Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has applied for Secret Service protection because of increasing threats she has received on the campaign trail, Haley’s team confirmed to Fox News on Monday.

The former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in former President Donald Trump’s administration is Trump’s last remaining major rival for the 2024 GOP nomination.

Haley discussed the request for protection in an interview Monday afternoon with The Wall Street Journal.

‘We’ve had multiple issues,’ the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador said after a campaign event in Aiken, South Carolina. ‘It’s not going to stop me from doing what I need to do.’

Haley was asked at a news conference in Columbia, S.C. late last week about increased levels of security at her events.

‘When you do something like this, you get threats,’ she told reporters. ‘It’s just the reality.’

Haley mentioned the need to ‘put a few more bodies around us,’ but that it hadn’t affected her campaigning.

‘At the end of the day, we’re going to go out there and touch every hand, we’re going to answer every question, we’re going to make sure that we are there and doing everything that we need to,’ she added.

Hours after Haley spoke to reporters, a heckler was removed from her campaign event in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Once a very long shot for the nomination, Haley enjoyed momentum in the polls in the late summer and autumn, thanks in part to well-received performances in the first three GOP presidential primary debates.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race last month, two days ahead of the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, making the nomination race a two-candidate showdown between Haley and Trump, who’s the commanding frontrunner as he runs a third straight time for the White House.

Haley captured 43% of the vote in New Hampshire, trailing Trump by 11 points.

The next major contest on the Republican schedule is Haley’s home state, which holds its GOP primary on Feb. 24. The latest public opinion survey indicates the former president has a large double-digit lead over Haley.

Nikki Haley’s Republican presidential campaign says this week’s dual GOP contests in Nevada aren’t on its radar.

‘In terms of Nevada, we have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada,’ campaign manager Betsy Ankney told reporters on Monday. ‘So Nevada is not and has never been our focus.’

And Ankney charges that Thursday’s caucuses run by the Nevada GOP are ‘rigged’ for former President Donald Trump, whom Haley is challenging for the Republican nomination.

Trump, who is the commanding frontrunner for the GOP nomination as he makes his third straight White House run, is the only major candidate running in the caucus. And Haley, the former South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration, is the sole remaining candidate listed on the state’s Republican primary ballot.

The genesis of the competing contests dates back to 2021, when Democrats, who at the time controlled both Nevada’s governor’s office and the legislature, passed a law changing the presidential nominating contest from long-held caucuses to a state-run primary. 

The Nevada GOP objected, but last year their legal bid to stop the primary from going forward was rejected. In a twist, the judge in the case allowed the state Republicans to hold their own caucuses. No delegates will be at stake in the Republican primary, while all 26 will be up for grabs in the GOP caucus.

The state GOP ruled that candidates who put their name on the state-run primary ballot could not take part in the caucuses. 

Haley and some of the other now-departed Republican presidential candidates viewed the Nevada GOP as too loyal to Trump and decided to skip a caucus they believed was tipped in favor of the former president.

Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald and both of the state’s members of the Republican National Committee are supporting Trump.

‘We made the decision early on that we were not going to pay $55,000 to a Trump entity that, you know, to participate in a process that was rigged for Trump,’ Ankney argued.

While Trump’s assured of winning all 26 delegates at stake, sources say he and his campaign advisers have some concerns. An unpleasant potential scenario for Trump, who won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary by double-digits, could be Haley grabbing more votes in the primary than Trump lands in the caucus.

While the GOP presidential candidates had to choose either the caucus or primary ballot, registered Republicans in Nevada can vote in both contests.

And in the GOP primary, there’s no vehicle for voters to write in Trump’s name. The choices on the ballot are Haley and a ‘none of these candidates’ option. 

Trump’s campaign has been working to get the message out to supporters in Nevada that if they want to vote for the former president, they need to show up at the caucuses.

