As the Venezuelan political crisis reaches a breaking point, members of the Venezuelan opposition party are warning there will be an increase in Tren de Aragua gang violence with deadly consequences for the U.S. if socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro remains in power.
Despite widespread belief among Venezuelans and much of the international community that Maduro lost the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election to opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, he was sworn into his third six-year term on Friday.
But with opposition leader María Corina Machado calling on Venezuelan citizens to join her on the streets to demand González be installed as the rightful president of Venezuela, the stage is now set for a confrontation with the Maduro regime.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Machado, whose supporters said she was temporarily kidnapped by authorities and then released after a rally on Thursday, warned that if Maduro is not stopped there will be millions of Venezuelan migrants fleeing the country into the U.S.
TREN DE ARAGUA ARE IDEOLOGICAL TERRORISTS DISGUISED AS A STREET GANG WARNS FORMER MILITARY OFFICER
"If Maduro remains, prepare yourself because we will see three, four or five million Venezuelans crossing the border," she said.
On the other hand, Machado told Fox News Digital: "I want you to know how important it is also for the safety of the American people."
"We also are desperate to solve the migration problem in our region," she said. "We want those Venezuelans to come back in billions and voluntarily. And that will happen when they'll see there's a future in their country."
Meanwhile, José Gustavo Arocha, a former high-ranking Venezuelan military official who fled persecution by the Maduro regime, told Fox News Digital that gang violence in the U.S. by the Maduro-aligned criminal group Tren de Aragua will get worse if he remains president.
Tren de Aragua — also known by its acronym "TdA" — is Spanish for "Train from Aragua." It is a brutal international gang that victimizes Venezuelan migrants and Americans alike and has unleashed a spate of violence in recent months, including kidnapping, torture, robbery and taking over entire apartment buildings.
2 AMERICANS ARRESTED IN VENEZUELA ON EVE OF MADURO INAUGURATION OVER ‘TERRORISM’ CLAIMS
Arocha, who is now a senior fellow for the U.S.-based Center for a Secure Free Society, told Fox News Digital that "if Maduro remains in power, he will likely use the Tren de Aragua as a tool for coercion and asymmetric tactics to achieve his objectives."
"Migration, weaponized with elements of the Tren de Aragua, will serve as leverage to seek the easing of economic sanctions and to gain legitimacy from the United States," he said. "Repression, economic collapse and chaos in Venezuela will continue to be cornerstones of Maduro's state policy. As a result, migrants who are deported will likely return, as in recent years they have established logistical routes that enable them to navigate clandestine pathways along the southern border."
Alberto Ray, a security and risk strategist who helps handle security for Machado, told Fox News Digital that the situation in Venezuela is "extremely explosive." He said that "more Maduro is more Tren de Aragua in the U.S."
CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE
While Ray noted that most Venezuelan migrants are honest, hardworking people, he said that Maduro has been "weaponizing" migration to sow chaos and discord in the U.S. He said it is "inevitable" that TdA presence in the U.S. will grow if the Maduro regime continues.
"These are very few fractions of Venezuelans that were introduced inside those migration processes designed by the regime… but you don't need too many to destabilize, create chaos, to install organized crime processes inside the U.S.," said Ray. "What is going to happen if Maduro stays in power is that more illegal and weaponized migration is going to keep going out of Venezuela and that increases the probability of Tren de Aragua and other gangs to migrate and be around the region, including the U.S."
On the other hand, Ray said that if Maduro is stopped, "we will see Venezuelans returning to Venezuela because many of them didn't want to leave."
VENEZUELAN GANG TREN DE ARAGUA IS A 'NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT,' WARNS RETIRED ICE SPECIAL AGENT
While he said that both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration have been very supportive, Ray urged the U.S. to take a strong stance against Maduro not only for the sake of the Venezuelans but for Americans as well. He urged the U.S. government to shed light on what is happening in Venezuela and to strictly enforce already-existing sanctions against Maduro and several members of his government.
He said that "the next 72 hours are going to be critical."
"Maduro has nobody supporting him but some factions inside the armed forces, and he's counting on those factions to support him and make him president," Ray explained, adding, "There are not two sides here. There is a huge Venezuelan side that is democratic, and they are looking and trying to get back democracy. And there is a tiny group that is in power that is desperately fighting to keep their privileges and to keep their position in power."
After meeting with President Biden at the White House on Monday, Edmundo Gonzalez, the man who won Venezuela's presidential election in July, traveled to Argentina and then Panama with the ballots to prove that he, not Nicolás Maduro, is Venezuela's democratically elected leader.
"We elected by a landslide, a good man and Edmundo Gonzalez. We have the proof of that victory, and the whole world knows it," María Corina Machado, a top leader in the Venezuelan opposition, told Fox News. "We won."
Maduro's inauguration is slated for Friday. The Venezuelan opposition has called for massive street protests to peacefully demand that Maduro, whose mafia-style autocratic leadership has nearly bankrupted the oil-rich nation, not be inaugurated.
2 AMERICANS ARRESTED IN VENEZUELA ON EVE OF MADURO INAUGURATION OVER ‘TERRORISM’ CLAIMS
"What we need is for all American institutions understand that Venezuela is the most important conflict in the Western Hemisphere for national security of the U.S.," Machado said via Zoom from her safe house in Venezuela.
"We can be the best ally the United States will have in the Americas, first of all, because we also are desperate to solve the migration problem in our region. We want those Venezuelans to come back in billions and voluntarily. And that will happen when they'll see there's a future in their country."
Machado had the following message for President-elect Donald Trump: "Venezuela has a huge energy potential that will never be taken advantage of… We're going to turn Venezuela from the criminal hub of the Americas into the energy hub of the Americas and have a strong partnership with the United States."
Gonzalez, who Venezuela elected president in July, also met with incoming National Security Advisor Cong Michael Waltz of Florida while in Washington. Maduro has warned Gonzalez will be arrested if he returns to Venezuela.
VENEZUELA'S MADURO TO START THIRD TERM IN OFFICE AMID RIGGED ELECTION: ‘BLATANT VIOLATION’
"I want you to know how important it is also for the safety of the American people," Machado explained. "Solving this conflict in Venezuela, I believe that what happens in the next days in Venezuela depends not only the democracy, the future of our democracy, but the future of democracy in the region."
Machado said the fall of the Assad regime in Syria is a cautionary tale for those in the military and judiciary who still support Maduro. The regime has sent secret police units to encircle her family members’ homes, sent a drone over her mother’s house and kidnapped President-elect Gonzalez's brother-in-law on Tuesday.
"Maduro has lost everything but fear and repression. Maduro lost all popular support, all legitimacy, and even he's weakened or isolated internationally. What has he left? Russia, Iran, Hezbollah," Machado, a former member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, asked.
