The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) opened an investigation into former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allegedly decapitating a dead whale 20 years ago, Fox News Digital confirmed.

The controversy arose in August after Kennedy’s daughter, Kick Kennedy, shared in a resurfaced 2012 Town and Country interview that her father once beheaded a washed up whale with a chainsaw. According to an interview with the outlet, he reportedly attached the whale’s head to his car and drove it to New York. 

However, Kick Kennedy described the event as just an average day for her family.

‘Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,’ she told the outlet. ‘We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.’

When asked about the incident, the agency told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that it is ‘long-standing NOAA practice not to comment on open investigations.’

Kennedy made the initial assertion that he was under federal investigation for the decades-old incident during a campaign event for former President Donald Trump on Saturday.

The former presidential candidate-turned-Trump ally told rally goers that the investigation was a ‘weaponization of our government against political opponents.’

The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund called on the NOAA to investigate the events described by Kennedy’s daughter just days after he suspended his presidential bid to join forces with Trump in August.

The group, which endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024, claimed that Kennedy violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, as whales remain protected under those laws.

A conservative watchdog group launched a Freedom of Information Act probe against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeking documents relating to the situation that has left two U.S. astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) for several more months.

The Oversight Project’s executive director told Fox News Digital on Monday he and his group have legally sought emails between NASA political appointees and the White House, including the office of Vice President Harris, who also holds the title of chair of the National Space Council.

The filing by Mike Howell, head of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, also demands outgoing emails to Harris’ presidential campaign. Just as Harris was tasked with assuaging the root causes of illegal immigration as the so-called border czar, her role as vice president makes her essentially the lead adviser on space policy in that regard.

‘This looks like to me and other experts that Kamala Harris, the space czar, chose politics over our astronauts,’ Howell said, inferring that there may have been a political calculation against bringing astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams home as planned.

‘It’s very bizarre that the mainstream media seems not to care about this massive scandal. We’re going to continue to investigate this and get Americans the answers they deserve.’

The National Space Council (NSpC) had originally been organized in a slightly different manner under former President George H.W. Bush before it was disbanded and reorganized under former President Trump.

Trump himself unveiled the first new branch of the military in decades, the U.S. Space Force, at a 2018 NSpC meeting.

In its filing, the Oversight Project seeks to compel NASA to share correspondence from agency chief of staff Bale Dalton III, Associate Administrator James Free and five other senior officials. It also seeks communications between NASA and officials in the commercial crew program at Boeing, the company that manufactured the Starliner capsule that took Wilmore and Williams to the ISS this summer.

A source close to the matter pointed to the stipulated responsibilities of the NSpC chair, as outlined by Trump in his 2021 executive order establishing the council.

‘The Chair shall serve as the President’s principal advisor on national space policy and strategy …’ the first stipulation reads.

The chair of the NSpC, therefore, has substantive advisory authority over NASA’s decision-making, the source said.

In an August press briefing, a NASA official said there was a ‘little disagreement in terms of the level of risk’ between the agency and Boeing after the capsule suffered propulsion issues and elemental leaks. Ultimately, the Starliner craft safely returned to Earth unmanned on Sept. 7.

A few weeks prior, Boeing officials said in a statement they remained confident in Starliner’s ability to return safely with crew aboard: ‘We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities. Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA.’

‘The data also supports root cause assessments for the helium and thruster issues and flight rationale for Starliner and its crew’s return to Earth,’ the statement reads.

On X, formerly Twitter, Howell listed the curriculum vitae of a handful of NASA hires made while Harris has led the NSpC, including a veteran of New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, another from the Jacksonville Symphony and an individual whose ‘scientific’ major was ‘political science.’

‘Space is serious business. Kamala Harris obviously has no business running the National Space Council… They’re lost in space right now. Part of the reason they’re lost in space is that our NASA has been turned into another woke-DEI, dismal excuse for a government agency,’ he said.

Howell also shared a copy of a document showing ‘strategic objectives’ of the ‘NASA DEIA Strategic Plan.’ 

‘The fact is that Vice President Kamala Harris’ record as Border Czar is as awful as her record as Space Czar,’ Howell said Monday.

Howell said it is important that the public see any such correspondence of a political nature between NASA, the vice president’s camp and/or Boeing because other nations like China are watching for such ‘sign[s] of weakness.’

‘It seems that Harris signaled a willingness to cede America’s space superiority in the name of an effort to ‘save democracy,’’ he said, suggesting the DEIA priority may jeopardize national security. ‘When is enough, enough?’

