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Trump-backed candidate Asfura wins Honduras presidential election

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Trump-backed candidate Asfura wins Honduras presidential election

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Nasry Asfura has won the 2025 Honduras presidential election, delivering victory for the right-of-center National Party of Honduras (PNH) and shifting the political landscape of Central America. 

The 40.3% to 39.5% result in favor of Asfura over Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla arrived after the vote-counting process had been delayed for days by technical glitches and claims by other candidates of vote-rigging. Rixi Moncada, the candidate of the ruling LIBRE party, came in a distant third.

The results of the race were so tight and the ballot processing system was so chaotic, that about 15% of the tally sheets, which accounted for hundreds of thousands of ballots, had to be counted by hand to determine the winner.

Two electoral council members and one deputy approved the results despite disputes over the razor-thin difference in the vote. A third council member, Marlon Ocha, was not in a video declaring the winner.

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TRUMP PLANS ‘FULL AND COMPLETE PARDON’ FOR FORMER HONDURAN PRESIDENT CONVICTED OF DRUG TRAFFICKING

Tito Asfura defeats Salvador Nasralla and Rixi Moncada after President Trump’s repeated endorsements (AP)

“Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down,” Asfura said on X after the results were confirmed.

The head of the Honduran Congress, though, rejected the results and described them as an “electoral coup.”

“This is completely outside the law,” Congress President Luis Redondo of the LIBRE party said on X. “It has no value.”

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Asfura on X, saying the U.S. “looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”

Initially, preliminary results on Monday showed Asfura, 67, had won 41% of the ballot, inching him ahead of Nasralla, 72, who had around 39%.

THE RESULTS ARE IN: 2025’S BIGGEST WINNER AND LOSERS FROM THE OFF-YEAR ELECTIONS

President Donald Trump gestures to supporters during an election night watch party at the State Fairgrounds Feb. 24, 2024. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, the website set up to share vote tallies with the public experienced technical problems and crashed, according to The Associated Press.

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With the candidates only having 515 votes between them, a virtual tie and site crash saw President Trump share a post on Truth Social.

“Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election,” he wrote. “If they do, there will be hell to pay!”

By Thursday, Asfura had 40.05%, about 8,000 votes ahead of Nasralla, who had 39.75%, according to Reuters, with the latter then calling for an investigation.

“I publicly denounce that today, at 3:24 a.m., the screen went dark and an algorithm, similar to the one used in 2013, changed the data,” Nasralla wrote on social media, adding 1,081,000 votes for his party were transferred to Asfura, while 1,073,000 votes for Asfura’s National Party were attributed to him.

FORMER MISS VENEZUELA BLAMES ‘SOCIALISM AND OPEN BORDERS’ FOR HER COUNTRY’S DEVASTATING COLLAPSE

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Rixi Moncada, LIBRE’s candidate, is a prominent lawyer, financier and former minister of national defense. (Associated Press )

Asfura, nicknamed “Tito,” is a former mayor of Tegucigalpa and had entered the race with a reputation for leadership and focus on infrastructure, public order and efficiency.

His win ended a polarized campaign season, with one of the defining moments of the contest being Asfura’s endorsement by Trump.

“If he [Asfura] doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Nov. 28.

Before the start of voting Nov. 29, Trump also said he would pardon former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who once led the same party as Asfura. Hernandez is serving a 45-year sentence for helping drug traffickers.

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VENEZUELAN NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER MARÍA CORINA MACHADO DEDICATES AWARD TO TRUMP FOR ‘DECISIVE SUPPORT’

Nasralla is a high-profile television personality turned politician. (Associated Press )

In the end, the election saw the defeat of centrist former vice president of Honduras, Nasralla and left-wing Moncada, 60, who served under President Xiomara Castro. 

Moncada, a prominent lawyer, financier and former minister of national defense, focused on institutional reform and social equity.

Nasralla, a high-profile television personality turned politician, mobilized a base but fell short of converting his popularity into a winning coalition.  

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He was focusing on cleaning up Honduran corruption. The Honduran presidential race was also impacted by accusations of fraud.

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In addition to electing a new president, Hondurans voted for a new Congress and hundreds of local positions.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Miley Cyrus, Jisoo, Sabrina Carpenter, Al Pacino and More Photos from the Dior Cruise Show in Los Angeles

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Miley Cyrus, Jisoo, Sabrina Carpenter, Al Pacino and More Photos from the Dior Cruise Show in Los Angeles

Jonathan Anderson gathered some of Hollywood’s most famous faces for the front row at his Dior Cruise Collection 2027 fashion show at Los Angeles’ LACMA on Wednesday night.

