Iran seized two foreign oil tankers in the Persian Gulf Thursday, accusing them of smuggling fuel and detaining 15 foreign crew members ahead of high-stakes U.S.–Iran talks Friday in Oman.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy said it intercepted the two ships near Farsi Island, claiming they were carrying about 1 million liters of smuggled fuel, Reuters reported.

The crews, made up of 15 foreign nationals, were taken into custody and referred to Iran’s judicial authorities, according to Iranian state media.

The IRGC alleged the vessels were part of an organized fuel-smuggling network that had been operating in the region for several months.

Iranian officials said the ships were identified through intelligence monitoring and seized during coordinated naval operations in the Persian Gulf, a vital artery for global energy markets.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Iranian authorities framed the operation as a significant blow to illegal fuel trafficking, though they did not immediately disclose the vessels’ nationalities or destinations.

The seizures come as Iranian rhetoric toward the U.S. has grown hostile.

Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former Iranian minister and ex–state broadcaster chief, issued a warning, threatening violence in the Strait of Hormuz, through which around one-fifth of the world’s oil and petroleum product consumption passes.

‘I am sure that the Strait of Hormuz will be the place of massacre and hell for the U.S.,’ Zarghami said Thursday.

‘Iran will show that the Strait of Hormuz has historically belonged to Iran. The only thing the Americans can think of is playing with their vessels and moving them from one place to another.’

Zarghami later repeated the threat, calling the Strait a potential ‘killing field’ for American forces and signaling Iran’s willingness to escalate amid mounting regional pressure.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are scheduled to meet Iranian officials in Oman Friday.

The pair are traveling from Abu Dhabi after two days of talks related to Russia and Ukraine.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Thursday that Friday’s talks were still on, stating ‘diplomacy is always [Trump’s] first option.’

War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that some cartel drug traffickers operating in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility have halted narcotics activity following recent U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean.

‘WINNING: Some top cartel drug-traffickers in the @SOUTHCOM AOR have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean,’ Hegsth wrote in a post on X.

Hegseth credited President Donald Trump with directing the military actions, calling the effort a lifesaving deterrent.

‘This is deterrence through strength. @POTUS is SAVING American lives,’ he wrote.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina praised the military action, writing on X, ‘Well done @SecWar and to all under your command. We must continue to verify and monitor. We can’t trust drug cartels.’

The Trump administration has been pursuing a policy of conducting deadly attacks against vessels of alleged ‘narco-terrorists.’

SOUTHCOM announced a strike that killed two on Thursday.

‘On Feb. 5, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Two narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,’ Southern Command noted in a post on X.

The film ‘Melania,’ a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump, made nearly $8 million on its opening weekend, making it the highest-grossing documentary in a decade. It’s a huge win for the first lady and a crushing defeat for those rooting against her.

The director of ‘Melania,’ Brett Ratner, has previously helmed Hollywood blockbusters such as ‘Rush Hour’ and ‘X-Men: The Last Stand.’ The fact that Ratner is already an established brand in Hollywood is noteworthy. During the first Trump term, it would have been unlikely that a Hollywood director would take a chance on a documentary about Melania Trump. Ratner still took a risk making the film, because Hollywood is traditionally lockstep on politics and quick to cut off anyone who steps outside the line. It’s easier to make a film like this in 2026 than it was in 2017, but only marginally so.

The film is a soft-focus look at Melania Trump’s life as first lady, offering a glossy, feel-good glance into what people normally don’t get to see inside the private first lady’s life. Still, it wouldn’t have mattered what was in the film — the media would have hated it anyway.

The reviews in the mainstream press aren’t so much scathing as personal. Variety called the film a ‘cheeseball infomercial of staggering inertia,’ while The Guardian noted it was ‘dispiriting, deadly and unrevealing’ and ‘unredeemable.’

In the film, it’s true we see Melania in her beautiful outfits and flawless makeup, but we also see her as the woman behind the man.

In one scene in the film, Melania advises the president to include the word ‘unifier’ in his inaugural speech. On Jan. 20, as he said the words, ‘My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier,’ the president turned around to look at his wife. Of course, Melania wants her husband to be both a peacemaker and a unifier. She is rooting for him to succeed because it helps us all. A vicious media refuses to concede that she may want what is best for the country.