The astronauts, however, took their extended trip in stride.

‘I love being in space. This is my happy place,’ Williams said.

Wilmore will miss his daughter’s final year of high school but notably requested his absentee ballot Friday so that he would be able to vote from orbit.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ governmental office and the Harris campaign but did not receive a response. 

In a response to Fox News Digital regarding the FOIA, a NASA spokesperson stated that Harris and NSpC staff ‘received frequent updates on the Starliner Crewed Flight Test.’

‘While the National Space Council works closely with civil, national security, commercial, and international partners to advance the nation’s space priorities, it does not make operational spaceflight safety recommendations or decisions,’ the spokesperson wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the current Republican governor of Arkansas and a former White House press secretary during the Trump administration, is ramping up her presence on the campaign trail for former President Donald Trump and is taking a more prominent role as a ‘top surrogate’ in the coming weeks. 

‘President Trump is a fighter, and nothing – not the political establishment, not political prosecution from the Left, not even two would-be assassins – can keep him from making America great again,’ Sanders told Fox News Digital. ‘The President Trump I know is going full-speed ahead, and I’m excited to join him on the campaign trail this week to speak directly to the American people.’

Sanders, the daughter of former presidential candidate and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, traveled to Ohio on Monday to campaign with Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno to meet with voters and attend fundraisers across the Buckeye State.

On Tuesday, two days after the former president survived an assassination attempt for the second time in two months, Sanders will be in Flint, Michigan, with Trump for a town hall event. 

Sanders will also be campaigning in Pennsylvania to help GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick unseat Democrat Sen. Bob Casey in a race that will have major implications on which party controls the Senate in November.

‘Our country is at a tipping point: four more years of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s failures, or four years of success with President Trump and a Republican-led Senate,’ Sanders said.

‘Our party is on a mission to return to the America President Trump built, where our prices were low, our border was secure, our enemies feared us, and our allies respected us,’ Sanders said. ‘I’m proud to stand with my friend and old boss, Donald J. Trump, and Senate Republican candidates to make America great once again.’

Sanders told the crowd at the Republican National Convention in July, shortly after the first assassination attempt against Trump’s life, that ‘never have I been more proud than to stand with him right now tonight.’

‘Not even an assassin’s bullet could stop him. God almighty intervened because America is one nation under God, and he is certainly not finished with President Trump. And our country is better for it.’

The United States’ Ambassador to the United Nations is expressing frustration with the Israeli military following strikes that killed multiple UN-aligned personnel in the region.

Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke out at the U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, where she lamented the ‘preventable’ loss of life caused by the conflict.

‘We will continue to raise the need for Israel to facilitate humanitarian operations, and protect humanitarian workers and facilities, such as the UNRWA school targeted by the IDF last week in Nusseirat,’ Thomas-Greenfield said.

UNRWA refers to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. 

She continued, ‘We have also been unequivocal in communicating to Israel that there is no basis – absolutely none – for its forces to be opening fire on clearly marked UN vehicles, as recently occurred on numerous occasions.’

A former school converted into a UNRWA civilian shelter was struck last week by the Israeli Defense Forces, killing 18 people. Six of those killed were UNRWA personnel.

The Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, previously rebuked criticism of the strike on the UNRWA shelter, asserting that the entire agency has become overrun with terrorists and terrorist sympathizers — including personnel at the destroyed shelter.

‘How long will the U.N. continue to bury its head in the sand and ignore the fact that Hamas terrorists have taken over UNRWA?’ Danon asked this week. ‘Those who were killed yesterday (Wednesday) in the IDF strike were nine terrorists with blood on their hands, and some of them participated in the barbaric massacre on October 7.’

Danon provided a list of names ostensibly connecting known Hamas terrorists to the civilian shelter.

When approached by Fox News Digital, Juliette Touma, a UNRWA spokesperson, claimed that ‘Israeli authorities have not requested UNRWA officially to provide them with the list of staff killed in yesterday’s attack on the UNRWA school.’ She added, ‘The names that appear on today’s statement from the Israeli Army have not been flagged to us before by the Israeli authorities in previous occasions prior to today.’

The U.S. ambassador did note on Monday the ongoing threat of Hamas embedding its members within civilian agencies.

‘At the same time, we continue to see Hamas hiding in, and taking over, and otherwise using civilian sites to conduct operations and pose an ongoing threat,’ said Thomas-Greenfield. ‘There’s no clearer evidence of Hamas’ total indifference to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. For their sake, and the sake of innocent people on all sides of this conflict – this must stop.’

