in his possession?’

Dalton refused to comment and referred the question to the Department of Justice.

‘Does the White House have any problem with the Penn Biden Center sharing information such as visitor logs with the House Oversight Committee?’ another reporter asked.

‘I appreciate the question, and we realize you all have many questions about this. We believe, and we continue to say, they are most appropriately handled by the White House Counsel’s Office, so I’d have to refer you to them on this,’ Dalton responded.

‘Do you pledge to cooperate with the House Oversight Committee for any requests they may make?’ one reporter asked in reply. ‘That’s an easy one.’

‘Again, I have to refer you to White House Counsel’s Office on this,’ Dalton replied.

The reporter followed up, ‘You can’t even give a simple pledge that ‘Of course we’re going to cooperate with the Oversight Committee and Congress?”

‘White House Counsel’s office also engages with Oversight, and I would refer you to my colleagues in Counsel’s Office for that,’ Dalton responded.

House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer is vowing to keep pressing the Biden administration for answers on classified documents found in unsecured locations after the White House confirmed that there are no visitor logs for President Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

‘President Biden promised to have the most transparent administration in history, but he refuses to be transparent when it matters most,’ Comer told Fox News Digital exclusively Monday following a statement from the White House Counsel’s office that there are no visitor logs for the home in Wilmington, Delaware.

Embattled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., on Thursday condemned ‘insane’ reports that claim he stole funds raised for a homeless veteran’s dying service dog, vowing ,’These distractions won’t stop me!’

‘The reports that I would let a dog die is shocking & insane,’ Santos, who was shunned by the Nassau County GOP for lying on his resume about his Jewish heritage, college degree and Wall Street career, tweeted. ‘My work in animal advocacy was the labor of love & hard work. Over the past 24hr I have received pictures of dogs I helped rescue throughout the years along with supportive messages.’

‘These distractions won’t stop me!’ he added. 

The Patch first reported that Richard Osthoff, a homeless veteran honorably discharged from the Navy in 2002, claimed he was connected to Santos’ pet charity in 2016 after finding out his pit-bull mix service dog, Sapphire, developed a life-threatening stomach tumor and needed surgery. 

Osthoff and another New Jersey veteran, retired police Sgt. Michael Boll, told the Patch that Santos – who went by the name Anthony Devolder at the time – closed the GoFundMe page after it raised $3,000 and took off with the money. Osthoff said his dog died in 2017 despite him panhandling for the cash to try to save her. 

Amid a slew of ethic probes into the sources of his campaign funding, Santos has rebuffed calls to resign from New York congressional Democrats and Republicans alike. 

His resume lies were first exposed by The New York Times in December – after the election – leading to questions into both how much GOP leadership and insiders knew of Santos’ fraudulent claims to voters, and why opposition research by Democrats did not expose some of Santos’ more easily verifiable fabrications sooner. 

More recent reporting has revealed that Santos worked more than a year and a half for a company accused in Florida federal court of being a Ponzi scheme, and suggested that Santos could have orchestrated a ‘straw donor’ scheme in disguising campaign contributions from undisclosed individuals or corporations as income earned through Devolder, Inc., a supposed consulting firm he founded in 2021, and had business ties to the cousin of a sanctioned Russian oligarch and convicted Stormy Daniels hush-money fixer Michael Cohen early on in his political career. 

Santos is facing a House Ethics Committee investigation, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said the first-year congressman will be allowed to serve in Congress unless the result of the ongoing probe finds he violated federal campaign finance laws. Despite the probe, Santos was recommended for two low-level committee assignments, to serve on the Committee on Small Business and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, according to reports. 

Prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro also reopened a years-old case involving Santos, the son of Brazilian immigrants, for allegedly making purchases there with fraudulent checks. 

The New York Times reported Wednesday that immigration documents reveal that Santos’ mother was unable to come to the United States in June 2001, because her green card had been stolen in Brazil. Those records, therefore, contradict Santos’ claims that his mother was working at the World Trade Center at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

Former Vice President Al Gore on Thursday outlined a global effort run by ‘machine-learning’ artificial intelligence is essentially spying on individual facilities in every country in the world to measure their emissions of greenhouse gases and target the world’s largest emitters.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gore formally introduced attendees to the initiative known as Climate Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions, or Climate TRACE. The initiative has led to a website that allows for real-time tracking of emissions in any area of the world, which Gore said is allowing climate activists, reporters and others to identify high-priority industries and regions for emissions reduction programs.

