World
Biden admin outlaws Palestinian organization for funding terrorism: 'Sham charity'
JERUSALEM—The Biden administration on Tuesday designated the Palestinian non-governmental organization Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as an “international fundraiser” for a Palestinian terrorist group.
The classification of Samidoun as a terrorist organization comes six months after Fox News Digital published a May expose on calls for the Biden administration to outlaw the Palestinian group in the U.S.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced on its website that “In a joint action with Canada, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, or ‘Samidoun,’ a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.”
NEW REPORT FINDS NEARLY 200% INCREASE IN ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS IN US SINCE OCT. 7 HAMAS TERROR MASSACRE
Samidoun supporers gather in Cologne, Germany. (Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The U.S. government designated the PFLP a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. According to Treasury, the PFLP “uses Samidoun to maintain fundraising operations in both Europe and North America. Also designated today is Khaled Barakat, a member of the PFLP’s leadership. Together, Samidoun and Barakat play critical roles in external fundraising for the PFLP.”
Samidoun has chapters in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Iran, as well as in numerous European countries, including Sweden, France and Spain. Germany outlawed Samidoun in November and Israel classified the Palestinian organization as a terrorist entity in 2021.
Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine parade at a rally in Gaza. (Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need, yet in reality divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups,” said Bradley T. Smith, acting under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence. “The United States, together with Canada and our like-minded partners, will continue to disrupt those who seek to finance the PFLP, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations.”
A terrorist from Hamas takes part in a military parade. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo)
FIGHTING THE DISTURBING SPIRAL OF JEW-HATRED IN CANADA
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister of public safety, democratic institutions and intergovernmental affairs, followed suit, annoucing that “Canada remains committed to working with our key partners and allies, like the United States, to counter terrorist organizations and their fundraisers.” He continued, “Today’s joint action with the U.S. sends a strong message that our two nations will not tolerate this type of activity and will do everything in our power to ensure robust measures are in place to address terrorist financing.”
The Trudeau administration has faced criticism for failing to act to combat huge levels of antisemitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis. Canada’s Global News reported a Jewish school for girls was shot at for a second time in a year on the eve of Yom Kippur on Friday in Toronto.
ELITE UNIVERSITY JOURNALISM PROFESSOR EXPOSED FOR MONTHSLONG CAMPAIGN JUSTIFYING HAMAS
Anti-Israel protesters demonstrate in New York City on Oct. 5, 2024, ahead of the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. (Adam Gray for Fox News Digital)
The Treasury Department said the ban on Samidoun builds on its actions to counter terrorism after Hamas’ massacre of nearly 1,200 people, including over 30 Americans, in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The goal of the latest Treasury sanction is to crack down on “terrorists and terrorist organizations that abuse the nonprofit organization sector by raising funds under the guise of charitable work,” wrote the agency.
Samidoun lashed out at the U.S.and Canada for listing its organization as a terrorist group, writing on its website, “Samidoun is particularly targeted because of our political and vocal support for the Palestinian prisoners movement and the Palestinian people’s right to resistance.”
The outlawed group defiantly declared, “Our response to this designation is clear: we will keep struggling to stop the genocide, stop imperialist support for Israel, until the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.”
The slogan “from the river to the sea” is widely viewed as a genocidal call to abolish the Jewish state and replace it with a Muslim-majority Palestinian state. In April, the House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the slogan as antisemitic.
Pope Leo XIV left the Canary Islands for Rome on Friday in a Falcon plane offered by Spanish King Felipe VI after his original aircraft suffered a technical glitch, according to reporters at the scene.
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The flight took off just after 6:00 pm and is expected to arrive in Rome at around 11:00 pm. The pope wrapped up a week-long visit to Spain on Friday.
The pontiff’s departure from Tenerife was delayed earlier on Friday by a technical problem with the plane which led him to disembark, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
Spain’s King Felipe VI, who had just said goodbye to the pontiff on the runway, boarded the Iberia airline plane and both disembarked and returned to the terminal.
About 80 journalists remained on the jet, along with Vatican officials and members of the clergy.
“The departure of the papal flight has been delayed by half an hour due to a technical problem with the aircraft,” the communications service for the papal trip in Spain said in a brief statement.
The pilot initially told passengers there was a technical fault but later specified a “startup failure of the engine,” which he said was likely caused by wind conditions.
“Our maintenance team suggests towing the aircraft, positioning it into the wind, and attempting a new engine start,” the pilot told those on board.
“We will try this. If it is successful, we can depart.”
The glitch marked an unusual end to an otherwise successful trip to Madrid, Barcelona and the Canary Islands.
Pope Leo XIV pressed his migration message and also inaugurated the new tower of the Sagrada Familia basilica.
It was the first time in decades that a papal flight had experienced a problem so serious that it required the pope to change planes.
Veteran Vatican reporters, some of whom were on the Iberia plane, recalled a few plane-related incidents during the pontificate of St. John Paul II.
During a 1986 return trip from India, John Paul II’s plane was forced to land in Naples because of a snowstorm in Rome. The passengers and pope took a special train back to Rome.
In 1988 en route to Lesotho, bad weather forced the late pope’s plane to land in South Africa, a country he had excluded from his African trip at the time because of apartheid. He was later driven into the kingdom.
Typically on papal trips, the Italian national carrier ITA Airways brings the pope to his destination and that country’s national carrier brings him home, with ITA sometimes doing the round trip if the voyage is particularly long or to a place that doesn’t have the capacity.