The Maduro regime also arrested two Americans one day after Gonzalez met with President Biden at the White House, accusing them of being mercenaries sent by the U.S. government.
The State Department issued the following statement: "We are concerned about the reports of U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela. We are working to gather more information. Due to privacy and other considerations, we have no further comment on these cases. Any claims of U.S. involvement in a plot to overthrow Maduro are categorically false. The United States continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela."
The State Department spokesman went on to warn U.S. citizens not to travel to Venezuela, because "Maduro and his associates have shown in the past, they may detain and jail, without justification or due process, U.S. citizens who enter Venezuela."
iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI
Jim Thomas, a 52-year-old who works in a lumber mill, is well aware of how far behind he's fallen in saving for retirement. His job pays "good money," he says, but he's still trying to plug the hole in his finances after a layoff, a divorce, and several legal disputes emptied his wallet in the last decade.
Those expenses have dug a hole so deep in his savings that Thomas is only now starting up his 401k from scratch. Currently, he estimates he has around $100,000 in savings, well below the goal that is traditionally recommended by financial advisors, who say you should have around eight times your annual salary saved by the time you're 60.
"I know I won't be able to retire at 65 unless I win the lottery," Thomas told Business Insider. "I expect that I will either need help from my daughter when I can no longer work, or I will need government assistance greater than Social Security."
He's not alone. Thomas is among what retirement experts are calling "silver squatters" — adults in their mid-50s who are even more woefully unprepared than some boomers, despite being about a decade away from retirement. "Squatters" refers to the possibility that many will have to rely on family for housing in later years.
As far as silver squatters go, Thomas's story is fairly common. According to surveys conducted by Prudential Financial, the median retirement savings for those in their mid-50s is just under $48,000, with 35% of 55-year-olds having less than $10,000 saved and 18% having saved nothing at all in 2023.
Two-thirds of 55-year-olds say they're afraid of outliving their savings. That's the highest level of fear among any age group of Prudential's 2024 survey, with 59% of 65-year-olds saying they worried they would outlive their savings.
"As a whole, they are not as prepared as the boomers and actually are doing less well than the millennials," Pete Welsh, managing director of retirement and wealth at Inspira Financial, told BI, though he noted that the youngest Gen Xers still had time to catch up on their savings.
The lack of preparation among the cohort could be due to late planning and the unique economic circumstances of the mid-50s crowd, in addition to less financial literacy among the generation, wealth advisors say.
René, a 50-year-old based in Austin, Texas, has anxiety over whether she and her husband will have enough to live comfortably once they retire. Their life savings — around $380,000 between the two of them — dwindled to next to nothing after a medical diagnosis put her out of work and through a string of surgeries over the course of two years, she told BI.
The couple, who have fallen behind on some of their bills, don't know if they'll be able to get extra financial assistance once they retire, besides their expected pension payments. They have no external family, and they don't want to rely on their daughter for help.
"I was like, oh God, how did we get here?" René said, describing a plea she made with their mortgage provider not to foreclose on their home. "We're just going to have to work and 401k-it, and that's just how it's going to have to be now."
Silver squatters share some common characteristics, despite the unique circumstances affecting their retirement readiness. This group of Gen Xers — the generation of Americans aged 43 to 59 — largely expects to postpone or work past their retirement. 47% of Gen Xers think they'll have to retire later than they initially expected, while 40% expect to work part-time after they retire, per Prudential's survey.
A majority also don't expect to receive any inheritance, despite their boomer predecessors holding onto trillions in wealth. Only 12% of the 55-year-old group expect to get money passed down from their family members, Prudential's survey found.
They do, however, largely expect to be reliant on family for support once they retire. Around 24% of 55-year-olds say they expect financial support from their family members, with 21% adding they also needing housing support, the report said.
That compares to just 12% of 65-year-olds who say they will need that kind of help from family.
The gap in retirement readiness could be due to the "unique" challenges of Gen Xers, according to Dylan Tyson, the head of retirement strategies at Prudential. He notes that all of the generation was in their prime working years during the 2008 financial crisis, which could have set them back financially.
Gen Xers could also be in a tenuous stage of life, where a number of surprise expenses have popped up to drain their savings. Think of those who have had to fund their child's college education or are paying for a living facility for their own parents, Inspira's Welsh said.
"You're trying to help out here, you're trying to help out there, and then at the end of the day, there's just not enough on the table to really think about what you're going to do for yourself," Welsh said, adding that some of Inspira's Gen X clients had expressed frustration over their financial responsibilities to their family. "They're just in a very tough, tough spot that, for whatever reason, I guess maybe the boomers didn't have to deal with."
Low rates of financial literacy — which is a widespread issue among every generation in the US, according to a study from the World Economic Forum — doesn't help the situation, Welsh and Tyson say. Around half of Gen Xers are saving without a general plan for retirement, Prudential found.
Most also don't appear to be accounting for major expenses into retirement, with 48% not factoring in healthcare costs and 75% not factoring in assisted living expenses.
Many Prudential clients don't even know how much they need to save, Tyson said, adding that many of the firm's Gen X clients are simply guessing how long they will live. He said he believes many of them are guessing incorrectly due to rising life expectancies in the US.
"If you don't have the cushion — again, this is the group we're talking about, the 60-year-old, undersaved — they really need to be watching every penny and thinking about that," Welsh said.
This article was originally published in August 2024.
FIRST ON FOX — Dozens of former Justice Department (DOJ) officials sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday urging confirmation of President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, later this month— praising both her commitment to the rule of law and her track record as Florida’s former attorney general that they said makes her uniquely qualified for the role.
The letter, previewed exclusively to Fox News Digital, was signed by more than 110 senior Justice Department officials who served under both Democratic and Republican administrations, including former U.S. attorneys general John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr and Edwin Meese.
Former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, deputy attorneys general Rod Rosenstein and Jeffrey Rosen, and Randy Grossman, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California under the Biden administration, are among the other notable signatories.
The DOJ alumni expressed their "strong and enthusiastic support" for Bondi, Florida’s former attorney general, who also spent 18 years as a prosecutor in the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s office.
"It is all too rare for senior Justice Department officials—much less Attorneys General—to have such a wealth of experience in the day-to-day work of keeping our communities safe," they wrote.
TRUMP'S AG PICK HAS ‘HISTORY OF CONSENSUS BUILDING’
"As a career prosecutor, Attorney General Bondi will be ready from the first day on the job to fight on behalf of the American people to reduce crime, tackle the opioid crisis, back the women and men in blue, and restore credibility to the Department of Justice," they wrote in the letter sent to Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
The letter praised Bondi's work as Florida's attorney general, where she led an aggressive crackdown on opioid drugs and the many "pill mills" operating in the state when she took office. They also praised what they described as Bondi's "national reputation" for her work to end human trafficking, and prosecuting violent crime in the state.