‘Your primary vote doesn’t mean anything. It’s your caucus vote,’ Trump said at a rally in Las Vegas late last month. ‘So in your state, you have both the primary and you have a caucus. Don’t worry about the primary, just do the caucus thing.’

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who is supporting Trump, told the Nevada Independent last month that he would vote for ‘none of the above’ in Tuesday’s primary and would caucus for Trump in the state GOP’s contest on Thursday.

A source in the former president’s political orbit told Fox News that team Trump is ‘fortunate that Haley doesn’t have her act together in Nevada.’

Trump is expected back in Las Vegas on Thursday for a caucus celebration.

Haley is not campaigning in Nevada and hasn’t campaigned in the state since speaking in late October at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership conference.

Haley heads to California on Wednesday, where she’s scheduled to headline her first rally in any of the 15 states that hold nominating contests on Super Tuesday in early March.

Ahead of her western campaign and fundraising swing, Haley is aiming to spotlight her momentum as she faces a steep uphill climb for the 2024 nomination against Trump. 

Haley’s team says they hauled in $16.5 million in fundraising last month across all of their campaign committees, including $11.7 million from small-dollar grassroots supporters.

The January haul – Haley’s best fundraising month to date – was first reported Sunday by Axios and confirmed by Fox News. Haley’s campaign also said they added nearly 70,000 donors last month. 

Haley has seen her fundraising continue to increase since launching her presidential campaign a year ago. She raised $7.3 million during the April-June second quarter of 2023 fundraising, $11 million during the July-September third quarter, and over $24 million during the final three months of last year, as first reported by Fox News.

‘Hundreds of thousands of Americans are supporting Nikki’s campaign because they don’t want two grumpy old men and all their chaos, confusion and grievances. They want a strong, conservative leader who will save this country,’ Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas argued, as she took aim at the 77-year-old Trump and 81-year-old President Biden.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, self-described as the ‘world’s coolest dictator,’ secured what global observers deemed a landslide re-election victory on Sunday. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement on Monday congratulating Bukele on the win. 

‘The United States commends the work of electoral observers and looks forward to working with President-elect Bukele and Vice President-elect Felix Ulloa following their inauguration in June,’ Blinken said. 

‘The United States values our strong relationship with the people of El Salvador, forged over 160 years and built on shared values, regional ties, and family connections. Events in El Salvador have a direct impact on U.S. interests at home and abroad. Only by working together can we achieve our full potential and overcome the greatest obstacles in our hemisphere and globally,’ Blinken said. ‘Looking ahead, the United States will continue to prioritize good governance, inclusive economic prosperity, fair trial guarantees, and human rights in El Salvador under our Root Causes Strategy.’

Reuters reported that provisional election results available on Monday morning showed Bukele winning 83% support, far ahead of the 7% for his nearest competitor, the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, with just over 70% of the ballots counted. 

Bukele had already announced he was the winner before official results were announced, stating he secured more than 85% of the vote. 

Ballots from 31% of polling places had been counted late Sunday, according to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s preliminary results.

‘All together the opposition was pulverized,’ Bukele, standing with his wife on the balcony of the National Palace, said Sunday, according to Reuters. ‘El Salvador went from being the most unsafe (country) to the safest. Now in these next five years, wait to see what we are going to do.’ 

His New Ideas party is also projected to pick up almost all the 60 seats in the legislative body, Reuters reported. 

Bukele made clear that he expects the newly elected Legislative Assembly to continue extending the special powers he has enjoyed since March 2022 to combat the country’s feared gangs.

‘We are not substituting democracy, because El Salvador never had democracy,’ he said. ‘This is the first time in history that El Salvador has democracy. And I’m not saying it, the people say it.’

Under the state of emergency approved in March 2022, the government has arrested more than 76,000 people – over 1% of the Central American nation’s population. It has spurred accusations of widespread human rights abuses and a lack of due process, but violence has plummeted in a country known just a few years ago as one of the most dangerous in the world. And Salvadorans championed being able to take back their neighborhoods long ruled by gangs. 