Nine individuals were fired by UNRWA last month after it was found they likely participated in the Hamas slaughter of 1,200 people, including more than 30 Americans, on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

‘For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the 7th of October attacks,’ Farhan Haq, spokesperson for the U.N. secretary general said during a press briefing.

Fox News Digital’s Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.

Former President Obama will make appearances on TikTok to push for voter registration, a report says. 

As part of a broader Democratic initiative to reach approximately 30 million potential voters through non-traditional means on National Voter Registration Day, Obama conducted a series of interviews with 25-year-old TikTok influencer and non-profit director Carlos Espina for TikTok, Axios reported. 

Espina, who has 10.5 million followers on the Chinese-owned platform, has made appearances with President Biden and Vice President Harris on the app in recent months. Playing into the traditional Democratic advantage among young Americans under 30, Obama is trying to move the dial for Harris in encouraging TikTok viewers to visit IWillVote.com, register and make a plan for Election Day. 

The Harris-Walz campaign is also planning to target young Americans with voter registration initiatives online and on campuses in key battleground states for National Voter Registration Day, Axios reported. 

The Biden campaign and the Harris campaign afterward have called on Obama in the past to help raise money among wealthy donors and small-donor party activists. The Harris campaign also pulled a portion of Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention during which he used a suggestive hand gesture while discussing former President Trump’s ‘crowd sizes’ to use in a recent campaign video. 

The voter registration push comes a day after attorneys for TikTok faced off with the U.S. government in federal court in Washington, D.C., arguing a law that could ban the platform in a few short months is unconstitutional, while the Justice Department said the app needed to eliminate a national security risk. 

Attorneys for both sides – and content creators – were pressed on their best arguments for and against the law that forces TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance to break ties by mid-January or lose one of their biggest markets in the world. 

Biden signed the measure in April as the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the U.S. government has said is collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government. 

Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content in a way that is difficult to detect.

Trump, who first raised national security concerns about TikTok in 2020, warned allies in March that now banning the platform would benefit Meta-owned Facebook, which Trump has claimed hampered his 2020 re-election bid.

Biden’s campaign joined TikTok in February with a Superbowl-themed video. After Biden discontinued his re-election campaign in July, Harris took to TikTok stating, ‘Thought I would get on here myself.’ 

Trump joined TikTok in June with a video showing him waving to fans at an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fight in Newark, New Jersey. UFC CEO Dana White declared ‘the president is now on TikTok,’ to which Trump replied, ‘It’s my honor,’ as the song ‘American Bad A–‘ by Kid Rock played. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

China slapped new export controls on a batch of minerals such as antimony – vital for the U.S. defense industry as a flame-retardant component used in machine bearings – in a move that could send prices in the defense sector soaring. 

The little-known metal antimony is used in ammunition, infrared missiles, nuclear weapons and night vision goggles, as well as batteries and photovoltaic equipment. China produced nearly half of the world’s antimony last year.

The limits, which kicked in on Sunday, apply to six antimony-related products, including antimony ore, antimony metals and antimony oxide.

The U.S. consumed some 22,000 tons of antimony last year. China accounted for 63% of U.S. imports of antimony metal and oxide last year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The next largest supplier, Belgium, offered some 8%. 

The material is being restricted ‘in order to safeguard national security and interests, and fulfill international obligations such as non-proliferation,’ the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

The U.S. and other nations have been scrambling to scale back their reliance on China for key materials for the defense and energy sectors. Yet still, China is the leading import source for 25 essential minerals, including tungsten, germanium, magnesium, barite, antimony, most rare earths, indium, graphite, gallium, and arsenic. 

It’s just the latest in a set of curbs on exports introduced over the past year.

In December, China banned the export of technology to make rare earth magnets, which followed another ban on exporting technology to extract and separate critical materials. 

Last year, it slapped export controls on gallium, germanium and graphite in part of a retaliatory trade war after the U.S. limited exports on advanced semiconductor chips to China. 

‘In the first Cold War against the Soviet Union, we were aligned against the Soviet Union with not importing national security-sensitive things,’ said Rob Greenway, a former National Security Council (NSC) official. ‘We were a net exporter across the board. Since we’ve become a net importer across the board, we have massive vulnerabilities, and our regulatory structures have not in any way kept pace with that.’