Officials also emphasized Bondi's other achievements in Florida, where she secured consumer protection victories and economic relief on behalf of residents in the Sunshine State. After the 2008 financial crisis, her work leading the National Mortgage Settlement resulted in $56 billion in compensation to victims, the letter said — and in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Bondi's lawsuit against BP and other companies responsible resulted in a $2 billion settlement in economic relief.
The letter also stressed Bondi's commitment to the rule of law, and what the former officials touted as her track record of working across the aisle during the more than two decades she spent as a prosecutor.
'UNLIKELY COALITION': A CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM ADVOCATE SEES OPPORTUNITIES IN A SECOND TRUMP TERM
"Some of us have worked directly with Attorney General Bondi during her time in office and can personally attest to her integrity and devotion to the rule of law," they wrote. "Many more of us know and admire her well-earned reputation from her long and accomplished career in government service in Florida, her litigation and advocacy on the national stage, and her demonstrated courage as a lawyer."
"As former DOJ officials, we know firsthand the challenges she will face as Attorney General, and we also know she is up to the job."
Those close to Bondi have praised her long record as a prosecutor, and her staunch loyalty to the president-elect, alongside whom she has worked since 2020—first, helping to represent him in his first impeachment trial, and, more recently, in her post as co-chair of the Center for Law and Justice at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) a think tank set up by former Trump staffers.
She also served in Trump's first presidential term as a member of his Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission.
Bondi's former colleagues have told Fox News Digital they expect her to bring the same playbook she used in Florida to Washington—this time with an eye to cracking down on drug trafficking, illicit fentanyl use, and the cartels responsible for smuggling the drugs across the border.
"We firmly believe the Justice Department and the Nation will benefit from Attorney General Bondi’s leadership," the DOJ officials said in conclusion, adding: "We urge you in the strongest manner possible to confirm her as the next Attorney General of the United States."
FIRST ON FOX: Newly-minted Arizona Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh was sworn in to the U.S. House Friday, revealing to Fox News Digital that he honored the life of ISIS victim Kayla Mueller by using her family’s Bible during the ceremony in Washington, D.C.
"This year will mark 10 years since the tragic loss of Kayla Mueller, a beacon of selflessness and courage whose legacy continues to inspire Americans across the nation. Kayla’s parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, have borne the unimaginable pain of losing their daughter and endured years of uncertainty surrounding her fate," Hamadeh told Fox News Digital. "Their strength and resilience are the foundation of Kayla’s extraordinary spirit."
A humanitarian worker from Arizona, Mueller was abducted by terrorists while leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria, in 2013. She was held hostage for 18 months, when she was believed to be repeatedly tortured and raped by ISIS militants, including then-ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Mueller was killed in February 2015.
KAYLA MUELLER’S PARENTS PRAISE TRUMP, SOLDIERS FOR RAID THAT KILLED AL-BAGHDADI
Mueller’s parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, have previously praised President-elect Trump for carrying out a military mission in 2019 that killed al-Baghdadi and spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
"The Trump team gave us empathy we never received from the Obama administration. Kayla should be here. If Donald Trump had been president when Kayla was captive, she would be here today," Carl Mueller said.
Hamadeh cited the Muellers’ 2020 RNC address in his comment to Fox Digital, reflecting on how the young woman’s mother read a letter her daughter wrote while imprisoned, which stated: "I have been shown in darkness light and have learned that even in prison, one can be free."
"What a powerful thing to write in the face of such horror. Kayla’s unshakable faith and inner strength were a reflection of the values instilled by her remarkable parents," Hamadeh said.
"As I take the oath of office, I am profoundly honored to fulfill my promise to the Muellers and the American people by being sworn into Congress using Kayla’s family Bible. It serves as a testament to her unwavering belief in light over darkness and freedom over oppression."
Hamadeh, 33, is an Army veteran and former Maricopa County prosecutor who won his election to represent Arizona's 8th Congressional District during the 2024 cycle. The Trump-backed candidate, the son of Syrian immigrants, joined Fox News Digital in November for his first interview since winning the election, celebrated the GOP's successes nationwide and previewed his top priorities.
ARIZONA GOVERNOR, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER UNVEIL PAINTING HONORING KAYLA MUELLER
"I know election integrity is the top of my list as well, because without secure elections, we can't have a republic. And, so, I know that's going to be top priorities — election integrity, border security, as well as making sure we increase our energy independence — because that's going to help reduce inflation rather quickly once we start growing the economy," Hamadeh told Fox Digital at the time.
"[Trump] does have a mandate from the American people," Hamadeh added. "The last time a Republican won the popular vote and Electoral College was 2004 with an incumbent president, President George W. Bush. You know, the last time it was a non-incumbent, I believe, was 1988 under George H.W. Bush. And he was still at least the VP at the time. So, this was a historic mandate. And President Trump, I'm going to support him all the way in Congress and make sure that we're going to change our country around very quickly."
Hamadeh told Fox Digital he will carry Kayla Mueller's legacy with him as he dives into his work in Congress.
"Kayla’s memory calls on us to live with purpose and courage, and I will carry her legacy with me as I fight for the freedoms and values she so deeply cherished. I am eternally grateful to Carl and Marsha Mueller for entrusting me with this sacred honor and for their enduring faith in our country’s ability to uphold the principles Kayla embodied," he said.
Hamadeh's swearing-in ceremony follows a tragic terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year's Day that left at least 14 dead and dozens injured when a truck plowed through crowds of people on Bourbon Street.
Authorities confirmed an ISIS flag was recovered in the suspect's car and reported that the individual was "inspired" by the terrorist organization. But they believe he acted alone in carrying out the attack.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
Before the devastating terror attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day rocked the nation, President Biden and his administration repeatedly stressed that the greatest threat facing the country was White supremacy — even explicitly stating that terrorist organizations such as ISIS could not compare to the danger posed by White supremacists.
"According to the intelligence community, terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today. Not ISIS, not al Qaeda — White supremacists," Biden said in June 2021 on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
The comment came just weeks after he declared during the State of the Union that year, "We won’t ignore what our intelligence agencies have determined to be the most lethal terrorist threat to the homeland today: White supremacy is terrorism."
Early on New Year’s Day, New Orleans and the nation were rocked by a suspected terror attack when a man identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, allegedly rammed a truck into crowds of revelers celebrating the holiday on the city’s famed Bourbon Street. The FBI confirmed on Wednesday that they were investigating the incident as an act of terror, noting that they had confirmed the suspect had an ISIS flag in the vehicle at the time of the attack.
