Pope Francis on Friday urged Catholic voters to ‘choose the lesser evil’ between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. 

The pope criticized Harris’ support of abortion rights as being an ‘assassination,’ while he also chastised Trump, saying ‘not welcoming migrants is a sin.’ 

‘You must choose the lesser evil,’ Francis told reporters in a press conference held from his papal airplane following a 12-day tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania. ‘Who is the lesser evil? That lady, or that gentleman? I don’t know. Everyone, in conscience, [has to] think and do this.’

But he also said, ‘Not voting is ugly. It is not good. You must vote.’

Harris has said that she wants to codify Roe v. Wade into law if elected, and Trump has promised the ‘largest mass deportation in American history of our country.’ 

The pope didn’t specify which candidate, if either, he personally prefers. 

On abortion, he said, ‘It is an assassination. On these things we must speak clearly. No ‘but’ or ‘however.” 

On Trump’s deportation plans, the pope said: ‘Not giving welcome to migrants is a sin. It is grave.’

‘Whether it is the one who is chasing away migrants, or the one who that kills children, both are against life,’ he claimed. 

Trump previously sparred with the pope in 2016, after the pontiff claimed that his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border was ‘not Christian.’ 

‘I’m a very good Christian,’ Trump responded at the time in a news conference, ‘He’s questioning my faith. I was very surprised to see it.’ 

Trump called questioning a person’s faith ‘disgraceful,’ claiming that the pope was being used as a ‘pawn’ by the Mexican government. 

The pope has also previously criticized President Biden’s stance on abortion. Biden is a Catholic, but supports a woman’s right to choose, which Francis called an ‘incoherence’ in a 2022 interview, saying that he would leave it to Biden’s ‘conscience.’ 

There are more than 50 million Catholics in the U.S., including a sizable number of voters in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

North Korea released first-ever photos of a uranium enrichment site on Thursday.

Supreme leader Kim Jong Un  has been known to show off his nuclear bombs, but this week he revealed the facilities that create the key material that powers them. 

Kim released photos of himself touring the facility as he called for his military to ‘exponentially’ increase its nuclear arsenal and be ready for combat with the U.S. and its allies. 

The pictures released by state media KCNA show a glimpse into the country’s secretive nuclear program, which is banned under multiple UN Security Council resolutions. 

The images show Kim walking through rows of centrifuge machines that spin uranium at high speeds to produce nuclear warheads. 

Kim visited the Nuclear Weapons Institute and a production base for weapon-grade nuclear materials, KCNA said, and instructed the base to ramp up the number of centrifuges ‘in order to exponentially increase the number of nuclear weapons.’

‘He went round the control room of the uranium enrichment base to learn about the overall operation of the production lines,’ KCNA said, and was pleased to see the base ‘dynamically producing nuclear materials.’

The world gets little opportunity to glimpse life in the reclusive, nuclear-armed state, but photos also showed Kim visiting an army training base on Wednesday to ‘guide the drill of combatants,’ KCNA said/

On Thursday, North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, which landed in the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan. The distance of the missiles suggests that they were designed to attack South Korea.

It was North Korea’s first public weapons firing activity in over two months. 

Kim said that his pledge to double down on his nuclear efforts was because North Korea faces ‘a grave threat’ because of what he called ‘the reckless expansion’ of a U.S.-led regional military bloc.

Last week North Korea flew balloons full of trash toward South Korea for five straight days. 

Officials in Seoul slammed Pyongyang for its nuclear developments.

‘Any nuclear threat or provocation by North Korea will be met with an overwhelming and strong response from our government and military, based on the solid extended deterrence of the South Korea-US alliance,’ the Ministry of Unification was quoted as saying by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

It’s not clear how many nuclear warheads North Korea possesses. In July, a report by the Federation of American Scientists concluded that the country may have produced enough fissile material to build up to 90 nuclear warheads, but that it has likely assembled closer to 50.

‘Buonasera Tutti,’ former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio toasted as he opened a three-hour ‘Paisans for Kamala’ virtual dinner this week in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid headlined by staunch Trump critic Robert De Niro.

De Blasio co-hosted the event with Paul Mercurio, a comedian who works on Stephen Colbert’s CBS late-night program.

