World
Rod Paige, the nation’s first Black secretary of education, dies at 92
Rod Paige, an educator, coach and administrator who rolled out the nation’s landmark No Child Left Behind law as the first African American to serve as U.S. education secretary, died Tuesday.
Former President George W. Bush, who tapped Paige for the nation’s top federal education post, announced the death in a statement but did not provide further details. Paige was 92.
Under Paige’s leadership, the Department of Education implemented No Child Left Behind policy that in 2002 became Bush’s signature education law and was modeled on Paige’s previous work as a schools superintendent in Houston. The law established universal testing standards and sanctioned schools that failed to meet certain benchmarks.
“Rod was a leader and a friend,” Bush said in his statement. “Unsatisfied with the status quo, he challenged what we called ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations.’ Rod worked hard to make sure that where a child was born didn’t determine whether they could succeed in school and beyond.”
Roderick R. Paige was born to two teachers in the small Mississippi town of Monticello of roughly 1,400 inhabitants. The oldest of five siblings, Paige served a two-year stint the U.S. Navy before becoming a football coach at the high school, and then junior college levels. Within years, Paige rose to head coach of Jackson State University, his alma mater and a historically black college in the Mississippi capital city.
There, his team became the first — with a 1967 football game — to integrate Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, once an all-white venue.
After moving to Houston in the mid-1970s to become head coach of Texas Southern University, Paige pivoted from the playing field to the classroom and education — first as a teacher, and then as administrator and eventually the dean of its college of education from 1984 to 1994.
Amid growing public recognition of his pursuit of educational excellence, Paige rose to become superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, then one of the largest school districts in the country.
He quickly drew the attention of Texas’ most powerful politicians for his sweeping educational reforms in the diverse Texas city. Most notably, he moved to implement stricter metrics for student outcomes, something that became a central point for Bush’s 2000s bid for president. Bush — who later would dub himself the “Education President” — frequently praised Paige on the campaign trail for the Houston reforms he called the “Texas Miracle.”
And once Bush won election, he tapped Paige to be the nation’s top education official.
As education secretary from 2001 to 2005, Paige emphasized his belief that high expectations were essential for childhood development.
“The easiest thing to do is assign them a nice little menial task and pat them on the head,” he told the Washington Post at the time. “And that is precisely what we don’t need. We need to assign high expectations to those people, too. In fact, that may be our greatest gift: expecting them to achieve, and then supporting them in their efforts to achieve.”
While some educators applauded the law for standardizing expectations regardless of student race or income, others complained for years about what they consider a maze of redundant and unnecessary tests and too much “teaching to the test” by educators.
In 2015, House and Senate lawmakers agreed to pull back many provisions from “No Child Left Behind,” shrinking the Education Department’s role in setting testing standards and preventing the federal agency from sanctioning schools that fail to improve. That year, then-President Barack Obama signed the sweeping education law overhaul, ushering in a new approach to accountability, teacher evaluations and the way the most poorly performing schools are pushed to improve.
After serving as education secretary, Paige returned to Jackson State University a half century after he was a student there, serving as the interim president in 2016 at the age of 83.
Into his 90s, Paige still publicly expressed deep concern, and optimism, about the future of U.S. education. In an opinion piece appearing in the Houston Chronicle in 2024, Paige lifted up the city that helped propel him to national prominence, urging readers to “look to Houston not just for inspiration, but for hard-won lessons about what works, what doesn’t and what it takes to shake up a stagnant system.”
World
Baltic presidents warn of Russian infrastructure attack plans
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Russia is planning attacks on critical infrastructure in the Baltic states or Poland, Lithuanian and Latvian presidents warned on Wednesday, citing intelligence reports.
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“We are talking about energy and transport infrastructur, facilities where damage could… disrupt the functioning of the entire energy system,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said at a joint press conference in Vilnius with his Latvian counterpart, Edgars Rinkevics.
“This planning is taking place at the highest level, effectively in Moscow,” he added.
Rinkevics warned that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, all EU and NATO members, must be prepared for provocative actions by Russia as it seeks to “test” the alliance’s mutual defence pact amid its war in Ukraine.
“Even without a total Ukrainian victory, Russia may indirectly test Article 5 and response mechanisms at the alliance and European Union levels,” he said.
In late June, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a press conference “various types of escalation can be expected in the coming weeks and months”, calling the situation “very unstable”.
Baltic and Polish officials have already linked Russia to several incidents including arson, cyberattacks and diversions on railway lines.