ISIS is a jihadist group that has carried out terrorist attacks worldwide but has lost momentum in recent years, including in 2019 when U.S. forces killed Iraqi militant and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The FBI said Thursday that Jabbar had been "inspired" by ISIS, adding that they have not found any evidence that he was directed by ISIS to carry out the attack.
The shocking attack has resurrected Biden's previous rhetoric on White supremacy and the state of national security, which was also promoted by administration leaders such as Attorney General Merrick Garland.
"In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the superiority of the white race,’" Garland declared in May 2021 before the Senate Appropriations Committee of the top threats to the U.S.
Garland was joined by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayarokas in sounding the alarm on the threat that White supremacists posed to the U.S. that year. Garland and Biden administration officials at the time argued that Jan. 6, 2021 — when supporters of President-elect Trump breached the Capitol buildig — opened the floodgates to concern over home-grown threats to democracy.
"I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol," Garland said at the time, calling it "an attempt to interfere with the fundamental element of our democracy, a peaceful transfer of power."
Biden has also cited the threat of White supremacy in more recent public remarks, including during his commencement address to Howard University in 2023.
"White supremacy … is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland," Biden said. "And I’m not just saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU. I say this wherever I go."
BIDEN ADMIN MOCKED FOR LABELING 'WHITE SUPREMACY' THE GREATEST THREAT TO US
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the Trump administration released a report in 2020, called the "Homeland Threat Assessment," which found that White supremacists and other "domestic violent extremists" posed "the most persistent and lethal threat" to the nation. Following Biden’s inauguration, Mayorkas declared that DHS was "taking a new approach to addressing domestic violent extremism, both internally and externally," compared to the previous administration.
Following the attack on Wednesday morning, conservative social media users and critics of the Biden administration resurrected Biden’s previous comments on White supremacy, quipping that the comments have "not aged well."
The brother of the suspected terrorist told The New York Times that Jabbar had been raised Christian, but converted to Islam. The sibling, Abdur Jabbar, underscored that his brother does not represent the Islamic faith and instead called his actions an example of "radicalization."
"What he did does not represent Islam," he added. "This is more some type of radicalization, not religion."
During his first term as president, Donald Trump saw the height of a violent civil war in Syria, a resurgence of Islamic State activity, and a rise in ISIS-inspired attacks both abroad and on U.S. soil.
Eight years later, many of these bogeymen have returned.
In the last eight weeks, Syrian rebels launched a lightning offensive, wresting back control of the country and then of its capital—forcing longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad to flee to Russia for safe haven. Like Trump’s first term, the instability in the Middle East has prompted fresh questions over if, or what role the U.S. should play in Syria—amid concerns that failing to act will further open the power vacuum in Syria, making it ripe for exploitation by Islamic State militants and other terrorist groups.
And on Wednesday, U.S. authorities scrambled to investigate and respond to two separate attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Despite taking place thousands of miles apart, both are being investigated as possible acts of terrorism—a glaring indicator that the threat of homegrown extremism remains just as pervasive as ever.
Ahead of Trump's second term, the violence—and the unexpected collapse of Syria's authoritarian regime— have prompted new questions as to how the U.S. might act.
Options for Trump
Trump, for his part, has long opposed the idea of involving U.S. troops in foreign wars. In 2019, he ordered the complete withdrawal of all military personnel in Syria's north.
He reiterated that view in a post last month on Truth Social, saying the U.S. should "have nothing to do with" the situation in Syria.
"Let it play out," he said.
It's unclear whether, or to what degree, this week's deadly attacks may have swayed Trump's decision. Fourteen people were killed in New Orleans early Wednesday morning by Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a Texas native and U.S. army veteran who had driven from Houston to Bourbon Street in a rented pickup truck, plowing through crowds of people massed outside the famed string of bars to celebrate the new year. Jabbar himself was fatally shot by police.
FBI officials said that Jabbar, who had affixed an Islamic State flag to the rented vehicle, was "100% inspired by ISIS" in carrying out the terrorist attack, though it remains unclear whether he has any legitimate ties to the group.
Jabbar had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and is believed to have joined the group this past summer, officials said. He was also seen on surveillance footage planting two explosive devices in coolers along the corners of Bourbon and Orleans Streets, and another intersection nearby, though both were later rendered safe by bomb squad teams.
Separately, the FBI said they are investigating a Las Vegas explosion carried out in a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas as a possible act of terrorism.
The suspect in that case, Matthew Alan Livelsberger, had been a member of the U.S. Army's elite special forces unit prior to the explosion, and FBI officials raided a house in Colorado Springs on Thursday that they said they believe could be connected to the case.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE TRUMP INAUGURATION
Should Trump opt to maintain his longtime opposition to U.S. intervention in "foreign wars," there are other options he could take to try to crack down on violent domestic attacks. This could include cracking down on immigration— a policy long embraced by Trump and many Republicans in Congress—to prevent possible threat actors from crossing the border.
In fact, the Department of Homeland Security told reporters in June that it had identified more than 400 migrants from Central Asia and other countries who had been smuggled into the U.S. by ISIS-linked smuggling groups over the last three years, prompting a flurry of new arrests and "subjects of concern" designations.
DHS officials said the arrests, first reported by NBC, were made out of "an abundance of caution," and noted at the time that they had not identified any credible threats to the U.S. by the migrants, who may have simply been attempting to find a way to cross into the U.S.
Still, a border crackdown might not be enough to solve the problem, made especially complex by the role of lone-wolf threat actors and individuals who become radicalized online.
A pervasive threat
The FBI has focused heavily on the risk of terrorism posed by domestic and homegrown violent extremists, as it noted in its most recent "Worldwide Threats to the Homeland" report.
These small groups or individuals pose the biggest risk to national security, the report noted—often using easily accessible weapons, such as guns and cars, to attack so-called "soft targets," or groups of civilians gathered en masse at accessible locations.
The "greatest, most immediate international terrorism threat to the homeland" are individuals who have lived primarily in the U.S. and who carry out actions inspired by, but not at the express direction of, a foreign terrorist organization such as ISIS, the law enforcement agency said.
Early in December, the FBI and other authorities warned of a heightened risk of vehicular attacks by lone-wolf offenders during the holidays, noting in a shared bulliten that threat actors have "plotted and conducted attacks against holiday targets" in previous years, with likely targets including public places with "perceived lower levels of security" holding large gatherings.
The threat is also not going away. Trump's first term as president saw multiple attacks carried out by individuals pledging allegiance to ISIS or other jihad groups—even if they had not been operating at the direction of the group itself. These individuals were responsible for the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, the 2017 New York City truck attack, a 2017 machete attack at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, and many more acts of violence.