During the livestream event, which featured several high-profile Italian Americans, many dinner guests lauded Harris while criticizing former President Trump’s immigration policies from the viewpoint of children or grandchildren of Italian immigrants.

De Blasio noted he had made an intentional visit to the childhood home of one such prominent Italian-American official.

‘We just did a little pilgrimage… [to] Little Italy in Baltimore — to the home of Nancy D’Alesandro-Pelosi; where she grew up,’ he said, as the former mayor also highlighted the visit on X, posing at Pelosi’s former home alongside Maryland State Sen. James Rosapepe, D-Laurel.

‘A dinner expresses who we are — we want to be a family as Italian-Americans — [and] bring everyone together for these amazing candidates,’ de Blasio said.

Mercurio went on to tell De Niro that Trump has ‘tapped into something’ within his base that have bonded them to him.

De Niro, who once expressed a wish to ‘punch [Trump] in the face,’ replied that he has indeed listened to some of Trump’s supporters.

‘I could very well see that there is a way, with them, that’s more for them than with Trump, because Trump doesn’t offer anything,’ the actor said.

‘We’ve seen this before in other countries and other societies… they think they can control someone like him… God forbid he becomes ‘the boss,’ all the people who thought they could control him, they’ll find out differently.’

Later, former Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who said his maternal side is ‘fully Italian,’ joined the dinner sporting a ‘White Dudes for Harris’ hat and spoke about the values he believes Harris brings to the table.

De Blasio soon displayed a slice of pizza and proceeded to eat it with a fork — in an apparent homage to a 2014 controversy that erupted when he dined in the same fashion in Staten Island.

De Blasio argued he remains correct that it is the proper way to eat a pie.

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta later appeared and said he supports Harris because Trump appears to support isolationism, remarking that such behavior ‘didn’t work before World War II.’

‘[There is] the importance of presidents standing up to tyrants… not appeasing them,’ he said.

Later, actor Steve Buscemi said Harris struck the right tone as a descendant of immigrants.

‘Most immigrants are just looking for a better life, better opportunities, and they don’t deserve to be punished for pursuing that dream,’ Buscemi said. ‘Kamala Harris is smart, strong, kind and inclusive.’

When Pelosi appeared at the dinner, she recounted how her family lived for multiple generations in the Little Italy neighborhood of Baltimore that de Blasio visited.

‘My grandfather and his contemporaries came here thinking the streets would be paved in gold — little did they know they would pave the streets when they got here,’ said Pelosi, whose father and grandfather, both named Thomas D’Alesandro, were mayors of Baltimore.

‘It is an important race because of [Trump’s attitude toward immigrants] and so many other reasons. We must not take this election for granted,’ she said.

Pelosi went on to cite a speech by former President Reagan, highlighting the fact she was quoting a Republican, and saying that he understood in the speech that the Statue of Liberty is a ‘beacon of hope.’

She claimed to have recited the quote to Republicans, who did not applaud: ‘I said, ‘They don’t applaud for Ronald Reagan?’’

Near the close of the dinner, one of Trump’s former officials — who notably broke with the president years ago — appeared.

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci quipped, in addressing de Blasio, ‘Can you imagine me, you and [former Republican Vice President] Dick Cheney getting together to support Vice President Harris?’

‘Yes, I can imagine it because each of us understands the systemic danger involved with the potential reelection of Donald Trump,’ he said, before pledging $5,000 to Paisans for Harris.

‘I bet they didn’t discuss Kamala’s support for ending Columbus Day, a very important national holiday for Italian Americans, named after the Italian explorer who discovered the Americas!’ Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary told Fox in a statement.

‘While Kamala Harris is supported by these disconnected California elites who wouldn’t know their Sunday dinner costs 21.5 percent more thanks to Kamala’s economic policies, President Trump will continue to earn the support of everyday Americans who want to lower costs, secure the border, and Make America Great Again,’ Leavitt added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that his country will be ‘at war’ with NATO if the West lifts restrictions on its missiles in Ukraine. His announcement comes on the heels of Russian military aircraft being spotted flying off the coast of Alaska. 

President Biden – among other western nations’ leaders – has come under intense pressure to lift the U.S. ban on Ukraine using American long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia. 

