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Video. Merkel warns Europe can no longer rely on old security certainties
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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was awarded the European Order of Merit on Tuesday. Merkel warned that Europe could no longer take peace and security for granted following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She also said changes in US security policy showed old certainties were fading.
Rubio addresses Middle East tensions and Cuba’s future in exclusive interview
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks in an exclusive interview about escalating Middle East tensions, including the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire and the imperative to dismantle Hezbollah. Rubio also highlights Cuba’s status as a failed state and its national security threats to the United States, advocating for substantial economic reforms to address the country’s energy crisis. He further discusses the Trump administration’s firm stance against Iran’s use of the Strait of Hormuz.
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The U.S.-designated Lebanon-based terrorist movement Hezbollah exploits children from its version of the scout movement to carry out jihadi missions that result in their deaths, according to a recent report on Lebanon’s MTV television network.
The Lebanese network’s report — translated by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) — comes amid U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and Beirut.
The report claims that Hezbollah gives child fighters heroes’ funerals and publicly glorifies them before their peers in order to encourage other children to follow in their footsteps. The MTV report said Hezbollah believes that every drop of bloodshed by child soldiers brings victory closer.
ISRAEL POUNDS HEZBOLLAH TARGETS, DARING LEBANON TO RECLAIM SOVEREIGNTY FROM IRAN-BACKED TERROR PROXY
Hezbollah al-Mahdi scouts parade with large portraits of Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Khomeini and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during an event for Jerusalem Day in Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, on Aug. 1, 2013. (Hussein Malla/AP Photo)
It also claimed that Hezbollah uses its scout movements to cultivate an entire generation of obedient children prepared to die, through rhetoric that glorifies death and martyrdom. The MTV report, according to the MEMRI translation, said that “Hezbollah child soldiers have been used since the 1980s by this outlaw armed group. Not just as armed fighters but as Khomeini-loyal scouts.”
The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reportedly exploited the use of Iranian children during the country’s 1980-1988 war against Iraq.
Matthew Levitt, a leading scholar on Hezbollah from the Washington Institute, said that “Hezbollah’s recruitment and radicalization of youth through its Mahdi Scouts is long documented,” other experts talking to Fox News Digital concurred.
“Hezbollah has boy scouts, and they have been taught jihad, and it is a well-known thing in Lebanon,” Mideast expert Walid Phares told Fox News Digital.
UNRWA SCHOOLS ‘HIJACKED BY HAMAS,’ WATCHDOG REPORT WARNS
The Lebanon expert said they could be termed “children jihadists” who are preparing to become full Hezbollah fighters. Phares said they mostly assign them [the children of Hezbollah fighters] to spying and transporting ammunition. He argued if the scouts are getting funding from a ministry or national boy scouts association in Lebanon, they should be sanctioned if they have the evidence.
Multiple Fox News Digital Emails and phone calls to the World Organization of the Scouting Movement (WOSM) were not immediately returned. The U.S. branch of WOSM referred Fox News Digital to WOSM, which is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
A Hezbollah expert from the Israel Alma Research and Education Center, Sarit Zehavi, called for action against the exploitation of children by the terror group.
“The only way to bring a change is to designate all of these allegedly civilian activities of Hezbollah and close the movement of its scouts, and enable the Shiites of Lebanon to have a different source of services, whether it is educational, formal or informal, which will be part of the Lebanese state, and not part of Hezbollah. The loyalty will be to the Lebanese state and not to Khomeini and the Islamic Republic.”
She added, “This is only something Lebanon can do with a lot of international pressure, of course, led by the United States.”
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An Israeli diplomat, Tammy Rahamimoff-Honig, posted on X: “Hezbollah sacrifices Lebanese children to further the ambitions of the Iranian regime. This isn’t ‘resistance’. It’s child abuse.”
Lebanon’s Ambassador to the U.S. declined to provide comment for this article.
Spain’s national court announced on Monday that it had acquitted Shakira of tax fraud in a case more than a decade old, and ordered the country’s tax authorities to repay her tens of millions of dollars.
The ruling is part of the Colombian pop star’s yearslong legal battle with the Spanish authorities. Upholding an appeal she filed, it orders the state to return 55 million euros (about $64 million) plus interest to the singer. The court ruled in April but documents were released on Monday.
At the heart of the case were allegations that Shakira, 49, had been a resident of Spain in 2011 and therefore owed taxes to the Spanish government that year. Spain’s national court said that hadn’t been proven.