El Salvador’s constitution prohibits re-election. After his party was victorious in 2021 legislative elections, the newly-elected congress purged the country’s constitutional court and replaced judges with those who ruled that Bukele could run for a second term. Critics say he has chipped away at the country’s system of checks and balances.

Sara Leon, 48, was among throngs of people who flocked to El Salvador’s previously gang-controlled downtown to celebrate. When she was 23, Leon risked her life to migrate from El Salvador to the United States with her 6-year-old daughter. She returned to her homeland in October because of the state of emergency and hopes her daughter will be able to return.

‘If the gangs saw a cute girl, they abducted her, abused her and killed her,’ she told The Associated Press. ‘I didn’t want that to happen to my daughter.’

‘He is a genius,’ she said of Bukele, tearing up when asked what his administration has meant. ‘If he’s a dictator, may we have a dictator for 100 more years.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The United Nations has appointed an ‘independent Review Group’ to examine internal policies at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), amid allegations some of the agency’s workers participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel.

Secretary-General António Guterres and UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Monday the group will review whether the agency is remaining neutral in foreign conflicts and is responding appropriately to allegations that this neutrality has been breached.

The inquiry comes as several countries around the world, including the United States, have suspended payments to UNRWA over Israeli allegations that 12 of its staffers assisted Hamas fighters during the attack on Israeli border communities or held Israelis hostage following the attack.

Catherine Colonna, the former minister of foreign affairs of France, will lead the inquiry, the officials said. She will work with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

The Review Group will begin work on Feb. 14 and is expected to submit its initial findings in a report to the secretary-general at the end of March.

It will submit a final report, which will be made public, by late April 2024, the U.N. said.

According to the U.N., the Review Group is tasked with satisfying four objectives. These include identifying ‘the mechanisms and procedures that the Agency currently has in place to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations or information indicating that the principle may have been breached.’

The group will also ‘ascertain how those mechanisms and procedures have, or have not, been implemented in practice and whether every practicable effort has been made to apply them to their full potential, taking into account the particular operational, political and security environment in which the Agency works.’

It will also ‘assess the adequacy of those mechanisms and procedures and whether they are fit for purpose… taking into account the particular operational, political and security context in which the Agency works,’ and to ‘make recommendations for the improvement and strengthening, if necessary, of the mechanisms and procedures that are currently in place or for the creation of new and alternative mechanisms and procedures that would be better fit for purpose.’

UNRWA, which contributes to the largest humanitarian relief effort in the Middle East, has said it is delivering life-saving assistance to roughly 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. supports ‘the work that UNRWA does,’ and called it ‘critical’ for the survival of the civilians who have been impacted by Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.  

UNRWA has warned it only has enough funding to continue its operations through the ‘end of February.’

‘If funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by the end of February, not only in Gaza but also across the region,’ Lazzarini said in a post on X. 

The U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) is also conducting an independent external review into the allegations of UNRWA’s involvement in the Oct. 7 attack.

Fox News’ Nicholas Kalman contributed to this report.

Nikki Haley heads to California on Wednesday, where the Republican presidential candidate is scheduled to headline her first rally in any of the 15 states that hold nominating contests on Super Tuesday in early March.

Ahead of her western campaign and fundraising swing, the former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in former President Donald Trump’s administration is aiming to spotlight her momentum as she faces a steep uphill climb for the 2024 GOP nomination against her former boss.

Haley’s team says they hauled in $16.5 million in fundraising last month across all of their campaign committees, including $11.7 million from small-dollar grassroots supporters.

The January haul – Haley’s best fundraising month to date – was first reported Sunday by Axios and confirmed by Fox News. Haley’s campaign also said they added nearly 70,000 donors last month. 

Haley has seen her fundraising continue to increase since launching her presidential campaign a year ago. She raised $7.3 million during the April-June second quarter of 2023 fundraising, $11 million during the July-September third quarter, and over $24 million during the final three months of last year, as first reported by Fox News.