‘This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us,’ Putin told reporters on Thursday.

Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in Washington, D.C., on Friday for talks with Biden that are expected to largely center on the use of western weapons to strike inside Russia. 

The U.S. scrambled Russian fighter jets it had detected flying in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Thursday. 

In a post to X, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said it detected and intercepted the planes, but they did not violate American or Canadian airspace. 

‘This Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ is not seen as a threat, and NORAD will continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence.’

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin sowed doubts that allowing free rein with U.S.-provided Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles would change the tide of the war. 

‘I find that relationship between what the Pentagon is advising the president based on intelligence versus the international pressure to be the really interesting part of the story,’ Seth Krummich, a retired Army colonel and vice president at international security firm Global Guardian, told Fox News Digital. 

Ahead of the discussions, Moscow said it revoked accreditation for six British diplomats in Russia, accusing them of spying. 

Putin on Thursday raised doubts about whether Ukraine could even use long-range missiles for offensive strikes alone without the help of western intelligence in targeting. ‘The Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West’ without NATO assistance in targeting,’ Putin warned. 

‘The real risk here is either a manufactured event by Russia with disinformation or no kidding, a mistake happening using Western or NATO-provided long-range missiles that could trigger a war or a significant escalation,’ Krummich said.  

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is facing his last critical leadership test of this year as congressional lawmakers grapple with a looming government shutdown deadline at the end of this month. 

The House Republican Conference is at odds over how to proceed with funding the government in the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. A growing contingent of GOP lawmakers are resigned to a short-term spending patch called a continuing resolution (CR) until December to give negotiators more time to work out next year’s federal spending.

Conservatives on Johnson’s right flank, however, want him to keep fighting for a six-month CR attached to a bill that would require proof of citizenship in the voter registration process – which the Democrat-controlled White House and Senate have called a nonstarter.

Johnson was forced to delay a planned vote on that bill last week amid a wave of Republican defections from lawmakers who saw it as a ‘messaging’ tactic without a sufficient plan to get the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act enacted.

How he navigates the political quagmire could be pivotal for the Louisiana Republican in the House GOP’s December leadership decisions.

A majority of GOP lawmakers who spoke with Fox News Digital saw little appetite for a coup – particularly so close to the election – but several did acknowledge that Johnson would face backlash if he fully acquiesced to Democrats on spending.

‘If there’s an omnibus, I think he’ll likely get challenged for speaker,’ one GOP lawmaker told Fox News Digital, noting the challenge would be significant.

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, admitted there was room for blowback but did not see any imminent threat to Johnson.

‘If he really flubs this, and people feel like they were deceived – but I don’t see that he’s on that path now,’ Burlison said.

Freedom Caucus member Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., noted he was close to Johnson personally but said broadly, ‘I think if we get jammed with an omni it will be a significant factor in any kind of leadership elections across the board.’

He said it was ‘not really a topic of conversation at this point’ but added that it ‘could be part of the calculus’ for others.

Meanwhile, Reps. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, and Cory Mills, R-Fla., who have not shied away from criticizing the speaker, suggested it was inevitable that he would face some sort of rival.

‘I think in order for Mike Johnson to remain speaker, in my humble opinion, it’s going to require some Democrats to help him,’ Nehls told Fox News Digital, adding that House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, would be a ‘great’ candidate.

Jordan was one of several Republican leaders who ran for speaker after the ouster of ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., over McCarthy’s own handling of government spending last fall. Jordan’s bid was derailed by opposition from moderates, however.

Mills, who came out against Johnson’s CR plan, said, ‘I think he’s gonna have a significant leadership challenge regardless.’

‘I don’t think this is going to be that pivotal moment where it’s a make or break, but what I will say is, is that the one guarantee that I continue to try and sound the alarm on or beat the drums on, is…we’re heading towards economic collapse,’ Mills said.

Meanwhile, another conservative lawmaker who spoke with Fox News Digital anonymously was emphatic that, unlike his predecessor, Johnson is safe from a political coup.

‘I think just what little conversations I’ve had with him last weekend, what little conversations I’ve had with him and staff, I think they are genuine in wanting to make sure we don’t end up with an omnibus,’ that conservative said.