The flights are charters, with the pope, Vatican delegation and security occupying the front of the plane and the 70 or so journalists seated in coach.
Iberia had proudly provided video earlier in the trip of Pope Leo XIV seated in the cockpit, smiling broadly as the plane carried him from Madrid to Barcelona and then Barcelona to the Canary Islands.
In both cases, Spanish military aircraft provided an airborne escort, a sign of respect for visiting dignitaries and in one clip of the video the pope is seen waving to the escorting pilot.
Additional sources • AP, AFP
World
War, latest news. Trump: agreement with Iran to be signed soon. Tehran media: approval likely from top officials
Oxfam: ‘Over 540 settler attacks in the West Bank in the first few months of 2026’
A new analysis by Oxfam highlights the exponential rise in attacks by Israeli settlers and military forces in the occupied West Bank: in the first few months of 2026 alone, there were over 540 incidents and “in three years, the number of Palestinian civilians killed has exceeded that of the previous 17 years”, mainly children. According to the report, based on an analysis of data provided by the United Nations, “it is clear that Israel’s annexation plan is accelerating, with mass forced displacements, increased restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement and an unprecedented escalation of violence by settlers and the army”. A plan of ethnic cleansing and annexation that, since 2023, has caused over 46,000 people to be displaced, the construction of over 925 barriers that impede the movement of 3 million people, and an unprecedented wave of violence that has claimed over 1,200 lives, including nearly 270 children. In particular, between 2006 and 2022, Oxfam points out, there were 1,036 victims, including 225 children, whilst since 2023 alone, 1,244 have been recorded, with 268 children killed. This means that, over the last 20 years, one in five killings involved a child, around 22 per cent. By contrast, in the first 17 years under review, 86 Israeli settlers were killed by Palestinians, including 12 children, whilst there were 43 victims, including 10 children, between 2023 and 2025. “The massacre of civilians we are witnessing is painful and disturbing,” said Paolo Pezzati, spokesperson for humanitarian crises at Oxfam Italia – “Whilst the eyes of the world were rightly focused on the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, following the atrocities committed by Hamas and other armed groups in 2023, an unprecedented wave of violence was unfolding across the West Bank, which has now escalated into a systematic plan of ethnic cleansing. In this context, we are therefore launching an urgent appeal for all necessary diplomatic pressure to be brought to bear on Israel to halt the ongoing annexation plan,” concludes Pezzati.
US: third Iranian oil tanker breaching the blockade neutralised
The US Central Command stated on X that it had intercepted an oil tanker, the third in a week, accused of violating the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. US Central Command says it struck the M/T Jalveer, flying the flag of Guinea-Bissau, “as it attempted to transport oil from Iran through the Gulf of Oman”. “A US aircraft fired two Hellfire missiles at the ship’s engine room after the crew repeatedly refused to obey orders from US forces,” Centcom said.
Meloni: the Council should reflect on the direction of relations between the EU and Israel
“Not only because of what is happening in Lebanon, but also given the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, it is clear that the European Council will need to reflect on the direction of relations between the European Union and Israel.” This was stated by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Chamber of Deputies, in her address ahead of the EU Council meeting. “On this,” she added, “I would like, for once, to see a debate here that goes beyond the emphasis on facile polemics, which certainly yields an immediate return in terms of visibility, but does not reflect the strategic importance that the issue holds for Italia.”
World
Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol sentenced to 30 years over North Korea drone flights
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A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison Friday in a case that accused him of ordering drone flights over North Korea in an effort to justify his declaration of martial law.
Yoon, 65, was sentenced alongside former Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun by the Seoul Central District Court.
The ousted president was previously sentenced to life in prison for leading an insurrection following his declaration of martial law in December 2024.
North Korea accused South Korea of flying drones over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets on three occasions in October 2024.
SOUTH KOREAN LAWMAKERS SUPPORT SUSPENDING PRESIDENT’S POWERS AFTER SHORT-LIVED MARTIAL LAW DECLARATION
South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a hearing of his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Feb. 11, 2025. (Lee Jin-man/AP)
Then-Defense Minister Kim initially issued a vague denial before South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it could neither confirm nor deny the allegations.
Although tensions between the two Koreas escalated following the incident, the drone flights did not lead to any military clashes.
Prosecutors accused Yoon of attempting to create a crisis with North Korea while plotting an authoritarian power grab aimed at removing political opponents and consolidating control.
SOUTH KOREAN COURT RULES EX‑PRESIDENT YOON SUK YEOL GUILTY IN INSURRECTION TRIAL
Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stage a rally outside the Seoul High Court in Seoul on April 29, 2026. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
Before declaring martial law, Yoon delivered a televised address accusing liberal lawmakers of sympathizing with North Korea.
Yoon has argued that he possessed the constitutional authority to declare martial law and said the move was intended to draw attention to what he viewed as obstruction by opposition parties.
His attempt to impose martial law lasted roughly six hours before lawmakers voted to overturn it amid mass public protests.
Yoon was arrested in July 2025 and continues to face multiple criminal proceedings.
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South Korea’s ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol arrives at Seoul Central District Court in Seoul to attend his trial on charges related to declaring martial law on Dec. 3, 2025. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
The insurrection verdict has been appealed by both Yoon and prosecutors, who had sought the death penalty.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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