The Lithuanian president said his country had strengthened protection of its transport and energy infrastructure in response to the threats.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov disputed the claims.
“This is just another fresh batch of scare stories designed to keep the brainwashing going and prepare the population for further militarisation,” he said.
Located along the Baltic Sea and bordering Russia and its close ally, Belarus, Lithuania has been a key ally to Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Lithuania is NATO’s highest security spender in relative terms, allocating 5.33%of its GDP to defence.
World
FBI snares an American heir indicted for allegedly bankrolling anti-cop, pro-Hamas communist revolution
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The Justice Department and FBI have a new communist financier in their crosshairs for alleged financial crimes: James “Fergie” Cox Chambers Jr., the estranged bad-boy heir to the Cox cable empire.
On Friday, Spanish police detained Chambers on the luxury island of Ibiza, in response to an international arrest warrant, according to sources. Chambers is allegedly wanted for money laundering and providing support to Hamas, following years of financing anti-Israel and anti-West organizations and protests. The transnational network he helped fund and support is kicking in to cast him as a victim of the Trump administration’s “fascism,” while critics are cheering the arrest as long overdue.
A spokesman for Spain’s Balearic Islands police branch, which includes Ibiza in its jurisdiction, told Fox News Digital that a U.S. citizen was arrested on charges tied to an international arrest warrant Friday under an international arrest warrant seeking his extradition to the United States. The spokesman did not confirm the identity of the citizen, but sources told Fox News Digital that the individual is Chambers.
Fergie Chambers poses for pictures in Tunis, Tunisia, on Feb. 8, 2024. (Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto)
FBI SAYS NEW MISSION CENTER HAS IDENTIFIED ‘NEFARIOUS’ PROTEST FUNDING AND SUBJECTS
The police spokesman added that the individual is being held at the central jail in Ibiza pending a judicial decision that will be conducted by videoconference. Supporters now plan a “Free Fergie Chambers” protest on Tuesday at 7 p.m. outside the prison in Ibiza, demonstrating against “DEL FASCISMO DE TRUMP,” or the “TRUMP’S FASCISM IN PERSECUTING DEFENDERS OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.”
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment. Chambers and his representatives couldn’t be reached for comment.
A convert to Islam, Chambers represents the fusion of socialist and communist activists with Islamist interests that seek the destruction of the West, free enterprise and the state of Israel and the rise of political Islam, communism and a new Palestinian state.
General view of Centro Penitenciario de Ibiza, in Ibiza, Spain, Tuesday, July 14, 2026. (Photo for Fox News Digital)
Chambers’ ideological comrades leaked news of the detention to trusted colleagues on far-left media platforms – some of which Chambers funds – and his communist, socialist and Islamist comrades are flooding social media to frame the narrative around the arrest as the Trump administration unfairly targeting Chambers.
The arrest is a significant move by the Trump administration as it targets far-left financiers allegedly engaged in supporting political violence. In this case, as in other investigations, federal authorities are following the money and investigating potential tax and financial crimes.
FBI Co-Deputy Director Chris Raia recently told Fox News Digital that investigators at the FBI’s Joint Mission Center have identified subjects tied to financing violent protest activity and have been building prosecutable cases.
General view of Centro Penitenciario de Ibiza, in Ibiza, Spain, Tuesday, July 14, 2026. (Photo for Fox News Digital)
Like Neville Roy Singham, the American tech tycoon accused of financing communist and far-left nonprofit organizations from his base in Shanghai, China, Chambers has made a name for himself as a financial backer of anti-Israel and anti-American causes around the world. As reported exclusively at Fox News Digital, the Justice Department has launched a grand jury investigation into Singham for alleged money laundering and other financial improprieties. It is currently prosecuting the Southern Poverty Law Center for alleged money laundering, bank fraud and wire fraud.
DOJ LAUNCHES GRAND JURY PROBE INTO MARXIST MOGUL NEVILLE ROY SINGHAM’S FUNDING OF LEFTIST GROUPS
Fergie Chambers walks near a mosque in Tunis, Tunisia, on Feb. 8, 2024. (Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto)
Fergie Chambers walks near a mosque in Tunis, Tunisia, on Feb. 8, 2024. (Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto)
Fergie Chambers performs the Muslim prayer in Tunis, Tunisia, on Feb. 8, 2024. (Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto)
Fergie Chambers smokes a cigarette while posing for photos in Tunis, Tunisia. (Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto)
Chambers was born in 1985 in Brooklyn as James Cox Chambers Jr. to his father, James Cox Chambers, and mother, actress Lauren Hamilton. He is the great-grandson of James M. Cox, a former Ohio governor, 1920 Democratic presidential nominee and founder of the media company that became Cox Enterprises. Forbes estimates the Cox family empire is worth about $27 billion.
