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Lawmakers warned PennDOT of illegal immigrant-CDL crisis before bust; GOP demands answers from Shapiro

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Lawmakers warned PennDOT of illegal immigrant-CDL crisis before bust; GOP demands answers from Shapiro

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EXCLUSIVE: Pennsylvania lawmakers warned Harrisburg officials of a potential crisis on their hands before Monday’s arrest of an Uzbek illegal immigrant trucker in Kansas who held a PennDOT commercial driver’s license (CDL).

Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee chairman Jarrett Coleman shared a letter with Fox News Digital that he sent just days earlier to PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll asking for answers to how illegal immigrants were receiving CDL licenses despite stated rigorous identity checks.

Coleman, R-Allentown, said Monday’s incident was “deeply disturbing but not surprising” and another example of the Shapiro administration “prioritiz[ing] political optics over public safety.”

He said that Pennsylvanians deserve accountability in situations like this and that if the administration will not provide public answers, then there is a “much bigger problem on our hands.”

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TRUCKERS WARN OF ‘FOREIGN INVASION’ AS DHS CRACKS DOWN ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT DRIVERS

Trucks move through a major construction zone on US-22/I-78 in Greenwich Township, Berks County, Pa. (Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)

“Public safety is not negotiable,” he said. “Ten days ago, I and several colleagues formally requested answers from PennDOT about what safeguards they have in place to prevent individuals who are in this country illegally, and in some cases have criminal records, from obtaining CDLs.”

ICE ARRESTS ILLEGAL-IMMIGRANT TRUCKER FROM UZBEKISTAN OVER ALLEGED TERROR TIES

The letter had been prompted by reports that a dozen illegal immigrants netted in an October bust of about 80 noncitizen truckers in Oklahoma were issued their licenses by Harrisburg.

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“Governor Shapiro is quick to jump in front of cameras and tout his leadership, but when it comes to answering basic questions about how his administration is protecting Pennsylvania drivers, we get silence,” Coleman said.

“This isn’t just bureaucratic delay. It’s stonewalling. And it’s dangerous.”

Coleman led the letter, which was cosigned by Sens. Doug Mastriano, R-Gettysburg, Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-Dallastown, and Dawn Keefer, R-Dillsburg.

EXPERT REVEALS HOW ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKER MAY HAVE GOTTEN COMMERCIAL LICENSE BEFORE FATAL FLORIDA CRASH

Pennsylvania State Sen. Jarrett Coleman’s official portrait. (PA State Senate/Office of Sen. Jarrett Coleman, R-Allentown.)

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It requested Carroll provide more than a dozen datapoints, including whether PennDOT has even reviewed the files of the CDL holders arrested by ICE since October, and whether those drivers were properly verified at the time of issuance.

Carroll was also asked whether PennDOT is using required federal “systematic alien verification for entitlements” to verify immigration status, and whether it was complying with a directive from USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy to halt all issuances of “non-domiciled CDLs.”

BLUE STATE IN THE HOT SEAT AFTER ICE BUSTS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WITH ‘NO NAME GIVEN’ ON LICENSE

Since the letter was sent, a federal judge rebuked Duffy and overturned his suspension of license issuance.

Coleman also asked Carroll about any internal audits, oversight mechanism, corrective action plan, or assessments of public safety risks from their current modus operandi.

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A spokeswoman for Carroll confirmed PennDOT received Coleman’s letter and is in the process of responding.

She assured that whenever “non-citizen applicants apply for a CDL in Pennsylvania, PennDOT follows applicable federal and state processes, reviewing the necessary immigration and naturalization documents and confirming the non-citizen’s legal status in real-time using [DHS’] SAVE database before issuing a license — if the applicant clears the SAVE process, which confirms the applicant is residing in the U.S. under legal status, and successfully meets all other criteria, a license is issued.

“PennDOT completes these two checks to confirm legal status with the federal government every time it issues a license to a non-citizen,” the spokeswoman said.