Vehicular attacks have also increased: Since 2014, there have been at least 16 vehicular ramming attacks in the U.S. and Europe carried out by individuals practicing jihad, according to a report from the think tank New America.
And since 2020, the number of domestic terrorism investigations conducted by the FBI has more than doubled—a staggering rate that indicates both the scope and the complexity of the growing problem.
Speaking to reporters at a press briefing on Thursday, FBI officials said the suspect in the New Orleans attack, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was "100% inspired by ISIS."
"First and foremost, let me be very clear about this point," the FBI Assistant Director of Counterterrorism, Christopher Raia, told reporters. "This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act."
The FBI under the Biden administration's leadership has faced repeated scandals over the last four years, including in the waning days of the administration when a suspected terror attack rocked New Orleans early on New Year's Day morning.
Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was nominated by Trump in his first administration, announced last month that he would step down from his post, clearing the path for Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, to rally support for his confirmation process in earnest ahead of Trump's inauguration this month.
As President Biden’s administration comes to a close, Fox Digital revisits some of the top scandals the FBI has faced in the last four years.
Chaos broke out on New Orleans' famed Bourbon Street just after 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day when a truck plowed through crowds of revelers, leaving at least 15 dead and dozens of others injured.
The FBI took the lead on the case and landed in hot water with conservatives and others for initially reporting to the public that the attack was not an instance of terrorism before ultimately backtracking.
"We'll be taking over the investigative lead for this event. This is not a terrorist event," said New Orleans field office FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan during a Wednesday morning press conference.
During that same press conference, however, the mayor of New Orleans contradicted Duncan’s comment and minced no words in detailing that the city faced an act of terror.
"Know that the city of New Orleans was impacted by a terrorist attack. It's all still under investigation," Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.
The FBI soon backtracked from its position that the attack was not an act of terror, releasing statements throughout the day that they were investigating the matter as related to terrorism, including confirming that an ISIS flag was found on the suspect’s vehicle that plowed through the crowds.
"This morning, an individual drove a car into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing a number of people and injuring dozens of others. The subject then engaged with local law enforcement and is now deceased. The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism," the FBI said in one of its three statements provided to Fox Digital.
The FBI’s handling of the matter, however, has sparked outrage from elected officials, Trump allies and voters on social media.
"The FBI has a no-fail mission. There is no room for error. When they fail, Americans die. It's a necessity that Kash Patel gets confirmed ASAP," a source close to Trump told Fox News Digital on Thursday morning.
Other conservatives and Trump allies railed against the FBI on social media, claiming the FBI has focused resources on issues such as DEI training and hiring instead of investigating and preventing crime.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and other conservatives also took issue with the FBI for allegedly responding to the suspect’s home in Texas after the media had already staked out the property.
"The FBI didn’t show up to the NOLA suspect’s address until 1pm today. We were on scene before. No one came out of the home or answered the door," New York Post reporter Jennie Taer posted to X on Wednesday.
Blackburn responded to the Post reporter by saying the FBI had "failed" its mission as the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
"The fact that a reporter has better intel than the FBI tells us all we need to know. The FBI has failed its core mission," Blackburn posted.
The suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was armed with a Glock and a .308 rifle during the attack and was killed after opening fire on police. Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. citizen who lived in Texas, is believed to have acted alone, the FBI announced Thursday.
Trump slammed Biden and his administration’s policies for the attack.
"With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined. Joe Biden is the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA, A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER," Trump posted on Truth Social.
Earlier Thursday, when approached for comment on the criticisms of its handling of the attack, the FBI directed Fox News Digital to its three previous statements on the attack that described it as an act of terror but did not comment on the New Orleans’ agent saying Wednesday that the attack was not connected to terrorism.
"An ISIS flag was located in the vehicle, and the FBI is working to determine the subject's potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations," one FBI statement said.
"The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism. We are aggressively running down all leads to identify any possible associates of the subject," the statement added.
Approximately 30 armed FBI agents converged on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in August 2022 to execute a search warrant regarding classified documents in the former president’s possession.
The unprecedented raid included agents rifling through former, and upcoming, first lady Melania Trump’s wardrobe. The agents seized 33 boxes of documents.
"He invaded my home. I’m suing the country over it. He invaded Mar-a-Lago. I’m very unhappy with the things he’s done. And crime is at an all-time high. Migrants are pouring into the country that are from prisons and from mental institutions, as we’ve discussed. I can’t say I’m thrilled," Trump said of Wray during an interview with NBC that aired Sunday.
Earlier this year, it was revealed the Biden administration authorized the use of deadly force during the raid. The jarring revelation added fuel to the fire of conservatives slamming the raid, though the FBI clarified that the same language was used in a similar search warrant for President Biden’s Delaware home.
SPECIAL COUNSEL, IRS WHISTLEBLOWERS SAY DON'T BUY BIDEN 'SPIN' ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN LEGAL SAGA
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who called for Wray’s resignation in a scathing letter last month, argued there were "serious questions" about the raid, considering that Trump had been cooperating with investigators with regard to the classified documents.
"This raid occurred despite serious questions about the need for it. President Trump apparently was cooperating with the investigation, notwithstanding liberal press reports. He voluntarily turned over 15 boxes of documents months before the FBI’s drastic escalation," Grassley continued, adding that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never faced such a raid "even though she and her staff mishandled highly classified information while using a non-government server."
Trump, in reaction to Wray’s resignation, again railed against the "illegal" raid on Mar-a-Lago.
RAID ON TRUMP'S MAR-A-LAGO ESTATE QUESTIONED BY SOME LEGAL SCHOLARS
"Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause, worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me, and has done everything else to interfere with the success and future of America. They have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them," he wrote on Truth Social.
Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee in July and said he "would not call it a raid" on Mar-a-Lago, instead saying the FBI conducted "the execution of a lawful search warrant."
In January 2023, conservative lawmakers slammed an internal FBI memo from the Richmond field office titled "Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities."
The memo identified "radical-traditionalist Catholic[s]" as potential "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists" and said that "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) in radical-traditionalist Catholic (RTC) ideology almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development."
The memo was rescinded, but lawmakers scrutinized Wray as to why Americans were targeted due to their religious beliefs, which defies the U.S. Constitution.
Twenty Republican lawmakers in a letter to Wray last year said the memo "singled out traditional Catholics for their pro-life views, accusing RTCs of ‘hostility towards abortion-rights advocates’ in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision."
"This specific call out to pro-life views is of even greater concern, considering the slow rate of investigation and response to the violent attacks that a number of pro-life pregnancy centers and Catholic Churches have experienced since the Dobbs decision was leaked in May of last year," they wrote.
But Wray said at a 2023 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that "We do not and will not conduct investigations based on anybody’s exercise of their constitutionally protected religious [expression]."