‘Hundreds of thousands of Americans are supporting Nikki’s campaign because they don’t want two grumpy old men and all their chaos, confusion and grievances. They want a strong, conservative leader who will save this country,’ Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas argued, as she took aim at the 77-year-old Trump and 81-year-old President Biden.

Once a very long shot for the nomination, Haley enjoyed momentum in the polls in the late summer and autumn, thanks in part to well-received performances in the first three GOP presidential primary debates.

She’s the final major rival to Trump in a GOP presidential field that expanded to nearly 15 candidates last summer before shrinking.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race last month, two days ahead of the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, making the nomination race a two-candidate showdown between Haley and Trump, who’s the commanding frontrunner as he runs a third straight time for the White House.

Haley captured 43% of the vote in New Hampshire, trailing Trump by 11 points.

She and her team have repeatedly spotlighted her grassroots fundraising in the days since the New Hampshire primary. And Haley held fundraisers last week with top dollar GOP donors in New York City and South Florida, with similar finance events scheduled for California this week, as well as Texas.

The next major contest on the Republican schedule is Haley’s home state, which holds its GOP primary on Feb. 24. The latest public opinion survey indicates the former president has a formidable 26-point lead over Haley.

But Haley said she doesn’t need to win in South Carolina to keep her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination alive.

‘Success means being competitive. Closing the gap. Making sure we can continue to go forward as we go into Super Tuesday,’ Haley emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview last Thursday.

Haley, speaking with Fox News after a campaign event at a popular eatery in the Palmetto State’s capital city, reiterated her goalposts.

‘It’s just about keeping that momentum going. We got 20% in Iowa. We got 43% in New Hampshire. Let’s bring it a little bit closer so that we can get closer in to him [Trump] and make it more competitive going into Super Tuesday,’ she emphasized.

Thirty-six percent of all Republican presidential delegates will be up for grabs in the primaries and caucuses held on Super Tuesday, which this year will take place on March 5.

Since her 11-point loss to Trump on Jan. 23 in New Hampshire, Haley has faced calls to drop out, so Trump can start focusing on defeating President Biden in November’s general election.

But Haley emphasized that ‘we’re not going anywhere.’

‘This is about just closing that gap,’ she added. ‘We have a country to save, and I am determined to keep on going the entire way as long as we can keep closing that gap.’

Trump has repeatedly slammed Haley since she announced on primary night in New Hampshire that she would continue her presidential campaign.

On Sunday, Trump took to his Truth Social plaform to charge that Haley was a ‘Failed Political Candidate.’

: A coalition of state attorneys general is warning that an executive order signed by President Biden last year on artificial intelligence could be used by the federal government to ‘centralize’ government control over the emerging technology and that that control could be used for political purposes — including censoring alleged ‘disinformation.’

‘The Executive Order seeks—without Congressional authorization—to centralize governmental control over an emerging technology being developed by the private sector. In doing so, the Executive Order opens the door to using the federal government’s control over AI for political ends, such as censoring responses in the name of combatting ‘disinformation,’’ the coalition of 20 attorneys general, led by Utah AG Sean Reyes, said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Biden signed the order in October, which established new standards for AI safety and included moves to protect privacy and protect workers and consumers. Specifically, it requires developers to share safety test results and other information with the government.

‘In accordance with the Defense Production Act, the Order will require that companies developing any foundation model that poses a serious risk to national security, national economic security, or national public health and safety must notify the federal government when training the model, and must share the results of all red-team safety tests,’ the White House said at the time. ‘These measures will ensure AI systems are safe, secure, and trustworthy before companies make them public.’ 

The White House also said the order is aimed at protecting Americans from AI-enabled fraud by establishing standards and best practices to differentiate between AI-generated and authentic content. 