‘Our partners – Japan, South Korea, Scandinavian countries, Central American countries – they’re enormously frustrated, because not only do they have the same problem, but we’re not making it easier for them,’ Greenway, now a director at the Allison Center for National Security, went on. ‘In some cases, we’re making it easier for China. We’re taxing Taiwan’s exports, including semiconductors, more than we are Chinese exports.’

Antimony prices have nearly doubled to a record $22,750 per ton this year and export controls are expected to drive them even higher. 

The new rules require sellers to apply for a sign-off from the Chinese government through a license to sell any related dual-use civilian and military materials and technology, a process which typically takes close to three months. 

‘China’s new restrictions on antimony – which is used in everything from night vision goggles to nuclear weapons to tanks – will require exporters to apply for certain licenses that the Chinese Communist Party could delay or refuse outright,’ said Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va. Wittman leads a working group on critical minerals policy in Congress.

‘As the largest producer and processor of antimony, the CCP is using the same playbook as it did for gallium and germanium to demonstrate its market dominance and put Western economies at risk – this is why we must diversify our critical mineral supply chains away from China.’

One U.S.-based company, Perpetua Resources, is looking to produce domestic antimony with support from the Pentagon and the U.S. Export-Import Bank. It’s run into opposition from environmental groups and its first production was slated for 2028, should it obtain permits later this year. 

But China’s restrictions have prompted the company to look for ways to speed up production. 

‘We are looking at things that we can do during construction to get antimony out the door sooner for some of these strategic needs,’ Jon Cherry, Perpetua’s CEO, told Reuters.

‘The (US) Department of Defense is aware of the critical nature of antimony and the short supply available. We’ve been hearing from a lot of different sources about the lack of supply for antimony, that the market is very tight and getting tighter daily.’

In a less closely watched move, China is also limiting exports on superabrasive materials, industrial diamonds with the highest level of hardness, and the machines that make them. Such materials are used across industries in the U.S. and are essential in the defense and energy sectors. 

‘It really, truly has the ability to crater the U.S. economy. This is really terrifying,’ said Nazak Nikakthar, a former senior Commerce Department official.

‘It’s not a glamorous sector, but there is a national security obligation to alert the world to it – to build capacity in the United States [of superabrasives] to support the defense industrial base will take two to three years.’

A conservative watchdog group sued the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeking documents relating to the situation that has left two U.S. astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) for several more months.

The Oversight Project’s executive director told Fox News Digital on Monday he and his group have legally sought emails between NASA political appointees and the White House, including the office of Vice President Harris, who also holds the title of chair of the National Space Council.

The filing by Mike Howell, head of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, also demands outgoing emails to Harris’ presidential campaign. Just as Harris was tasked with assuaging the root causes of illegal immigration as the so-called border czar, her role as vice president makes her essentially the lead adviser on space policy in that regard.

‘This looks like to me and other experts that Kamala Harris, the space czar, chose politics over our astronauts,’ Howell said, inferring that there may have been a political calculation against bringing astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams home as planned.

‘It’s very bizarre that the mainstream media seems not to care about this massive scandal. We’re going to continue to investigate this and get Americans the answers they deserve.’

The National Space Council (NSpC) had originally been organized in a slightly different manner under former President George H.W. Bush before it was disbanded and reorganized under former President Trump.

Trump himself unveiled the first new branch of the military in decades, the U.S. Space Force, at a 2018 NSpC meeting.

In its filing, the Oversight Project seeks to compel NASA to share correspondence from agency chief of staff Bale Dalton III, Associate Administrator James Free and five other senior officials. It also seeks communications between NASA and officials in the commercial crew program at Boeing, the company that manufactured the Starliner capsule that took Wilmore and Williams to the ISS this summer.

A source close to the matter pointed to the stipulated responsibilities of the NSpC chair, as outlined by Trump in his 2021 executive order establishing the council.

‘The Chair shall serve as the President’s principal advisor on national space policy and strategy …’ the first stipulation reads.

The chair of the NSpC, therefore, has substantive advisory authority over NASA’s decision-making, the source said.

In an August press briefing, a NASA official said there was a ‘little disagreement in terms of the level of risk’ between the agency and Boeing after the capsule suffered propulsion issues and elemental leaks. Ultimately, the Starliner craft safely returned to Earth unmanned on Sept. 7.

A few weeks prior, Boeing officials said in a statement they remained confident in Starliner’s ability to return safely with crew aboard: ‘We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities. Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA.’