Chambers is now the estranged heir of Cox Enterprises, walking away from the family company in 2023 with a payout estimated at about $250 million after a falling out with his family over the company’s support for Atlanta’s controversial public safety training center, known by critics as “Cop City.” In April, a grand jury indicted three alleged Antifa-linked protesters accused of throwing firebombs at the general contractor of the Atlanta police training center.
Protestors rush a police line during a demonstration against the so-called “Cop City” training facility in Atlanta, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. (Mike Stewart/AP Photo)
Chambers openly redirected his fortune into communist collectives, bail and legal underwriting and groups engaged in hard-edged protest and property disruption.
Raised mostly in Brooklyn after his parents divorced, Chambers attended Saint Ann’s School and later enrolled at Bard College but didn’t graduate. He briefly worked for a Cox Enterprises subsidiary before operating gyms in Georgia and later became increasingly involved in left-wing activism following the anti-police protests in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 and the demonstrations in Standing Rock, S.D., in 2016 against an oil pipeline.
Around 2019, Chambers established the “Berkshire Communists” collective in Alford, Mass., in a wealthy corner of western Massachusetts, where he built a commune, operated the Berkshire People’s Gym and launched a publication called “Combat Liberalism.”
THREE ALLEGED ANTIFA-LINKED PROTESTERS INDICTED IN ATLANTA POLICE TRAINING CENTER CONTRACTOR FIREBOMBING
Police detain Palestine Action activists at the entrance of APCO Worldwide offices in London, where the building is covered in red paint, on Sept. 3, 2024. (Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu)
Following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, Chambers became one of the most prominent financial backers of “Palestine Action,” later renamed “Unity of Fields,” while also funding legal defense efforts for activists involved in anti-Israel demonstrations and direct-action campaigns in the United Kingdom and the U.S.
He praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks as a “moment of hope and inspiration,” told Mother Jones that “the most important thing for the prosperity of humanity is the destruction of the US” and said, “I chant death to America every day.”
Local and national reporting place him behind the “Stop Cop City” opposition, bail after occupations and protests against Elbit Systems, a company that provides services to Israel, in Merrimack, N.H., and the U.K., and ongoing legal support for networks in the U.S. and U.K. led by the controversial “Palestine Action.”
Communist tattoos are visible on Fergie Chambers’ hands and fingers while he sits in a cafe in Tunis, Tunisia, on Feb. 8, 2024. (Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto)
After Alford, Mass., shut his Berkshire People’s Gym for zoning violations and law-enforcement scrutiny intensified, Chambers relocated to Tunis, in the North African nation of Tunisia.
In early February 2024, Chambers was photographed in his newly adopted city of Tunis in the North African nation of Tunisia, framing his narrative as a pious Muslim convert, with a red-and-white Palestinian kefiyyeh scarf draped over his shoulders, a black Muslim prayer cap on his head and a small beard on his face, a tradition that follows the sunnah, or practice, of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.
The photo shoot included images of Chambers in Muslim prayer, at one point with his hands on his chest and at another point in “ruku” position, bent forward with his hands on his knees, staring at a point of concentration in front of him. In other shots, he walked by a local mosque, sat behind the wheel of a car with orange and green Muslim prayer beads, called “tazbi,” hanging on the rearview mirror. A pair of decorative boxing gloves with “RUSSIA” across the wrists, positioned on a red-and-white kefiyyeh spread along the dashboard.
Fergie Chambers walks his dogs in Tunis, Tunisia, on Feb. 8, 2024. (Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto)
Unconventional for traditional Muslims, who don’t often have dogs as pets because of a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that bars dogs as pets in the home, Chambers also was photographed smoking a cigarette and walking on the beach with two small dogs who look like bulldogs. He also wore tattoos, including a sickle-and-barbells on his left hand.
By May 2026, his social media posts placed him in Ireland. This month, the self-declared communist vacationed among the wealthy in Ibiza, is now sitting in prison.
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World
US says latest Iran strike wave over, IRGC claims damage to US Naval HQ
Iran’s bridges, power plants possible targets, Trump says, adding that strikes on Iran will continue until he says.
Published On 15 Jul 2026
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