‘It’s a non-profit coalition that uses artificial intelligence to process data from 300 existing satellites and from 30,000 land, sea and air base sensors and multiple internet data streams to use artificial intelligence to create machine-learning algorithms to zoom in on every single significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution,’ he said of Climate TRACE.

Gore showed how Climate TRACE uses these inputs to zoom in on specific facilities and assess how much they contribute to GHG emissions.

‘This is a steel plant that I’m using as an example,’ he said as he zoomed in on a close-up shot of a facility in Indiana. ‘We track it on a constant basis. Google Earth has helped us with this particular style of video.’

Gore showed how thermal heat readings can be generated for each individual facility and how that information can be turned into aggregate readings for regions and countries. He said the technology available to Climate TRACE can be used for very precise intelligence gathering, including ‘how many cooling fans are operating’ on the rooftop of a single facility.

‘We can show you exactly what’s happening, whether [emissions are] going up or down,’ he said.

Satellite images on their own are not good enough, Gore said, because of the ‘noise’ in the atmosphere that makes it hard to determine emissions levels. ‘With artificial intelligence, you can look at the smoke plume, you can look at the infrared,’ he said.

During his presentation, Gore zoomed in on a spot in Texas that was heavy with emissions readings.

‘Here’s the single largest emissions site in the world in Texas,’ he said. ‘Here’s a New Mexico site in the Permian Basin. Oil and gas is the largest source overall. This is a confined animal feeding lot operation. This is the highway system in Houston, Texas. This is another oil and gas field.’

‘You can do this in every country, every region, every sector,’ Gore said. ‘We can tell you the top emitting assets in every country.’

Gore said the largest sources of emissions are oil and gas fields, which he said made up half of the top 50 emitters globally. He also repeated a finding that Climate TRACE made last year, which is that oil and gas facilities emit more than three times the amount of GHG that they report.

Data pulled from Climate TRACE shows that China is the largest emitter of GHG, followed by the U.S., India, Russia and Japan.

Gore said the initiative today monitors about 70,000 sites around the world, but said 70 million sites would be under surveillance by the end of the year. He said data pulled from Climate TRACE can be used by ‘NGOs and activists trying to prioritize their campaigning, finance companies, journalists, researchers’ and others.

The Climate TRACE coalition consists of 11 NGOs: Blue Sky Analytics, Carbon Yield, Earthrise Media, Global Energy Monitor, Hypervine.io, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Ocean Mind, RMI, TransitionZero, Watt Time, and a group of researchers working for Gore in Nashville, Tennessee.

Gore said the group benefits from about 100 other contributors, including Airbus, Bloomberg LP, Duke University, Georgetown University and Michigan State University.

With few options available for ensuring abortion access, Vice President Kamala Harris will demonstrate that Democrats aren’t giving up on the issue as she marks the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Sunday. It’s a bitter historical milestone for the White House after the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back the national right to abortion.

Administration officials said she’ll speak in Florida, where Democrats have been on guard for new efforts to restrict abortion from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate. The speech is a continuation of Harris’ focus on reproductive rights in recent months, including meetings with activists, healthcare providers and state lawmakers from around the country.

It’s also intended to be a signal that abortion remains a focus for the administration after the midterm elections. Democrats performed better than expected, but prospects for codifying Roe v. Wade into law haven’t improved, and the administration has bumped up against the limits of its legal ability to keep abortion available.

‘The vice president will make very clear: The fight to secure women’s fundamental right to reproductive health care is far from over,’ said a statement from Kirsten Allen, a Harris spokesperson. ‘She will lay out the consequences of extremist attacks on reproductive freedom in states across our country and underscore the need for Congress to codify Roe.’

President Joe Biden will mark the anniversary with a proclamation, according to administration officials.

No additional executive actions or policy proposals are expected over the weekend. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said Wednesday that ‘the administration has taken actions with our limited authorities,’ reiterating the president’s call for national legislation.

‘Women must be empowered to make decisions about their own lives and health care, and those decisions should not be politicized or second guessed by politicians,’ she said.