BLUE STATE INVESTIGATES HOW ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKER GOT LICENSE BEFORE DEADLY FLORIDA CRASH

Carroll, a former state lawmaker from former President Joe Biden’s home county of Lackawanna, said he has the “greatest level of faith in our driver’s license and motor vehicle folks” when it comes to properly verifying “substantial documentation” required for REAL IDs and licenses.

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Later Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Republican Party issued its own demand for Shapiro to speak out on the growing issue.

PAGOP Chairman Greg Rothman, a state senator from Cumberland County, called it “not just a policy failure [but] a national security breach right here in Pennsylvania.

“How in the world did someone with terrorist ties pass every check to get behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler in our state?”

Rothman said the Uzbek national, Akhror Bozorov, also obtained REAL ID verification from PennDOT.

“The people who signed off on this need to be found, fired, and Governor Shapiro must answer for this.”

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In that regard, Shapiro’s office hit back at critics and suggested they instead question the Trump administration about the situation.

“If officials are concerned about this, they should redirect their attention to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who manages the federal database that is checked before any Pennsylvania licenses are issued to non-citizens,” said Rosie Lapowsky, a spokeswoman for Shapiro.

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PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll, right. (VALERIE MYERS/ERIE TIMES-NEWS / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

“The PAGOP is formally requesting that federal and state oversight authorities launch a full investigation into the decision-making process that allowed Bozorov to receive a CDL,” the PAGOP added in a statement.

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Bozorov’s license—an image of which was obtained by Fox News Digital—listed a ZIP code corresponding to Philadelphia’s Somerton neighborhood, a suburban-style area in the city’s northeast once home to figures like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and, more recently, an increasing number of Russian and Arabic residents.

In response to Bozorov’s initial arrest, PennDOT spokeswoman Alexis Campbell told Fox News Digital that “when non-citizen applicants appear at a Driver License Center in Pennsylvania, PennDOT reviews immigration and naturalization documents, which are confirmed in real-time against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) website before issuing any driver’s license.”

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April showdowns: 4 key races to watch this month that will test Trump, GOP grip on power

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April showdowns: 4 key races to watch this month that will test Trump, GOP grip on power

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After kicking off in March, the 2026 primary calendar takes a break this month before returning with a vengeance in May.

But that doesn’t mean there’s a dearth of consequential elections in April.

Special U.S. House contests in Georgia and New Jersey, a state Supreme Court election in battleground Wisconsin, and a Virginia referendum that is the latest face-off between President Donald Trump and Republicans and Democrats in the high-stakes congressional redistricting wars — with the House majority on the line — will all draw national attention this month.

Here’s a closer look at the four ballot box showdowns.

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TRUMP-BACKED FULLER ADVANCES IN RACE TO FILL MTG’S CONGRESSIONAL SEAT

Republican congressional candidate Clay Fuller, left, speaks next to President Donald Trump, during a visit to the Coosa Steel Corporation in Rome, Georgia, Feb. 19, 2026.  (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

April 7 — GA-14 special election

Trump-backed Republican House candidate Clay Fuller faces off with Democratic candidate Shawn Harris to fill a vacant congressional district in solidly red northwest Georgia that was once held by MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Harris, a retired brigadier general and cattle farmer, and Fuller, a local prosecutor and Air National Guard member, were the top two finishers in a field of 17 candidates, including 12 Republicans, in the early March special election. With no candidate topping 50%, Harris and Fuller advanced to a runoff.

SPECIAL ELECTION TO FILL MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE’S OLD SEAT IN CONGRESS HEADS INTO OVERTIME

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The special election comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218–214 majority in the House. That means the GOP cannot afford any surprises or allow Democrats to pull an upset in a district that extends from Atlanta’s northwest exurbs to Georgia’s northwestern border with Alabama and northern border with Tennessee, which Trump carried by 37 points in his 2024 presidential victory.

Fuller, who is expected to consolidate the Republican vote that was divided in the first round, is considered the clear frontrunner in the race. But if Harris holds Fuller’s margin to the mid-teens or less, national Democrats will argue the election is the latest in the 14 months since Trump returned to the White House in which they’ve overperformed.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The congressional seat was left vacant when Greene stepped down at the beginning of January. Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a very public falling out with Trump mostly over her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

April 7 — Wisconsin Supreme Court election

While officially a non-partisan contest, state Supreme Court elections in the Midwestern battleground have become extremely partisan in recent years.

