Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska announced on Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with metastatic stage-four pancreatic cancer, candidly calling it ‘a death sentence.’

‘This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die,’ Sasse wrote in a post on X.

‘Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do,’ he continued.

Sasse, who is just 53 years old, noted, ‘I’ve got less time than I’d prefer.’ 

But he also expressed his eternal hope, noting that he is a Christian.

‘As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come,’ he wrote. 

‘Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say ‘hope’ when what we mean is ‘optimism.’ To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son,’ he noted.

‘Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet,’ he wrote.

Sasse served in the Senate from early 2015 through early 2023, then went on to serve as president of the University of Florida.

Last year he stepped down from the helm of the university, pointing to his wife’s epilepsy diagnosis.

‘My wife Melissa’s recent epilepsy diagnosis and a new batch of memory issues have been hard, but we’re facing it together,’ he noted in explaining his move last year. ‘Our two wonderful daughters are in college, but our youngest is just turning 13. Gator Nation needs a president who can keep charging hard, Melissa deserves a husband who can pull his weight, and my kids need a dad who can be home many more nights. I need to step back and rebuild more stable household systems for a time.’

Vice President JD Vance was among those who responded to Sasse’s grim cancer announcement on Tuesday.

‘I’m very sorry to hear this Ben. May God bless you and your family,’ Vance wrote.

Sasse noted in his message, ‘I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

‘But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: ‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given’ (Isaiah 9),’ he wrote.

For years, Washington has spoken about reducing its Middle East footprint, yet analysts told Fox News Digital that 2025 proved the opposite: American force — not retreat — reshaped the region.

Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), said the past year confirmed a long-standing strategic lesson. ‘2025 underscored what Middle East watchers have long known, and U.S. policymakers never seemed to want to admit: that strength is the currency of the realm and there is no substitute for U.S. leadership,’ he said.

Israeli political analyst Nadav Eyal said the shift was unmistakable. ‘What we have seen in 2025 is an increased role of the United States, rather than a withdrawal,’ Eyal said. ‘It delivered a hostage deal and a ceasefire in Gaza. It brought a certain level of stability in Syria. We see increased cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.’

‘The idea that the U.S. is out of the Middle East is just out the window,’ he added.

Gaza: The ceasefire and the hostages

During 2025, the Trump administration brokered a ceasefire that ended the two-year war in Gaza and returned all Israeli hostages except for the body of Ran Gvili, which still remains in Hamas’ hands. The deal was initially met with deep skepticism inside Israel. 

President Donald Trump traveled to both Israel, where he addressed the Knesset, and Cairo to finalize the agreement, coordinating with Arab leaders and mediators in a complex process that included an exchange of Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons for hostages.

‘There is absolutely no doubt that without President Trump’s intervention, this could have lasted much longer, or maybe not have ended at all, or ended in tragedy,’ Eyal said, adding that the administration fundamentally changed what had been considered possible.

‘He expanded the realm of possibilities,’ Eyal said. ‘If someone had told us six months earlier that this would be the framework of the deal, and that all the living hostages would be back home within 72 hours, we would have said it’s a great idea, but Hamas would never agree.’

According to Eyal, the breakthrough came from Israeli military pressure combined with U.S. insistence and regional coordination. ‘The military pressure put by Israel, enabled by the White House, together with the White House’s insistence and the enlistment of Qatar and Turkey, is what made the breakthrough,’ he said.

Misztal also argued that the outcome was not the result of diplomacy alone. ‘The relative calm that the region is now enjoying, after two years of war, is not the result of diplomacy, which failed on its own to stop Iran’s nuclear advance or convince Hamas to return Israeli hostages,’ Misztal said. ‘It is the result of Israeli and U.S. willingness to use force, and do so together in pursuit of common objectives.’

‘Operations Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer, coupled with the Israeli strike in Doha, unlocked the path to peace,’ he added.

The ceasefire remains fragile but intact, with the U.S. now deeply involved in shaping the postwar phase in Gaza.

Regional shockwaves

On Dec. 8 last year, after Israel defeated Hezbollah, the Assad regime in Syria collapsed, signaling a dramatic shift in the regional balance of power.