However, in a letter to the Commerce Dept. responding to a request for information from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the AGs say the order created a ‘gatekeeping function’ for the Commerce Department to supervise AI development and forces developers to submit to an ‘opaque and undemocratic process.’ 

‘We are further concerned that the Executive Order’s bureaucratic and nebulous supervisory process will discourage AI development, further entrench large tech incumbents, and do little to protect citizens,’ they say.

They also accuse the executive of creating a ‘governmental black box’ by failing to disclose how the federal government will use the information provided.

‘The reporting requirements appear to be merely a pretext for ensuring that the federal government can find out who is developing AI models, supervise that process, and exert pressure to bend those AI models to the administration’s liking,’ they say.

They also warn that the order will inject ‘partisan purposes’ into decision-making, including by forcing designers to prove it can tackle ‘disinformation.’ 

‘NIST should not use its assignment under the Executive Order to push a partisan agenda of censorship,’ they say.

The attorneys general also say that the authority in the Defense Production Act contains no authority to regulate development, only to encourage the production of it, meaning the executive does not have the authority to regulate this technology.

The officials tell Raimondo that the issues relating to AI are ‘complex and important, but they must be addressed by our constitutional, democratic process, not by executive fiat.’ The Commerce Dept. did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

‘While there is serious debate as to the best approach to regulate AI, one thing is clear—-the Biden administration cannot simply bypass congressional authority to act here,’ Reyes told Fox News Digital. ‘Any regulation must comport with the Constitution including only authorized executive action, as well as protecting against government censorship. As the administration proceeds to implement the White House AI Executive Order, we will remain vigilant on upholding the rule of law.’

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.

Squad members Reps. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., have both so far been out-raised by their more moderate Democrat challengers, as primary threats mount. 

Bush, a defund the police advocate under Justice Department investigation for shelling out tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash to a security firm, was just narrowly outraised by her primary challenger, attorney Wesley Bell. 

Bell earned $492,149 in donations, compared to the $487,000 Bush raised during the last quarter of 2023, according to the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission. 

‘Missouri’s 1st District deserves a representative who shows up, does the work and gets things done,’ Bell said in a statement to The Hill. ‘I’m honored by our fast-growing list of endorsements from community members and local officials, and energized by the incredible momentum of support driving our campaign.’

Bowman, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after pulling an office fire alarm in the House – allegedly to pause a vote during the government shutdown debate – raked in about $724,000 in the last quarter of 2023, according to the latest FEC filings. That compares to the $1.4 million raised by his opponent in New York’s 14th Congressional District, George Latimer. 

‘There is a fundamental weakness to Latimer’s fundraising,’ Bill Neidhardt, a spokesperson for Bowman’s re-election push, told The Hill. ‘His connection to Republican Trump mega donors.’

‘His money won’t go as far in a Democratic primary where the electorate wants to hold Donald Trump accountable,’ Neidhardt added. 

A Westchester County Executive who entered the race in early December, Latimer traveled to Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to show support for the Jewish state and earned the endorsement from AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 

Meanwhile, Bowman, who represents what is considered a safe blue seat, recently lost the endorsement of the progressive group J Street. 

An organization that claims to be pro-Israel but has faced criticism because of its support for positions that allegedly favor Iran’s regime and the Palestinians, J Street rescinded its endorsement of Bowman on Jan. 30, arguing that the progressive congressman ‘crossed a line’ in calling for a cease-fire and describing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a ‘genocide.’ 

Other Squad members, Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., continue to rake in donations. 

Despite their fundraising setbacks and controversial anti-Israel remarks, Bush and Bowman are still considered tough – and likely costly – to beat as progressive incumbents. Their defeat, however, would signal a shift more toward the center of the Democratic Party in Congress. 

‘It’s a very small group to begin with,’ Mark Mellman, a veteran Democratic pollster and leader of the Democratic Majority for Israel, told The Hill of members of Congress considered part of the progressive Squad. ‘It would be good for the party and good for the country if it got smaller.’