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With the court’s majority on the line in last year’s contests, outside money poured in and out-of-state door knockers blanketed Wisconsin. One of the biggest spenders was Trump ally Elon Musk, who headlined a rally days before the election and donned a cheesehead hat worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers.

Then-Trump adviser Elon Musk appears at a town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in March 2025. Musk and his super PACs spent more than $2 million to support conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel’s campaign. (Scott Olson/Getty)

Democrats won that election by a larger-than-expected margin and currently hold a 4-3 majority on Wisconsin’s highest court.

With a conservative justice retiring, the majority isn’t at stake in this year’s election, although liberals with a win could expand their majority to 5-2.

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But if the conservative candidate wins, or keeps it close, the GOP may claim a moral victory.

April 16 — NJ-11 special election

Republican Joe Hathaway, a local mayor, is hoping to pull off an upset in the special election to fill the congressional seat left vacant after now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill stepped down after winning last November’s gubernatorial election.

Hathaway, who was unopposed in February’s primary, faces off in the election against Democrat Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer backed by left-wing champions Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Analilia Mejia secured the Democratic Party nomination in a special election to find out who will take over newly elected New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s vacant House seat.  (Heather Khalifa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Mejia pulled off an upset, narrowly edging out front-runner former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a field of 11 candidates. The face-off was one of the latest between progressives and more mainstream Democrats.

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The 11th Congressional District in northern New Jersey’s New York City suburbs was once the kind of seat where Republicans excelled at the ballot box. Hathaway, who has pointed out his differences with Trump, is the type of Republican who could attract crossover voters.

Add in that Mejia may be too far to the left for some voters in the district, and there’s a chance for some intrigue on Election Day.

April 21 — Virginia redistricting referendum

Voters in Virginia are casting ballots on a Democrat-pushed referendum that would give the competitive state up to four more left-leaning U.S. House districts in time for this year’s midterm elections.

That could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in the state’s U.S. House delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge. 

Signs urge early voters to vote yes or no on the Virginia redistricting referendum at the Ellen M. Bozman Government Center in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. Early voting continues across the state for Virginia’s redistricting ballot referendum. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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With three weeks until Election Day, early voting is surging, according to officials, with turnout outpacing early voting from last autumn’s general election. Despite being vastly outraised by Democrats, Republicans see positive signs in early turnout.

Republicans call the Democrats’ redistricting effort an “unconstitutional power grab.” Democrats counter that it’s a necessary step to balance out partisan gerrymandering already implemented in other states by the GOP.

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Virginia is the latest redistricting battleground, with Florida on deck, to alter congressional maps ahead of November’s elections.

Republicans are defending their razor-thin House majority in the midterms, and Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to win back control of the chamber. That means the redistricting efforts in Virginia and other states may very well decide which party controls the House next year.

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Commentary: The golden idol at the center of Trump’s presidential library is a terrible idea — even for him

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Commentary: The golden idol at the center of Trump’s presidential library is a terrible idea — even for him

The recently revised food pyramid may put fruit as a medium priority, but there is nothing the Trump administration likes more than the apple of discord.

Every news cycle, the president seems intent on introducing something new for Americans to argue about: the wisdom (and legality) of war in Iraq; the term “affordability”; the efficacy of mail-in ballots (which the president recently used); the meaning of birthright; the legitimacy of a vice president who has been publicly admonished by two popes for writing a book about his conversion to Catholicism — heck, we’re still arguing about that new food pyramid.

But there is one recent development upon which we really should all agree — erecting a gold statue of President Trump in the middle of his proposed presidential library is a No Good, Very Bad Idea.

On Tuesday, the president’s son Eric posted a first-look video for said library, which will reside on the waterfront in Miami. While questions were raised about the inclusion of the Boeing 747-8 the president controversially accepted as a gift from Qatar and the apparent lack of space in the sky-scraping library for, you know, books, it was the enormous gold statue of Trump towering over the stage in a proposed auditorium that drew the most immediate attention.