To be considered a tax resident in Spain, a person has to spend more than 183 days of the year in the country, have their main economic activities based there or have a spouse or children living there.
The court said in its statement that Shakira had been in Spain for 163 days in 2011. Spain’s tax authorities failed to prove “that the singer had the core of her economic interests in Spain and family relationships with residents in our country” during that year, according to the court.
José Luis Prada, Shakira’s lawyer, said in a statement that the ruling “represents a significant personal and reputational vindication for Shakira after more than eight years of litigation.”
The ruling announced Monday applies only to 2011. In a separate case, prosecutors had accused Shakira — whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll — of six counts of tax fraud, charging that she had failed to pay €14.5 million in income taxes to the Spanish government from 2012 to 2014.
In that case, prosecutors had sought an eight-year prison sentence and a fine of more than €23 million.
In November 2023, just before a trial was set to begin in Barcelona, Shakira reached a deal with Spanish prosecutors under which she agreed to receive a three-year suspended sentence and pay a fine of €7 million.
Shakira has repeatedly denied the accusations and said that she was not living in Spain during those years.
In a statement on Monday, the singer said that the ruling ended her fight with the Spanish tax authorities and that she had relocated to Miami. She said that she had been made an example of in order “to send a threatening message to the rest of the taxpayers.”
“For nearly a decade, I have been treated as guilty,” she said, adding: “Today, that narrative falls apart.”
According to court documents, prosecutors said that Shakira had bought a house in Barcelona in 2012 that became a primary home for her along with her former partner, the soccer star Gerard Piqué, and their son.
But the court found that in 2011 “there was no marital bond” between Shakira and a Spanish resident, nor were her children residing in Spain, according to the statement on Monday.
Shakira and Mr. Piqué announced their separation in 2022.
Punch the monkey makes new friends after bullying video goes viral
This video shows Punch, a young macaque in Japan who has gone viral, seeking physical contact not from his stuffed toy, but from another monkey, eventually climbing onto its back for a vital social behavior for young macaques known as the “piggyback ride.” Punch gained fame after his birth last year and his abandonment by his mother.
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Two American nationals were reportedly arrested in Japan on Sunday after one allegedly entered the enclosure of Punch, the young macaque at Ichikawa City Zoo who became famous online for his inseparable bond with a stuffed orangutan toy.
Videos circulating online appear to show a person dressed in an emoji costume climbing over a barrier into the Japanese macaque enclosure before dropping a small stuffed toy near the animals, startling them and causing them to retreat, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The suspects were identified as a 24-year-old college student and a 27-year-old self-described singer, AFP reported.
PUNCH THE MONKEY, VIRAL STAR, EXPERIENCES DRAMATIC BREAKTHROUGH AMONG ZOO MATES
This photo taken on Feb. 19, 2026 shows Punch sitting with his stuffed orangutan toy at Ichikawa City Zoo. (JIJI PRESS / AFP via Getty Images)
Zoo staff quickly intervened, and authorities said neither suspect made physical contact with the monkeys, according to AFP.
Ichikawa Police told AFP the two men were arrested on suspicion of forcible obstruction of business.
One suspect was not cooperating with police, while the other denied the allegations, according to reports citing NHK.
In a statement posted to X on May 17, Ichikawa City Zoo confirmed the pair had been turned over to police and said safety inspections were conducted afterward.
ORPHANED BABY MONKEY FINDS COMFORT IN STUFFED ANIMAL AFTER BEING ABANDONED BY MOTHER AT BIRTH
Punch is seen with his stuffed animal on Feb. 20, 2026. (Photo by David Mareuil/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Officials added that no animals were injured during the incident.
“Around 10:50 today, there was an intruder in Saruyama,” the zoo wrote. “We are informing you that the two individuals, including the intruder in question, have been handed over to the police.”
The zoo also announced temporary viewing-area closures and enhanced security measures while operations continued as scheduled.
SEVERAL MONKEYS STILL ON THE LOOSE IN ST LOUIS AS OFFICIALS CALL OFF SEARCH FOR ROAMING ANIMALS
Punch became a viral sensation earlier this year after zoo staff gave him a stuffed orangutan toy for comfort. (@20230605x_x via Storyful)
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The monkey had been abandoned by his mother shortly after birth in July 2025, prompting zookeepers to hand-raise him.
Fox News Digital’s Khloe Quill contributed to this report.
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