That momentum carried into 2025. Operation Rising Lion known as the 12-day war, underscored Israel’s air superiority, with Israeli aircraft striking Iranian military infrastructure and eliminating senior IRGC commanders.

The campaign also highlighted the depth of U.S.-Israel coordination, culminating in a U.S. strike that targeted Iran’s nuclear program and curtailed Tehran’s ability to support its proxies.

Eyal said Iran now faces a period of profound uncertainty. ‘Iran will, without doubt, try to rebuild its influence after its proxy system was shattered,’ he said. ‘It was defeated in war with Israel and lost most of its nuclear program.’

Two questions now dominate. ‘Can Iran rebuild its alliances, its prestige and its sources of power, like the nuclear program or air defenses, and stabilize itself again as a regional power?’ Eyal asked. ‘The deeper question,’ he added, ‘is what happens to the regime.’

He described Iran as increasingly unstable, with a devastated economy and growing public discontent. ‘It seems like almost everything is ripe for a substantial change in Iran,’ he said. ‘Whether the Islamic Republic can survive without significant reform, or whether there will be a coup or counterrevolution, will take us well into 2026.’

‘The sands of the Middle East are always shifting’: What to expect in 2026

Eyal said the past year forced a reckoning about Hamas’ future. ‘In 2025, Israelis, and to a certain extent countries in the Middle East, woke up from a fantasy that Hamas would cease to exist completely as a functioning body,’ he said.

‘Everybody understands there will be some sort of presence of Hamas, and unfortunately, they will hold some sort of armed power,’ Eyal added. ‘The question is, to what level can you reduce it?’

At the same time, he stressed the scale of Hamas’ losses. ‘In 2025 they suffered tremendous defeats and were wiped out as a functioning military body,’ Eyal said. ‘This is the year in which it happened.’

‘Even after losing half of Gaza, with Gaza devastated, and the hostages returned, they are still functioning as a military organization,’ he added. ‘That means they are incredibly resistant or flexible.’

Misztal warned that the calm will not hold without sustained U.S. engagement. ‘The sands of the Middle East are always shifting,’ he said. ‘Today’s calm will not last without consistent effort applied to uphold it.’

He warned that 2026 could see renewed pressure from multiple fronts. ‘Adversaries will seek to reassert themselves and find new advantages,’ Misztal said. ‘Iran will test the boundaries of U.S. and Israeli patience and ISIS or other Sunni extremists may seek a spectacular attack to mark their comeback.’

‘These will all be tests for the U.S. appetite to continue applying the ‘peace through strength’ approach,’ Misztal said. ‘If Washington takes its eyes off the region, the progress of the last year might quickly be lost.’

The Trump administration is dropping the hammer on cheap imports of disposable food containers from China and Vietnam, announcing massive trade penalties that experts say will lead to safer products while simultaneously protecting U.S. companies from unfair competition. 

‘America continues to thrive when fair competition occurs,’ attorney Yohai Baisburd of Cassidy Levy Kent, counsel to the American Molded Fiber Coalition, told Fox News Digital Tuesday. ‘The Trump Administration is using every tool in the toolbox to enforce U.S. trade laws and cheaters beware because they are coming after you.’ 

Baisburd, whose legal background focuses on trade litigation, was reacting to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announcing recently that its board voted to rule that U.S. industry is materially injured by importing ‘thermoformed molded fiber products from China and Vietnam.’ Baisburd argued on behalf of U.S. companies as the International Trade Commission considered the case. 

Thermoformed molded fiber products are common food containers — including disposable bowls, plates, cups and containers for ready to make meals or take-out containers — made from natural fibers and recycled products, such as wood pulp. The fibers are turned to pulp before they’re molded, and then shaped using heat and pressure. 

The U.S. market has been flooded with such products from China and Vietnam, with the nations ‘dumping’ the containers at unfairly low prices that affect American businesses, according to the ITC. 

Following the vote from the ITC, the Commerce Department will issue final antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duty orders on those imports from China and Vietnam. Antidumping and countervailing duties are special trade penalties — in addition to typical tariffs — that the U.S. imposes on imports found to be unfairly underpriced in order to level the playing field for American companies.