HEAVILY REDACTED RECORDS SHOW FBI'S TARGETING OF CATHOLICS WENT BEYOND WHAT IT CLAIMED: WATCHDOG
The FBI also came under fire during Wray’s tenure when the FBI raided a home and arrested a pro-life man in Pennsylvania in 2022.
Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven who would often pray outside a Philadelphia abortion clinic, was arrested at his rural Pennsylvania home in Kintnersville by the FBI. The arrest stemmed from an altercation he had with a Planned Parenthood escort in Philadelphia in October 2021. Houck was accused of pushing the abortion clinic escort, who allegedly verbally harassed Houck's 12-year-old son outside the clinic.
The Biden administration alleged Houck violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with anyone because that person provides reproductive health care.
Houck was acquitted by a jury last year after arguing that he was protecting his son. He and his wife, Ryan-Marie, argued that the FBI used excessive force during the arrest, filing a lawsuit against the DOJ this year alleging the arrest followed a "faulty and malicious investigation."
The DOJ and FBI were heavily criticized by parents nationwide in 2021 when Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo directing the FBI to use counterterrorism tools related to parents speaking out at school board meetings against transgender-related issues and critical race theory curricula.
The memorandum followed the National School Boards Association (NSBA) sending a letter to President Biden and asking that the federal government investigate parents protesting at school board meetings, claiming school officials were facing threats at meetings.
The NSBA requested that parents' actions be examined under the Patriot Act as "domestic terrorists," sparking Garland’s eventual memo, which did not use the phrase "domestic terrorist."
"After surveying local law enforcement, U.S. Attorney’s offices around the country reported back to Main Justice that there was no legitimate law-enforcement basis for the Attorney General’s directive to use federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources to investigate school board-related threats," the House Judiciary Committee stated in an interim report on the memo last year.
Garland testified before the Senate last year that the memo "was aimed at violence and threats of violence against a whole host of school personnel," not parents "making complaints to their school board," but the memo set off a firestorm of criticism from parents nonetheless.
HOUSE JUDICIARY SUBPOENAS FBI DIRECTOR WRAY ON TARGETING OF PARENTS AT SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS
"The premier law enforcement agency of the United States of America, the FBI, was used as a weapon by the DOJ against parents who dared to voice their concerns at the most local level: their school board," Moms for Liberty founder Tiffany Justice told Fox News Digital last year.
In Grassley’s blistering 11-page letter to Wray last month, he slammed the FBI for acting as an "accomplice to the Democrats’ false information campaign" surrounding his investigation into "alleged Biden-family corruption."
Grassley said the FBI "sat on bribery allegations" against Biden when he served as vice president, as well as Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and Ukrainian officials.
"Consistent with that FBI failure, yet another glaring example of FBI’s broken promises under your leadership is its inexcusable failure to investigate bribery allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden, while strictly scrutinizing former President Trump. You’ve repeatedly claimed you would ensure the FBI does justice, ‘free of fear, favor, or partisan influence.’ The FBI under your watch, however, had possession of incriminating information against President Biden for three years until I exposed the existence of the record outlining those allegations, but did nothing to investigate it," he wrote.
At question in the investigation was an FBI-generated FD-1023 form that allegedly described a multimillion-dollar criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. Grassley ultimately acquired the document through legally protected disclosures by Department of Justice whistleblowers.
That document reflects the FBI's interview with a "highly credible" confidential human source who described meetings and conversations they had with an executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma at the time.
Biden denied the accusations, calling the bribery allegations a "bunch of malarkey" last year.
"Still, to-date, the DOJ and FBI have neither answered whether they investigated the substance of the FD-1023, nor have they provided an explanation for any effort undertaken to obtain the financial records and other pieces of evidence referenced within the document," Grassley wrote to Wray on Monday. "This sounds a lot like Director Comey’s leadership of the FBI, which was nothing short of shameful."
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When asked about Grassley’s letter last month, the FBI said it "has repeatedly demonstrated our commitment to responding to Congressional oversight and being transparent with the American people."
"Director Wray and Deputy Director Abbate have taken strong actions toward achieving accountability in the areas mentioned in the letter and remain committed to sharing information about the continuously evolving threat environment facing our nation and the extraordinary work of the FBI."
Trump faced a shocking assassination attempt in July while giving a speech at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The shooter, perched on the roof of a nearby building, fired a series of shots that grazed Trump's right ear and wounded two rally attendees. Local father and volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore was fatally struck while protecting his family.
Wray came under criticism regarding the assassination attempt when he appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and cast doubt on whether a bullet actually struck Trump.
"I think with respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, hit his ear," Wray said at the hearing.
Trump blasted him online for the comment.
"FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasn’t sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively ’uneventful’ - Wrong!" Trump wrote on Truth Social in July.
"No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a "bullet wound to the ear," and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!"
The FBI later confirmed a bullet, "whether whole or fragmented," struck Trump.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
In the days since New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared New York City’s subways had improved in safety, a woman was burned alive, a man was pushed in front of an oncoming train and gangs of illegal immigrants have robbed straphangers.
Just before Christmas, the Democrat took to X to claim that, since March, she has taken action to make subways "safer for the millions of people who take the trains each day."
"Since deploying the [New York National Guard] to support [the NYPD] and MTA, safety efforts and adding cameras to all subway cars, crime is going down, and ridership is going up," she wrote on Dec. 22.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), while mostly serving the five boroughs, Long Island and Lower Hudson Valley suburbs, is a state-operated, not city-operated, agency.
However, in that short time, an illegal immigrant allegedly set a woman on fire on an F train, a man miraculously survived being shoved in front of a 1 train and Venezuelan gang members have been robbing straphangers at will.
In Coney Island, Guatemalan national Sebastian Zapeta was charged with murder after allegedly lighting a Toms River, New Jersey, woman on fire while she slept on board an F train at the Stillwell Avenue Terminal. That incident occurred the morning of Dec. 22, hours before Hochul's post.
The victim, Debrina Kawam, once worked for Merck Pharmaceuticals in the early 2000s but had more recently lived in a New York City homeless shelter.
Zapeta’s arraignment has been set for Tuesday. He told the NYPD he overindulges in alcohol and "doesn’t know what happened," according to NBC News.
"My office is very confident about the evidence in this case and our ability to hold Zapeta accountable for his dastardly deeds," Kings County Democratic District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said of the case.
Earlier this week, 23-year-old Kamel Hawkins of Brooklyn allegedly shoved an unsuspecting straphanger into the path of a South Ferry-bound 1 train at W 18th Street Station in Chelsea.
Hawkins initially got away but was soon caught near Columbus Circle and Central Park, according to reports. The injured victim’s survival was lauded as a miracle, as he fell into a "trench" between the tracks as the train ran over him and was ambulanced to a hospital with head injuries.