The film portrays a marriage where the first lady cares about her husband, worrying about his security on Inauguration Day and expressing relief when festivities are moved indoors. This portrayal flies in the face of the frequent commentary claiming the marriage is in name only. Why would the first lady care about her husband’s safety if she’s only in the union for glory or money? The New York Times counted how many days Melania has spent in the White House during this term, and Trump biographer Michael Wolff has claimed, without evidence, that they are separated. This film answers those accusations and rumors directly, in Melania’s own words.

In a 2018 interview with ABC, Melania was asked about her marriage and said, ‘I know people like to speculate and media like to speculate about our marriage. It’s not always pleasant, of course. But I know what is right and what is wrong and what is true or not true.’

She does, and she shows it in this film.

On the review site Rotten Tomatoes, the film ‘Melania’ is setting another kind of record: the largest discrepancy between the scores of film reviewers and filmgoers in the site’s history. It makes sense, since most of the reviewers went into the film with a rating in mind, whether or not they actually enjoyed the movie. The people who spent their money to go watch their first lady on the screen were going to be more honest, even if some were swayed by their enthusiasm for their president.

The media has three more years of the Trump administration and Melania Trump. They can stop having outbursts about the first lady and give her a fair hearing — something more than half the country would commend. Or they can continue to descend into irrelevance, as everyone knows even their panning of a film will be political. The choice is theirs.

Alleged fraud schemes plaguing Minnesota’s social services systems have elevated scrutiny surrounding childcare centers. 

But fraud can be challenging to identify for states – especially when agencies are using outdated systems that make it difficult to spot trends and red flags that could point to potential fraud, according to Chris Bennett, the CEO and founder of a Wonderschool, a platform that provides technology support to child care providers and states. 

‘When you have all this data living in different place, it’s really difficult for a state to identify where there is risk and where there is fraud,’ Bennett recently told Fox News Digital during an interview. ‘Additionally, a lot of states are using pen and paper still to collect information. So it makes it really difficult for an administrator and the administrator’s team to go through all of that and make sure that they’re keeping up with things on a regular basis.’

Streamlining systems is key to identifying any atypical trends in billing behavior and attendance data that could point to fraud, Bennett said.

‘The best practice is moving to a modern system, moving to a system where all of the data is in one place and it’s all connected,’ Bennett said. ‘So you can use that to identify risk, flag unusual patterns early, and then have humans go and investigate. Oversight should support child care providers, not punish them.’ 

To help do this, Bennett spearheaded Wonderschool Oversight in January – building upon Wonderschool’s existing partnerships with states including Florida, Michigan and Illinois – that aims to centralize state agencies’ program data to evaluate enrollment, attendance, billing and licensing information in the same place. 

Having this information in one spot allows for Wonderschool Oversight to flag unusual patterns that could require human review, Bennett said.

‘For example, we can analyze daily attendance data to flag cases where billed attendance exceeds recorded attendance,’ Bennett said. ‘We review billing behavior for anomalies — such as sudden spikes in billing corrections — which can indicate potential issues. Or, in another example, we compare reported attendance against licensed capacity, age-band limits, and required staffing ratios to surface possible regulatory or safety violations.’ 

Childcare fraud has come under a microscope after right-wing influencer Nick Shirley shared a video in December detailing alleged fraud involving Minnesota childcare and learning centers. 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced in January that it would put a hold on access to some federal childcare and family assistance funding for five states – including Minnesota – due to ‘serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in state-administered programs.’ 

Days later, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from halting the funding freeze for at least two weeks. Fox News Digital reached out to HHS for comment. 

That’s not the only alleged fraud scheme the state is facing. Lawmakers have spearheaded investigations into Minnesota’s alleged ‘Feeding Our Future’ $250 million fraud scheme that allegedly targeted a children’s nutrition program the Department of Agriculture funded and that Minnesota oversaw during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At least 77 people have been charged in that scheme, which took advantage of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to waive certain Federal Child Nutrition Program requirements.