Spotted taking their seats underneath the new David Geffen Galleries were Miley Cyrus, Sabrina Carpenter, Al Pacino, Jisoo of Blackpink, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jeff Goldblum, Tracee Ellis Ross, Role Model, Grace Gummer, Dominic Fike, Miranda Kerr, Mikey Madison, Paul W. Downs, Leslie Mann, Miles Teller, Macaulay Culkin and Bill Pullman.

Guests entered LACMA through a simple entrance on Wilshire Boulevard lined on both sides by gaggles of photographers (some were apparently extras hired to act like shutterbugs). Inside, there were large stone-like step-and-repeats for more photos. Attendees were gifted Dior blankets at their seats as well as a mock script titled “Wilshire Boulevard” starring Anderson explaining the show’s noir theme and looks.

An after-party took place at Chateau Marmont.

Miley Cyrus told me she was grateful Anderson chose her hometown for the event. “I love that they came to L.A.,” she said. “That’s the best part.”

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Of her all-denim look, the Grammy winner said, “What I love about L.A. is that it’s casual, so just stopping by to enjoy. Not overdone.”

Meanwhile, following the success of her “Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special,” I asked Cyrus if a reboot of the Disney Channel sitcom was in the works. “I don’t know about all that,” she said, smiling.

Cyrus cracked, “You always get me in trouble.”

Cyrus has credited my question about her possible plans to mark the two-decade milestone earlier in the year that prompted her and Disney to develop the special.

Tracee Ellis Ross also said she was “so pleased” the show took place in Los Angeles: “I don’t have to get on a plane.”

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See all the best celebrity looks at the Dior fashion show below.

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Non-Jewish professor says he was fired for calling out Hamas supporters in online post

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Non-Jewish professor says he was fired for calling out Hamas supporters in online post

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A non-Jewish Canadian professor says he was fired from his university for defending Israel in a social media post as antisemitism exploded across Canada following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

Paul Finlayson told Fox News Digital that he lost his job at Canada’s University of Guelph-Humber after taking a strong stance online about the massacre and kidnapping of Israelis and foreigners — including Americans and Canadians.

Finlayson responded in November of 2023 to a LinkedIn message from an overseas educator who he said was “calling for the eradication of Israel.” Though the author later deleted his post and all corresponding comments, the National Post quoted from Finlayson’s response in a December 2023 article.

“If you say ‘from the River to the Sea’, you’re a Nazi,” Finlayson wrote. “I’m not neutral. I stand with Israel. I stand against antisemites who want nothing but dead Jews: who take millions from their education and health care budgets and spend it on making war…You stand with Palestine means you stand with Hitler. You don’t want peace, you want dead Jews…They murdered 1,400 innocents and took 250 hostages and the people celebrated rapist monsters as heroes.”

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RECORD ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS IN CANADA FUEL CRITICISM OF CARNEY GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

Paul Finlayson says he lost his job after taking a strong stance online against the Hamas terror attacks on Israel. (Paul Finlayson )

Since the post, Finlayson says he has faced a targeted campaign against him which has affected his professional standing and job prospects. 

Finlayson said that students at the school found his LinkedIn reply before the post’s author erased the thread, leading to outcry. While meeting with a student in his office on Nov. 27, Finlayson said an administrator waited outside, eventually presenting him with a suspension letter.

A copy of the suspension letter, provided by Finlayson, cites “inappropriate online comments” and places the professor “on leave pending the outcome of the investigation.” It directed Finlayson not to contact “any of your departmental staff or students or broader members of the [university].”

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Finlayson said he was “very well-liked” by students, who ranked him among the highest in the business department faculty. He said that rumors about the accusations against him destroyed his academic reputation, which included formulating courses and writing textbooks.

“My trial has been by defamation, and it continues by defamation,” Finlayson said of the “Kafkaesque” situation that ensued.

FEDERAL PROBE CLAIMS UNIVERSITIES ARE ‘LEGITIMIZING AND AMPLIFYING ANTISEMITISM’

Anti-Israel protesters hold antisemitic posters in Edmonton, Alberta, on April 13, 2025. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto)

He says that his union, OPSEU Local 562, refused to represent him. The union did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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Finlayson was officially fired by the university in July 2025. He provided a copy of his termination letter, which stated that after a “formal complaint of discrimination and harassment,” an investigator found that his “conduct violated the Ontario Human Rights Code and Humber’s Human Rights and Harassment Policy, and that [he] engaged in reprisal under both of those instruments.”