ECONOMIC EXPERTS PAN HOCHUL'S ‘INFLATIONARY’ INFLATION REFUNDS
Hawkins had prior arrests for body-slamming a police officer in Queens. His father, Shamel Hawkins, told the New York Post, "We think somebody put something in his weed."
The elder Hawkins said his son had been "acting weird" recently and that he "needs help" but continues to refuse to seek it.
On New Year’s Day, WPIX reported two separate unprovoked subway stabbing incidents during daylight hours on the West Side. A 30-year-old man was reportedly stabbed in the head and hip awaiting a 1 train at 110 Street and Broadway. The station is in otherwise one of the safer areas of Manhattan, near Columbia University, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the diner made famous on the sitcom "Seinfeld."
Another man was stabbed while awaiting a 2 train at 14th Street and 7th Avenue that same day, according to the outlet.
Meanwhile, authorities found 22 Tren de Aragua migrant gang members during a raid on a residence in Crotona Park, Bronx last month. Federal law enforcement had tracked the ankle monitor of Jarwin Valero-Calderon — a Venezuelan national originally arrested in Nassau County and under a deportation order — to the building.
HOCHUL SPARKS BIPARTISAN OUTRAGE OVER CONGESTION PRICING REBOOT AS DEMS WORRIED TRUMP WOULD BLOCK IT
Hochul said in an X video on her account, called "This Week in New York," that her "five-point plan to improve subway safety" has led to overall subway crime dropping 10% since March 2023.
Hochul also said she will deploy 250 more National Guard members to take part in Joint Task Force: Empire Shield.
In its December report on November’s crime stats, the NYPD listed subway crime as having decreased 15% that month from 240 reported incidents to 202 and a year-to-date decrease of 6% from 2,137 to 2,002.
The NYPD said the subways saw their safest year-to-date figure in more than a decade.
"We are all in this together, and while the downward trends in violence and disorder across New York City are highly encouraging as we enter the final month of 2024, we have a lot more work to do to deliver the public safety that New Yorkers deserve," NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said in a Dec. 3 statement.
However, New Yorkers overall felt less safe on the MTA as of late.
"Kathy Hochul needs to resign," commentator Chaya Raichik — or "LibsOfTikTok" — wrote on X after chronicling some of the recent subway incidents and claiming some of the recent underground robberies were committed by Tren de Aragua gang members.
"Of course she won’t resign. These people care only about their power and the perks," FOX Business host David Asman wrote in a reply. "Only New Yorkers can get rid of her."
"Daniel Penny for governor," another X user commented, referring to the man acquitted in the death of a crazed straphanger who had been menacing passengers earlier this year.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber pledged during a March transit board meeting "we are not going back" to the mid-20th century when the subway was incredibly unsafe. "This is a nightmare for New Yorkers," he said after learning Carlton McPherson — whom neighbors described to the Post as "a little off" — had recently fatally shoved a man in front of a Woodlawn-bound 4 train on 125 Street in Harlem.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams also addressed the public sentiment in remarks earlier this year.
"Public safety is the actual safety and it's how people are feeling," he said in March. "We know we have over 4 million riders a day and a reliable system. We know we have approximately six felonies a day out of those 4 million riders. But if they don't feel safe, then we're not accomplishing our task."
"Stats don't matter if people don't believe they are in a safe environment," he said, according to WNBC.
Lieber said at the March meeting he would not be "surrendering our city to anyone."
President-elect Donald Trump's allies are excoriating the FBI for its initial characterization of the brutal car attack in New Orleans as not terror-related, before the nation’s top federal law enforcement agency backtracked and launched a terrorism investigation allegedly connected to ISIS.
"The FBI has a no-fail mission. There is no room for error. When they fail, Americans die. It's a necessity that Kash Patel gets confirmed ASAP," a source close to Trump told Fox News Digital on Thursday morning.
Early Wednesday morning, chaos broke out on Bourbon Street in New Orleans as New Year’s Eve revelers partied on the streets. The suspect, later identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, is accused of ramming a truck into the crowds on the beloved and famed party street, killing at least 15 and injuring dozens of others. Jabbar, who was armed with a Glock and a .308 rifle, was killed after opening fire on police.
As details filtered to the public on Wednesday morning, law enforcement officials, including the FBI, held a press conference where a special agent initially told the public that the attack was not related to terrorism.
"We'll be taking over the investigative lead for this event. This is not a terrorist event," said New Orleans field office FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan during the press conference.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT VICTIMS OF NEW ORLEANS TERRORIST ATTACK
The mayor of New Orleans contradicted Duncan in the same press conference, declaring that the attack was connected to terrorism.
"Know that the city of New Orleans was impacted by a terrorist attack. It's all still under investigation. You'll hear more after me," Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a Democrat who has served in the role since 2018, said at the presser.
The FBI released statements later Wednesday outlining that the attack was now under investigation as an act of terror, including reporting that an ISIS flag was found on the truck that rammed into the crowds.
"An ISIS flag was located in the vehicle, and the FBI is working to determine the subject's potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations," one FBI statement said.
SUSPECT IDENTIFIED AS FBI INVESTIGATES ACT OF TERRORISM AFTER BOURBON STREET ATTACK
"The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism. We are aggressively running down all leads to identify any possible associates of the subject," the statement added.
Conservative lawmakers decried the attack and mourned for the victims, while also directing their ire at the FBI for its alleged failures in handling the attack. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a key Senate ally of Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, slammed the FBI in a series of messages posted to X and again rallied support for Patel’s confirmation to serve as FBI director.
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"The tragic terror attack that killed innocent people in New Orleans is a stark reminder of the importance of strong leadership. America needs a fearless fighter like @Kash_Patel at the FBI," Blackburn posted on Wednesday.
Blackburn also took issue with the FBI for allegedly reporting to the suspect’s home in Texas after the media had already staked out the property.
"The FBI didn’t show up to the NOLA suspect’s address until 1pm today. We were on scene before. No one came out of the home or answered the door," New York Post reporter Jennie Taer posted to X on Wednesday.
Blackburn responded to the Post reporter, saying that the FBI had "failed" its mission as the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
"The fact that a reporter has better intel than the FBI tells us all we need to know. The FBI has failed its core mission," Blackburn posted.
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When approached for comment on the criticisms, the FBI directed Fox Digital to its three previous statements on the attack that described it as an act of terror but did not comment on the New Orleans’ agent saying Wednesday that the attack was not connected to terrorism.
"This morning, an individual drove a car into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing a number of people and injuring dozens of others. The subject then engaged with local law enforcement and is now deceased. The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism," the FBI said in one of its three statements provided to Fox Digital.