‘The data also supports root cause assessments for the helium and thruster issues and flight rationale for Starliner and its crew’s return to Earth,’ the statement reads.

On X, formerly Twitter, Howell listed the curriculum vitae of a handful of NASA hires made while Harris has led the NSpC, including a veteran of New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, another from the Jacksonville Symphony and an individual whose ‘scientific’ major was ‘political science.’

‘Space is serious business. Kamala Harris obviously has no business running the National Space Council… They’re lost in space right now. Part of the reason they’re lost in space is that our NASA has been turned into another woke-DEI, dismal excuse for a government agency,’ he said.

Howell also shared a copy of a document showing ‘strategic objectives’ of the ‘NASA DEIA Strategic Plan.’ 

‘The fact is that Vice President Kamala Harris’ record as Border Czar is as awful as her record as Space Czar,’ Howell said Monday.

Howell said it is important that the public see any such correspondence of a political nature between NASA, the vice president’s camp and/or Boeing because other nations like China are watching for such ‘sign[s] of weakness.’

‘It seems that Harris signaled a willingness to cede America’s space superiority in the name of an effort to ‘save democracy,’’ he said, suggesting the DEIA priority may jeopardize national security. ‘When is enough, enough?’

The astronauts, however, took their extended trip in stride.

‘I love being in space. This is my happy place,’ Williams said.

Wilmore will miss his daughter’s final year of high school but notably requested his absentee ballot Friday so that he would be able to vote from orbit.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ governmental office and the Harris campaign but did not receive a response. 

In a response to Fox News Digital regarding the FOIA, a NASA spokesperson stated that Harris and NSpC staff ‘received frequent updates on the Starliner Crewed Flight Test.’

‘While the National Space Council works closely with civil, national security, commercial, and international partners to advance the nation’s space priorities, it does not make operational spaceflight safety recommendations or decisions,’ the spokesperson wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Following revelations of private memoranda and conversations between Supreme Court justices published in the New York Times, legal experts are warning that such sensitive leaks are ‘destructive’ to the high court. 

The New York Times reported that internal memos and deliberations that they claimed showed Chief Justice Thomas as having ‘molded’ the outcomes of three major cases the court considered dealing with Jan. 6 rioters, and granting former President Donald Trump certain immunity for presidential acts. 

Roberts wrote the majority in the decisions, and the report claims that he ‘provided crucial support for hearing the historic [immunity],’ and made last minute and unexplained changes to authorship of the politically charged opinions. 

The leak follows the unprecedented leaked draft of the Dobbs opinion which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and a concerted effort by Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration to make sweeping changes to the court and ethics enforcement. 

Republican lawmakers, such as Senators Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and John Kennedy, R-La., claim those efforts are politically motivated to delegitimize one the court now sits with a majority of Republican-appointed justices.

Some legal experts say this latest leak is part of that effort to undermine the Supreme Court. 

‘I think it’s enormously destructive to the court when people inside the court disclose to the press confidential memoranda, confidential emails and what appears to even be remarks made at the justices’ conference,’ James Burnham of King Street Legal and former senior Justice Department official told Fox News Digital. 

‘It’s destructive because the justices can’t be candid with each other if they think that anything they say could end up in the New York Times. And that means they’re going to speak less to each other. It means they’re not going to be able to deliberate with the same openness that they historically have, and it ultimately undermines the court’s decision making,’ he added. 

‘It reads to me like somebody is trying to cast a negative light on the Chief Justice and the other justices in the majority for what I think was a plainly correct and brave decision,’ he said.

Carrie Seveino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said that ‘if there is someone on the Court who deserves censure for being overly political in this case, it’s the individual who leaked’ the ‘highly confidential internal’ documents.

She added that the incident ‘is of a piece with the continued left-wing PR campaign against the Court.’

‘It’s an attempt to smear the Court as an institution, and as part of that, some justices have been targeted more than others,’ she said. 

John Shu, a constitutional attorney who served in both Bush administrations, Shu says he believes the leaks are politically motivated, and are most likely designed to keep Roberts anchored in the center or perhaps push him towards center-left in the upcoming term, especially if Trump is elected this November.

‘Because he is the Chief Justice, he gets to assign opinions when he’s in the majority, which is much of the time, and he has administrative power that the other justices do not have,’ said Shu. ‘And much like the President is the embodiment of Article 2, the Chief Justice is the embodiment of Article 3.’

‘It’s really scary that yet another norm has been shattered, violating the sacred confidentiality of deliberations and the opinion drafting process,’Shu said.