Meanwhile, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group, told reporters on Wednesday that her organization will be focusing on state legislation and asking, ‘What is the most ambitious we can be?’

Dannenfelser recently met with DeSantis and said she was ‘extremely satisfied’ with the conversation, although she said DeSantis didn’t know what his next steps on abortion would be. Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra plans to visit Minnesota this week as that state’s legislature works on a new law to solidify abortion rights.

Becerra expects to appear with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, stop at a Planned Parenthood facility and meet with organizers who want to use a mobile van to provide abortions to people who cross into the state from Wisconsin, which has strict abortion limits.

Becerra then plans to visit a Wisconsin clinic that’s no longer allowed to provide abortions and hold an event with Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Rep. Gwen Moore, both Democrats, to talk with medical students.

On Wednesday, Becerra recalled visiting a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, Missouri, on the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned. He said he was shocked to see how quickly women were turned away for scheduled abortion appointments. Then he stopped at a clinic over the border in neighboring Illinois, which was still accepting patients.

‘It’s now a fact in America that you can drive 16 miles across state lines and lose the rights to health care you need,’ Becerra said.

It’s likely that the battle over reproductive rights will focus more on state legislatures than Washington, where the two parties appear deadlocked on the issue.

Democrats have 51 seats in the Senate, which means they can block any Republican attempts to ban abortion nationwide, but there’s not enough support to sidestep filibuster rules to restore a national right to abortion.

In addition, the administration has limited tools to take executive action, although it’s worked to make abortion pills more widely available.

The Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled that the state’s early voting system is constitutional.

In an 11-page ruling Tuesday, the three-judge panel rejected the Arizona Republican Party’s argument that mail-in voting violates the secrecy clause in the state Constitution.

The clause requires that voters must have a way to conceal their choices on the ballot.

More than 80% of Arizona voters use the early voting system that was created by lawmakers in 1991.

It allowed any voter to vote by mail and removed the requirement that voters fill out and seal their ballots in the presence of an officer authorized to administer oaths, the appeals court noted.

The appeals court’s ruling said Arizona’s early voting system provides secrecy ‘by requiring voters to ensure that they fill out their ballot in secret and seal the ballot in an envelope that does not disclose the voters’ choices.’

It was unclear Wednesday if the state Republican Party will now take the case to the Arizona Supreme Court.

The GOP party filed a similar lawsuit in February 2022 seeking to eliminate early voting before that year’s elections, arguing that ‘in-person voting at the polls on a fixed date is the only constitutionally permissible manner of voting.’

The state Supreme Court declined to hear that suit, saying it didn’t have original jurisdiction in the case.

The Arizona Court of Appeals this week rejected an attempt by the Republican Party to end early voting by arguing mail-in voting violated state’s constitution.

A three-judge panel issued an 11-page ruling Tuesday that said mail-in voting did not violate the state’s secrecy clause after Republicans looked to end a practice that has become the state’s number one way to vote. 

‘Arizona’s mail-in voting statutes ensure that voters fill out their ballot in a manner that does not disclose their vote and that voters’ choices are not later revealed,’ the court ruled. ‘The superior court did not err in finding that these protections are sufficient to preserve secrecy in voting.’

Some 80 percent of Arizona voters utilize the state’s early voting system that has been in place since 1991 by requesting mail-in ballots that can be returned through the U.S. Postal system or dropped off any a ballot box location.

The court ruled that the voting system maintains voter secrecy ‘by requiring voters to ensure that they fill out their ballot in secret and seal the ballot in an envelope that does not disclose the voters’ choices.’

It is unclear if the GOP plan to take the case to the Arizona Supreme Court.

There have been several attempts by the GOP to dismantle or discredit Arizona’s mail-in voting system following the 2020 defeat of Donald Trump to President Biden in the traditionally red state, though Arizona has trended purple in recent years. 

Democrats again secured victories in the 2022 midterm elections when Sen. Mark Kelly and Gov. Katie Hobbs beat out their GOP contenders.

The Republican Party filed a similar suit in February 2022 in an attempt to end early voting by alleging that ‘in-person voting at the polls on a fixed date is the only constitutionally permissible manner of voting,’ reported The Associated Press.