The Humber harassment policy states that “anyone who attempts Reprisal or threatens Reprisal against a person who initiates a complaint or participates in proceedings under this Policy may be subject to disciplinary action.”

The same policy says that “Humber upholds and supports the right to equal treatment without Discrimination” based on prohibited grounds, which include antisemitism.

CANADA’S ANTISEMITISM ENVOY RESIGNS, CITING EXHAUSTION AMID HATE SURGE

Temple Emanu-El in Toronto was shot at on March 3, 2026. No injuries were reported. (Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

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The University of Guelph-Humber did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about Finlayson’s suspension, investigation and firing, and about whether anti-Israel posts shared by its students and a professor at the University violate the Humber Human Rights and Harassment Policy.

The University of Guelph’s “UofGforPalestine” Instagram page, which presents itself as the account of “students, staff, and faculty who stand in solidarity with Palestine,” has shared posts with the inverted red triangle that Hamas uses to mark targets. Like the U.S., Canada designates Hamas as a terror group.

In November 2024, the group shared photos on its Instagram account of a guillotine that “appeared on a walking path” in Guelph, which featured photos of the heads of Canadian, American and Israeli leaders coated in red paint. Though purported to be an “anonymous submission,” the post notes its “message” as “Death to empire, death to colonialism and imperialism, death to the war machine.”

The University of Guelph Humber in Ontario, Canada.  (Google Maps)

A University of Guelph-Humber professor whom Finlayson believes brought the case against him has posted inflammatory rhetoric on his own LinkedIn account, calling Israel a “terrorist state,” and stating that the world “cannot have both” peace and Israel.

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The professor did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

While Finlayson lost his position, elsewhere in Canada, activism led to starkly different circumstances for three staffers at York University, who were among 11 individuals charged with “hate-motivated mischief” in Nov 2023 for plastering a bookstore with photos accusing a Jewish CEO of genocide, and splashing the store with red paint, as reported by the National Post.

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Though they were initially suspended from the school, at least two staff members appear to have current profiles on the York University website. One, a professor, most recently taught courses at the school in the Winter 2026 semester. York University did not respond to requests for comment about its restoration of staff members’ roles.

Since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, antisemitism has exploded in Canada. In April, B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights released a report showing that 6,800 antisemitic incidents took place in the country in 2025, representing a 9.4% increase over 2024. On average, this represented 18.6 incidents a day and was the “highest volume” the group has recorded since it began tracking incidents.

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Russia’s prison population falls by 180,000 since start of Ukraine war

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Russia’s prison population falls by 180,000 since start of Ukraine war

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The number of prisoners in Russia has dropped by more than 180,000 over five years, in part driven by Moscow sending convicts to fight in Ukraine, Russia’s prison chief said on Thursday.

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In four years of war, Russia has offered prisoners army contracts to fight in Ukraine and buy out their sentences, should they survive.

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Russia, which has a massive prison network inherited from Soviet labour camps, has one of the world’s largest convict populations, though that number has been decreasing in the last 20 years.

“If at the end of 2021 there were 465,000 (prisoners), then now there are 282,000,” the head of Russia’s penitentiary service, Arkady Gostev, said, according to the TASS state news agency.

That represents a drop of nearly 40%.

Around 85,000 of the current prison population is held in pre-trial detention, he added.

Gostev said the decline was in part driven by the army’s recruitment drive, but also due to more suspended sentences and other forms of punishment handed out.

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Prisoners returning from the Ukraine front have led to an increase in crime and social tension in Russia.

Gostev also said thousands of prisoners were working on production sites in support of the army, contributing to the country’s wartime economy.

Russian prisoners are often made to work, in a system inherited from the Soviet Gulag.

“Over the course of the year, we had additionally deployed 16,000 inmates for these (army) purposes, specifically for manufacturing,” TASS quoted Gostev as saying.

“We produce goods for the special military operation (worth) around 5.5 billion rubles (€64 million),” he said, using Moscow’s term for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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“The volume of production (at prison sites) in 2025 amounted to 47 billion rubles (€548 million),” he said, without elaborating how much of it was for army needs.

Russia has experienced a shortage of workers during its offensive, with hundreds of thousands of men at the front and a similar amount fleeing the country due to mobilisation.

Additional sources • AFP

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