In addition to pressure from within his own conference, Johnson is also having to navigate government funding talks while the Republicans’ 2024 nominee, former President Donald Trump, is actively calling for a partial shutdown if election security legislation cannot be passed.

Johnson, for his part, has told reporters that he is still sticking firmly to his course and would work through the weekend on the issue.

‘We’re going to continue to work on this. Whip is going to do the hard work to build consensus, we’re going to work through the weekend on that. And I want any member of Congress in either party to explain to the American people why we should not ensure that only U.S. citizens are voting in U.S. elections,’ Johnson said earlier this week.

If Republicans lose the majority, Johnson will only need a majority vote of his conference to remain its leader. A Speaker of the House, however, needs a majority of the entire chamber – meaning the GOP would likely need to be in lock-step for him to win.

Former President Donald Trump’s senior adviser, Alina Habba, has hit the campaign trail to attract Arab support in the key swing state of Michigan. 

Habba, who also is an attorney on Trump’s legal team, is a first generation American. Both of Habba’s parents are from Iraq. 

Habba has been crisscrossing Michigan since Thursday, participating in nearly a dozen events and engaging in meetings in Arab American communities — including with Indian Americans and Chaldean Americans. 

‘As someone who understands how tight-knit and faith-driven these communities are, I’m incredibly proud to be here with the Arab American communities in Michigan,’ Habba told Fox News Digital. ‘Many of us have roots in countries where we left behind persecution for the freedom that we now cherish.’ 

Habba told Fox News Digital it is ‘vital that we speak up to protect that freedom here in the United States.’ 

‘We cannot allow our country to go down the same dangerous path,’ Habba added. ‘Donald Trump is the only option to ensure our values and way of life are safeguarded.’ 

Metro Detroit has the world’s largest population of Iraqis outside of Iraq, with an estimated 187,000 people. 

On Friday, Habba toured the Chaldean Foundation and the community. Habba also spoke to children at a school in the community and spoke to local leaders. 

‘The Chaldean community is driven by its faith and close-knit family ties,’ Habba told Fox News Digital, adding that Trump’s policies are attractive to them, and ‘resonating with independents, moderates, and traditional Republicans, especially here in battleground states like Michigan.’

Also on Friday, Habba is participating in a ‘Trump 47 Agenda Policy Tour’ event with Vivek Ramaswamy, Rep. Tim Walberg, Tudor Dixon and others in Farmington Hills. 

‘The Trump 47 Policy Tour is working, and we’re seeing results in key areas like Oakland County,’ Habba said. ‘The Chaldean community, with its 10 Catholic churches in Metro-Detroit, is a strong, faith-based force, and we stand united behind President Trump.’ 

According to the latest Fox News Power Rankings, key swing states like North Carolina, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada are listed as ‘toss-ups.’

Michigan, though, is listed as ‘lean Democrat.’ 

Just under 50 Ukrainian soldiers were released into their nation’s custody in a prisoner swap with Russia this week.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the latest swap on Friday, stating that 49 Ukrainians were brought home via the swap mediated by the United Arab Emirates.

‘Another return of our people — something we always wait for and work tirelessly to achieve,’ the Ukrainian president said.

Zelenskyy specifically thanked the Ukrainian military units responsible for the continued capture of Russian soldiers, stating that these victories are what allowed the nation to demand swaps.

‘All our warriors who capture Russian occupiers, and all our services that neutralize Russian saboteurs and collaborators, bring closer the liberation of our people,’ Zelenskyy said. ‘We must bring home every single one of our people, both military and civilian.’

Prisoners released this week included both military personnel and civilians. It was the second swap since Ukraine began taking territory in the Kursk region of Russia, where most of their own prisoners are captured.

Neither Ukraine nor Russia have acknowledged how many captured Russians were traded for the 49 Ukrainian prisoners.

The citizens’ release comes as Ukraine begs the United States for clearance to fire American missiles into Moscow.

President Biden is facing mounting pressure to lift the ban on Ukraine using U.S. weapons to strike deep inside Russia and appeared to admit on Tuesday that his administration is moving in that direction.

‘We’re working that out right now,’ he said when asked by reporters whether he would allow Ukraine to use the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to target sites inside Russia. Support for lifting the ban has come from all sides.