That Trump chose to reveal this little (well, actually quite big) beauty mere days after millions of Americans across the country participated in a coordinated No Kings march can be taken as either breathtaking irony or, more probably, a rage-baiting metaphoric middle finger.

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As he has been recently wont to do, California Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly responded on his press office X account with photos of gold statuary depicting former chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong, North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung and Turkmenistan’s Saparmurat Niyazov and the observation that “The gold statue in Trump’s new library (of himself) looks awfully familiar to a few others from around the world.”

Trump’s obsession with gold will no doubt obsess future generations of historians, artists, psychoanalysts and Wikipedia editors — the guerrilla art group Secret Handshake on Monday put up a gold toilet statue on the National Mall mocking the president’s plans to renovate the Lincoln bathroom during a time of war and strife, as tribute, according to the statue’s plaque, “to an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem and painted it gold.”

But even allowing for personal taste, a big golden statue of Trump is a terrible idea. For him.

In times of trouble and/or leadership changes, statues are often the first to go — as Trump knows well, since he’s working to replace the Confederate generals displaced after the Black Lives Matter movement and recently erected, near the White House, a replica of the Christopher Columbus statue thrown into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor during 2020 protests.

After hearing the Declaration of Independence read publicly for the first time, members of the Sons of Liberty tore down a statue of King George III from Bowling Green; during the French Revolution, the kings all across Paris came down; ditto Napoleon when he fell out of favor. In Russia, tsarist monuments were replaced by statues of Communist leaders, which in turn were torn down — statues of Stalin also fell in Hungary, Georgia and Albania. More recently, a statue of Saddam Hussein famously met the same fate.

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As Robert Frost might have put it: Something there is that doesn’t love a statue of a divisive leader. Especially if it’s gold.

OK, I added that last bit.

There are plenty of famous and popular gold statues — Thailand’s Golden Buddha; the Golden Madonna of Essen in Germany; Jeanne d’Arc in Paris; Prometheus at Rockefeller Center in New York; even Tutankhamun’s death mask and solid gold coffin, which travel the world. But, as perhaps you have noticed, they trend toward the religious, mythic or historic, i.e. dead.

In the lavish memorial erected by his grieving widow, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert is golden, but few world leaders are permanently gilded, and certainly not before their deaths. (London’s golden statue of King Charles II was erected during his lifetime but originally in bronze — the gold was added later. It also depicts Charles in Roman garb, so I suppose the Trump statue could be worse — at least we don’t see his naked knees.)

In the United States, golden statuary is rare and usually metaphoric — the Oregon Pioneer, the Golden Driller, the Spirit of Communication. Gold remains captivating, an aspirational symbol of success (“gold standard”) and wealth (“golden touch”), but it can also bring with it an air of mockery (“golden boy”) and warning. The original golden touch belonged to King Midas, who loved it until he accidentally killed his daughter by turning her into a gold statue.

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Displays of it, particularly in architecture or public art, are often perceived as tacky, kitschy or, heaven forbid, nouveau riche. Trump is fine being perceived as all of these things; he has long embraced the gleaming excesses of Versailles — the golden elevator will also be featured in the new proposed library.

His personal taste is his right and is shared by many.

In terms of statuary, however, “golden” is most typically associated with “idol,” figures that are erected specifically to be worshiped — the Golden Calf that made God and Moses so angry comes to mind — and Americans, historically, have not been big fans of idolatry.

Hence the separation of church and state, a three-branch government and a president with a limited term. The early colonists were very much anti-idol worshippers and even modern Catholics, as Vice President Vance surely knows, have long been criticized by their Protestant counterparts for a love of statuary, reliquaries and other iconography that some have argued fall into idolatry.

Trump clearly has no problem with idolatry, as long as he is the idol in question — he has long characterized his supporters as people who will love him no matter what he does. So no one should be surprised that his son would anchor the Trump presidential library with an enormous golden statue of his father — Trump is not a man to be satisfied with bronze or, heaven forbid, a marble bust.