The new orders are expected in the coming weeks, with ITC expected to release its report by Jan. 23. 

The duties will include an upward of 540% tax on certain Chinese producers — including a 477%-plus tax for ‘dumping’ alone — and a 260%-plus tax on Vietnamese producers of the thermoformed molded fiber packaging products, ITC data shows.

‘The ITC vote will give the U.S. industry at least five years of duties on unfairly traded products from China and Vietnam,’ Baisburd said. ‘The ITC confirmed that the U.S. industry is severely injured by the corrosive impact of Chinese and Vietnamese imports. The ITC also authorized retroactive duties on Vietnamese imports.  This is only one of a handful of times they have done so in the past 25 years, sending a message to importers that they cannot surge into the U.S. market to try to get ahead of potential duties.’ 

Baisburd said the upcoming duties will ‘level the playing field’ for U.S. industry against cheap imports. 

‘U.S. workers/companies can compete against anyone, anywhere. What they can’t do is outcompete Chinese and Vietnamese government subsidies that violate U.S. trade laws. The duties allow U.S. manufacturers to reinvest in their workers, operations, technology, because they can now compete on a level playing field,’ he said. 

The duty orders are separate from the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign nations, Fox News Digital learned. The tariffs are subject to change and negotiation, while the duties are legally binding trade enforcement mechanisms based on investigative findings by the U.S. Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission, and enforced by Border Patrol. The duties are applicable for the next five years minimum and are not subject to presidential discretion, Fox News Digital learned. 

Other presidential administrations have used antidumping and countervailing duties to level the playing field for U.S. companies, including the Biden administration touting in 2024 that it leveled more than 30 new antidumping and countervailing duties on steel-related products alone. 

Baisburd argued that the Trump administration broadened its tool chest for an all-encompassing approach to protecting U.S. manufacturing. 

‘The Trump administration is taking advantage of all the enforcement tools available across the federal government to support U.S. manufacturing.  We are seeing increased customs enforcement (both civil and criminal), a new DOJ Trade Fraud Taskforce, and greater scrutiny of supply chain shifts that circumvent duties,’ the attorney said. 

In addition to business concerns about the Asian nations boxing out the U.S. market for food service containers, health concerns also have simmered. China and Vietnam have been identified as nations that produce containers with ‘forever chemicals,’ or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs). An ITC report published in 2024 found that while some foreign nations claim products are PFAs-free, studies indicate that it is not always true, while the U.S. ‘generally produces PFA-free products.’

The vote marks the third recent trade ruling that affects disposable food service containers. The U.S. Department of Commerce ITC issued antidumping and countervailing duties on disposable aluminum containers, pans, trays and lids imported from China and elsewhere, as well as leveling antidumping and countervailing duties on low-cost white paper plates from China, Thailand and Vietnam in March. 

The Department of Justice warned Tuesday that some documents in the latest batch of files it published related to Jeffrey Epstein included false and unverified information about President Donald Trump.

The DOJ wrote in a statement that the material included ‘untrue and sensationalist claims’ about the president that the FBI received ahead of the 2020 election.

‘To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,’ the DOJ wrote on social media, adding that it published the documents because of its ‘commitment to the law and transparency.’

The documents included an email sent by an unnamed federal prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York on Jan. 7, 2020, saying Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet at least eight times in the 1990s. Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell accompanied Trump on some of the flights, and two of the flights included passengers who were ‘possible witnesses in a Maxwell case,’ the prosecutor wrote.

The U.S. attorney’s office ‘didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road,’ the prosecutor wrote. 

The documents also indicated a number of tips that were provided to the FBI about Trump’s alleged involvement with Epstein in the early 2000s. Trump has said he ended his friendship with Epstein before Epstein faced charges. It is unclear what was done with the information provided in the documents, or whether any of it was corroborated or used in the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell.

The DOJ has been sharing on a public website since Friday tens of thousands of pages of files related to Epstein’s and Maxwell’s sex-trafficking cases. Maxwell was found guilty in 2021 of trafficking minors, while Epstein died in 2019 in prison by suicide, authorities say.