A group of high-level House Republicans wrote to the president this week arguing that such restrictions ‘have hampered Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russia’s war of aggression and have given the Kremlin’s forces a sanctuary from which it can attack Ukraine with impunity.’

Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

There is a new bipartisan effort in Congress to take on the growing threat of cyberattacks by China and other U.S. adversaries.

A bill led by Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, would impose new guardrails on the technology the U.S. government is able to purchase by forcing a federal agency or office to only purchase it from ‘original equipment manufacturers’ or ‘authorized resellers,’ according to the bill text obtained by Fox News Digital.

Fallon explained this would ensure U.S. technology is bought from ‘trusted sources’ rather than a third party that could potentially be sourcing that equipment from nations like China, Russia or Iran.

‘[O]ur adversaries have been targeting our hardware and software systems through selling the U.S. government counterfeit products through what are known as ‘gray market’ sellers,’ Fallon explained. ‘These products, although marketed as genuine hardware, allow our enemies to gain access to U.S. government systems, making it far easier to conduct subsequent cyberattacks.’

The Texas Republican warned the U.S. was being hit with ‘millions of attacks daily,’ and that the growing sophistication of artificial intelligence (AI) technology was making cyberattacks easier to pull off.

The House bill, the Securing America’s Federal Equipment (SAFE) Supply Chains Act, is backed by a bipartisan companion bill in the Senate.

That push is being led by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Gary Peters, D-Mich.

A ‘gray market’ refers to an alternative channel for purchasing and selling genuine goods without the authorization of the manufacturer.

It has been a particularly prevalent issue in the high-tech sphere, and though the lack of transparency makes its full scope hard to quantify, the technology gray market is believed to have cost manufacturers billions of dollars in losses, according to AGMA Global.

China’s technology gray market is prevalent. A report from the Hong Kong-based Asia Times earlier this year said Chinese firms were getting around U.S. export controls to acquire high-end American AI chips for their own military and research uses.

Additionally, while the U.S. government does have existing bans on certain Beijing-backed companies, the new bill would prevent China from using middle men to obscure those and other illicit sources and flooding the U.S. market.

Fallon said the legislation would ‘prevent the federal government from even being at risk of being duped into procuring these harmful products.’

‘The world is at peak instability and danger. Simply put, we are at an inflection point, which means we must do everything in our power to protect our vulnerable systems from cyber-attacks and intrusion from our enemies,’ he said.

The Vice President Kamala Harris campaign says they hauled in $47 million from nearly 600,000 donors in the 24 hours after her debate with former President Donald Trump on Tuesday night in Philadelphia.

‘This historic, 24-hour haul reflects a strong and growing coalition of Americans united behind Vice President Harris’ candidacy that knows the stakes this November, and are doing their part to defeat Donald Trump this November,’ Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.

Tuesday’s showdown was the first time that Harris and Trump had met in person, and the encounter came two and a half months after President Biden’s disastrous performance against Trump in their late June debate in Atlanta.

Biden’s unsteady appearance and uneven and meandering answers fueled questions about whether the 81-year-old president was physically and mentally up for another four years in the White House and fueled calls from within his own party to end his re-election bid. Less than a month later, Biden suspended his 2024 campaign and backed his vice president to replace him atop the Democrats’ national ticket.

The latest Harris cash haul, which was first reported by the New York Times, is the latest sign of the vice president’s surge in fundraising since becoming her party’s standard-bearer.

At the time this report was published, the Trump campaign had yet to announce any fundraising figures post-debate.

The Harris campaign recently announced that they hauled in $361 million in August, nearly triple the $130 million raised by the Trump campaign.

When asked about the fundraising deficit, Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley told Fox News Digital in the debate spin room that ‘the Democrats have a ton of money. The Democrats always have a ton of money.’

However, he emphasized that ‘we absolutely have the resources that we need to get our message out to all the voters that we’re talking to and feel very comfortable that we’re going to be able to see this campaign through and we’re going to win on November 5.’

Trump, in a social media post on Thursday, ruled out having another debate with the vice president.

Harris, speaking about an hour later at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, said, ‘I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate. Because this election and what is at stake could not be more important.’