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No doubt, any criticism of that statue will be met with derision from Trump supporters. In its many guises, idolatry has survived, despite regular and often cataclysmic proof of its dangers, for centuries and many people will consider a much-larger-than-life golden statue of a president to be perfectly splendid.

But someone might want to mention to the president that flashing a big gold statue of himself while cities are still doing cleanup from enormous No Kings marches might seem funny to some. But to others … well, Versailles was once a dazzling royal residence.

Until it wasn’t.

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Man wearing ICE uniform brutally beaten in Honolulu not affiliated with agency, DHS says

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Man wearing ICE uniform brutally beaten in Honolulu not affiliated with agency, DHS says

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The Department of Homeland Security said that a man recently filmed dressed in what resembles a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uniform being beaten next to a Honolulu street is not affiliated with the agency in any way.

A recent viral video showed a man wearing a tactical vest with the word “ICE” being punched and kicked on a street in Honolulu’s Waikiki neighborhood Saturday night. The video caused an uproar on social media amid heightened concerns about rising assaults on ICE agents and debate over whether officers should wear masks to protect their identities.

The video shows the man confronting a small group that throws liquid at him. Three individuals grab him, pull him to the ground and begin punching and kicking him. He eventually goes limp as one individual continues to pound his face while two others hold him. The man later gets up and stumbles away, appearing to have a bloody nose.

A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital in an emailed statement that despite the vest, “this person is NOT an ICE agent and is not connected to DHS in any way.”

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WATCH: MASKED AGITATOR SPRAYS MESSAGE TARGETING ICE AGENTS ON FEDERAL BUILDING DURING LA PROTEST

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, along with other federal law enforcement agencies, conducted a raid Sunday in San Antonio, Texas, making more than 140 arrests, authorities said. (Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The spokesperson did not offer any details on the true identity of the man but emphasized that “anyone caught impersonating a federal immigration agent will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

They added that “impersonating a federal immigration officer endangers public safety and erodes trust in law enforcement.”

The Honolulu Police Department confirmed to Fox News Digital that a 15-year-old male is being charged with attempted assault in connection with the incident. The department shared a report that stated the suspect was originally arrested for second-degree assault, but that his charges were reduced to attempted assault.

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The report lists the time of assault at 8:12 p.m. on Saturday. The age of the victim listed on the report is 52. Neither the suspect’s nor the victim’s identities are listed.

‘NO KINGS’ PROTESTERS ARE ‘VERY SELECTIVE IN THEIR OUTRAGE,’ CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR SAYS

A general view shows Waikiki and Honolulu, Hawaii, from the Diamond Head crater on February 20, 2022.  (DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)

A spokesperson for the department noted they were not able to offer any additional information “as this investigation is active and ongoing.”

The attack occurred the same day a “No Dictators” protest opposing the Trump administration took place. The protest, held in conjunction with “No Kings” demonstrations across the continental U.S., occurred several miles from Waikiki in downtown Honolulu earlier that morning.

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Local outlet Big Island Now reported that organizers changed the name of the Honolulu No Kings protest to No Dictators “out of respect for Hawaiʻi’s history of aliʻi (chiefs and kings).” 

HOMELAND SECURITY VOWS DEPORTATION OPERATIONS ‘WILL CONTINUE’ AS ICE AGENTS HELP TSA, AGENCY DEFUNDED

Protesters gather in Washington DC for the No Kings Day protest on October 18th, 2025 (Fox News Digital/Emma Woodhead) (Emma Woodhead/Fox News Digital)

Though the individual in this instance was not an ICE agent, DHS has reported a dramatic rise in assaults on its officers. Earlier this year, DHS reported a 1,300 percent increase in assaults against ICE officers and a 3,200 percent increase in vehicular attacks. The agency also said ICE officers have experienced an 8,000% increase in death threats.

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During a No Kings protest in Los Angeles over the weekend, a protester was seen spray-painting a federal building with the message, “Kill your local ICE agent,” along with two targets.

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