Among the files was also a letter Epstein appeared to have written to former physician Larry Nassar, a convicted child molester, that was postmarked three days after Epstein died and referenced Trump.

‘Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls,’ the letter read. The document’s authenticity is unknown. Accompanying it was an FBI request to conduct a handwriting analysis of it.

The latest trove of documents came as part of the DOJ’s response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed last month that imposed a 30-day deadline on the department to release all unclassified material related to the cases.

The last batch of documents included several photos of former President Bill Clinton, who was pictured in a pool and hot tub. A woman whose face was redacted was featured in the latter. A Clinton spokesperson responded by demanding the DOJ release all the files and that refusal to do so would confirm the DOJ was ‘not about transparency, but about insinuation.’ The spokesperson noted that Clinton’s name has ‘repeatedly’ been cleared by prosecutors.

The transparency bill allowed the DOJ to withhold information about potential victims and material that could jeopardize open investigations or litigation. Officials could also leave out information ‘in the interest of national defense or foreign policy,’ the bill said. But the bill explicitly directed the DOJ not to redact any details that could be damaging to high-profile and politically connected people.

The file rollout has stirred controversy as critics have aired grievances about over-redactions and the law’s lapsed deadline. Trump signed the bill into law on Nov. 19, meaning the statutory deadline for all the files to be released was Dec. 19. The DOJ has said more files are forthcoming by the new year.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday there was ‘well-settled law’ that supported the DOJ missing the bill’s deadline because of a need to meet other legal requirements, like redacting victim-identifying information.

Bill Mears contributed to this report.

The House Small Business Committee sent a letter this week to the Small Business Administration demanding answers on federal pandemic relief funds that flowed from the Biden administration to entities in Minnesota possibly connected to the massive unfolding fraud scandal.

In a letter sent Monday to SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler, the committee said it is conducting oversight into reports of fraud and concealment involving the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, both of which were created to help small businesses survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

The letter cited public reporting and federal prosecutions tying Minnesota-based nonprofits and individuals to massive fraud schemes that drained hundreds of millions of dollars from federal programs under Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s watch.

The letter also points out that the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future was at the center of what the Justice Department has called the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged in U.S. history, with 78 individuals charged as of late November in a case involving roughly $250 million in fraudulent claims as part of an overall system of fraud that prosecutors said last week could total up to $9 billion or more.

‘The SBA’s COVID lending programs were created to keep small businesses afloat during an unprecedented crisis, not to subsidize fraud,’ Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘Under the Biden-Harris administration, weak oversight and reckless decision-making allowed bad actors to exploit these programs and steal hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars. The Feeding Our Future case highlights the severity of these failures, and the Committee on Small Business is determined to hold those responsible accountable.’

The committee’s letter requests detailed records on PPP and EIDL loans issued to dozens of individuals and businesses tied to Minnesota-based fraud investigations, including loan amounts, disbursement dates, forgiveness decisions and internal SBA communications.

Lawmakers are also seeking all documents and communications between the SBA and Walz’s office or Minnesota state agencies during the Biden-Harris administration, arguing such records are necessary to determine whether warning signs were ignored or oversight failed.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Loeffler says she is looking forward to working with Congress to get to the bottom of the situation. 

‘Earlier this month, SBA determined that numerous Somali nonprofits indicted as part of the $1 billion pandemic fraud scandal in Minnesota received PPP and EIDL Loans totaling at least $2.5 million, including Feeding Our Future,’ Loeffler said. 

‘SBA has since broadened its investigation to uncover pandemic-era fraud across the entire state of Minnesota and looks forward to working in partnership with Congressional leaders to uncover the full depth of the abuse and deliver accountability on behalf of American taxpayers.’

The letter asks for the documents to be provided by Jan. 12, 2026.

On Tuesday, Fox News Digital first reported that Loeffler sent a letter to Walz alerting him that her agency will ‘halt’ more than $5.5 million in annual support to resource partners in the state ‘until further notice.’