Likewise, another alleged fraud scheme in the state stems from the Housing Stability Services Program, which allegedly offered Medicaid coverage for housing stabilization services in an attempt to help those with disabilities, mental illnesses and substance-use disorders receive housing.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who criss-crossed the country last year on a ‘Fight Oligarchy’ tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., spent over $550,000 in 2025 on private jet travel for himself using campaign funds, a Fox News Digital review of Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings found.

The majority of the spending came in the first two quarters, which cover up until July. That is also when Sanders and AOC had the majority of their tour stops across the country. 

In April, between stops on the tour, Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a photo of Sanders boarding a luxury Bombardier Challenger private jet at the Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California. The source also indicated that they had spotted the New York congresswoman boarding the private jet as well. 

The pair were subsequently also seen in footage obtained by Fox News Digital exiting the plane in Sacramento later that evening, near where the self-identified Democratic socialists hosted a second rally in one day.  

The Bombardier Challenger private jet the pair flew on was operated by Ventura Air Services, which touts ‘one of the widest cabins of any business jet available today’ and provides ‘superior cabin comfort for its passengers.’ According to their website, the private jet can cost up to $15,000 an hour.

In 2025, according to Sanders’ FEC filings, he spent at least $354,000 in campaign funds to pay for private jet services through Ventura Jets. The other private jet companies Sanders spent campaign funds on included N-Jet and Cirrus Aviation Services. 

According to N-Jet’s website, the company pieds itself on their ‘personal touch,’ adding that customers will ‘arrive in style with your luxury, comfort, and safety always top of mind.’

Sanders, who has been a vocal supporter of the Green New Deal, the aggressive climate change policy targeting carbon emissions and fossil fuel production, and has called climate change an ‘existential threat’ to the world, was pressed about his private jet use last year, prompting him to tell Fox News’ ‘Special Report’ host Bret Baier that ‘that’s the only way to get around.’

‘You run a campaign, and you do three or four or five rallies in a week. [It is] the only way you can get around to talk to 30,000 people. You think I’m gonna be sitting on a waiting line at United…while 30, 000 people are waiting?’ Sanders said.

‘That’s the only way to get around. No apologies for that. That’s what campaign travel is about. We’ve done it in the past. We’re gonna do it in future.’

Sanders has a long history of using private jets on the campaign trail. During his failed 2020 presidential campaign, the Sanders campaign spent over $1.9 million on private jets, including Apollo Jets and the Advanced Aviation Team, a Virginia-based private jet company.

Private jets have faced the ire of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s fellow climate activists. According to the 2021 Transport and Environment report, private jets are up to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes.

‘For real, how many private jets do these CEOs need? It is insatiable. It is unacceptable,’ Ocasio-Cortez said in 2023, in one example of the New York congresswoman herself railing against private jets. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Sanders’ office and his campaign for comment on the spending but did not receive a response in time for publication.

‘You don’t expect a socialist to fly commercial do you?’ quipped conservative political communications consultant Matt Gorman. ‘There’s no bigger hypocrite than the liberal who chastises us for eating meat and using gas stoves, yet flies in private jets.’ 

In addition to Sanders’ hefty private jet spending that came during his tour with AOC, the New York Democratic socialist also spent big sums of campaign dollars at luxury and ’boutique’ hotels in states where the pair held their ‘Fight Oligarchy’ Tour. 

For example, AOC’s campaign paidThe Leo Kent Hotel, a boutique high-rise in Tucson, $3,165.76, around the time of a ‘Fight Oligarchy’ rally that was held there, according to an FEC filing from April 25. In 2025, AOC also spent thousands at luxury hotels like the Asher Adams Hotel in Salt Lake City, the Hotel Vermont in Burlington, The Langham-Huntington hotel in Pasadena, Calif., Hotel El Convento in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Lansdowne Resort & Spa in rural Virginia, and more. 

Fox News Digital asked representatives for AOC if the congresswoman felt like she needed to explain her more than $53,000 in campaign spending on upscale hotels across the country in 2025, but did not receive a response.

Fox News Digital’s Cameron Cawthorne, Andrew Mark Miller and Deirdre Heavey (formerly) contributed to this report.