Jabbar was identified as a 42-year-old U.S. citizen from Texas. He was an Army veteran who served as a human resource specialist and information technology specialist from March 2007 until Jan. 2015, and he deployed to Afghanistan from Feb. 2009 to Jan. 2010.
Trump slammed President Biden and his administration’s policies for the attack.
TRUMP FBI PICK KASH PATEL SHOULD TAKE THESE CONCRETE STEPS TO RESTORE TRUST: FORMER SPECIAL AGENT
"With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined. Joe Biden is the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA, A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER," Trump posted to Truth Social.
Biden mourned the attack on Wednesday, highlighting that despite the violence, "our New Orleans will never, never, never be defeated."
"New Orleans is a place unlike any other place in the world," the president said. "It's a city full of charm and joy. So many people around the world love New Orleans because of its history, its culture, and above all, its people."
"So I know while this person committed a terrible assault on the city, the spirit of our New Orleans will never, never, never be defeated," he added.
AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images
Back in 2017, the ISIS militant group's reign of terror appeared to be coming to an end.
A US-led coalition ousted its fighters from strongholds in Iraq and Syria, where they had ruled with brutality and inspired a series of harrowing attacks on Western cities.
The loss of its bases and the assassination of many of its leaders badly dented its power, and its prominence faded.
The attack in New Orleans on Wednesday brought the group back into stark prominence.
Fifteen people were killed when the driver of a truck slammed into New Year crowds on Bourbon Street — authorities said the suspect pledged allegiance to ISIS and flew its flag.
Experts and security officials have in recent months issued increasingly urgent warnings of ISIS gathering strength.
ISIS has "remained a continuing threat," said Jessica White, a terrorism analyst at London's Royal United Services Institute, even though it "had to adapt after its territorial defeat."
"They are a diffuse and networked organisation that has alliances and branches that continue to wield influence, cause terror, and further their goals," she told Business Insider on Thursday.
The FBI said it is investigating what ties the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, may have had with the group. Authorities at first said Jabbar likely did not act alone, though in a press briefing on Thursday the agency said it no longer believes anyone else was involved.
ISIS was little-known in 2015, when it shocked the world by seizing swaths of Syria and Iraq and putting them under a severe form of Islamic law.
The group became known for atrocities, staging theatrical beheadings of hostages, seizing thousands as slaves, and orchestrating waves of terror attacks.
Its adherents cumulatively killed hundreds of people in attacks on Western cities, including Paris and San Bernardino in 2015, Berlin, Brussels, Nice, and Orlando in 2016, and London and Barcelona in 2017.
Attacks in Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia killed many hundreds more.
A US-led military response, launched under President Barack Obama and continued under President Donald Trump, gradually eroded the group with airstrikes supported by allied militias on the ground.
It culminated with the assassination of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by US special forces in 2019.
Trump has since boasted of destroying the group, claiming at last year's Republican National Convention that in his first term "we defeated 100% of ISIS."
Since then, the US has maintained a small military presence in northern Syria meant to monitor and extinguish potential resurgence by the group.
Analysts say the group has seized on instability in Afghanistan, where the Taliban regained power after the 2021 US withdrawal, and ongoing chaos in Syria to quietly rebuild its strength.
The group's Afghan affiliate, ISIS-K, presents a particularly potent threat, wrote Colin Clarke, Director of Policy and Research at The Soufan Group, for Foreign Policy in August.
"It is both pushing its propaganda to a more global audience and threatening attacks farther afield," he wrote.
ISIS-K was linked to the March 2024 attack on a music venue in Moscow where 145 people were killed, as well as an attack on a procession in Kerman, Iran, in January 2024 where 95 were killed.
In August, officials foiled a planned ISIS attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, Austria. The CIA's deputy director said extremists planned to kill "a huge number" there.
One of the main challenges for investigators will be to establish whether the New Orleans attacker took direct instruction from ISIS or was acting on his own volition, Sajjan J. Gohel, International Security Director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, told CNN.
The group mostly does not directly train extremists at its bases to carry out attacks, unlike the terror group Al-Qaida.
Instead, it largely remotely recruits and directs followers to carry out attacks that don't require much training, such as vehicle ramming or knife attacks.
Clarke, the ISIS expert, described this approach in his August article, called it a "virtual entrepreneur" model.
"Operatives in Afghanistan or Pakistan make contact with would-be ISIS-K supporters abroad to try to convince them to carry out attacks in the countries where they reside," wrote Clarke.
Attacks following that model include the 2016 beheading of a Catholic priest in a church in France, according to reports at the time.
The group is now less concerned with recruiting members in Syria and Iraq, and more on inciting attacks, said White, the RUSI expert.
"While the focus has shifted away from gathering followers to a centralised physical Caliphate, this has transformed the messaging to encouraging devotees to commit attacks whenever, wherever, and by whatever means they can," she said.
The New Orleans attack had "several strategic and symbolic considerations as potentially textbook ISIS," Gohel said.
Vehicle-rammings have been a feature of many deadly, ISIS-linked attacks.
The group's sophisticated propaganda is another powerful tool, enabling it to exploit grievances and attract supporters anywhere where there is internet access.
In some cases, followers with no direct links to the group have carried out attacks in its name. The 2017 Westminster Bridge attack in London seemed to fit that pattern.
The group's use of the internet, and success in radicalising those with no previous extremist links, make it particularly difficult to tackle.
"None of this is new. They just continue to throw it out every single day," Aaron Zelin, an expert on jihadist groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told NBC News of the group's methods. "And from their perspective, the hope is that it sticks with somebody,"
California Republican leaders appeared to mock Gov. Gavin Newsom’s fiery response to a critical analysis of his handling of the Golden State’s homelessness crisis, saying that any increase in homelessness is not admirable.
State Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones criticized Newsom, calling the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s year-end Homelessness Assessment Report an indictment of his capabilities.
"Gavin Newsom literally lost track of the $27 billion he spent on the homeless crisis," Jones said, citing the report as listing California first in homelessness, with an increase of 3% to 187,000.
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"Today’s HUD report makes it clear that instead of solving the problem, Newsom’s endless spending ‘solution’ has only made it worse," said Jones, R-San Diego.
In a recent statement, Newsom’s office indicated the state "distributed $24 billion to local governments to address homelessness through numerous state programs."
"All that money is accounted for," the statement continued, appearing to reference the funds Jones had claimed were "lost."
"The audit showed that previously not all state programs required locals to report how those dollars improved homelessness for the most recent years and lacked data to compare the effectiveness of one program versus another. That’s been fixed.
"This administration has added strong accountability and reporting requirements for local governments that receive state funding. Any notion that we don’t know where the money went is preposterous, and that’s not what the audit reported," the statement said.
The report also cited that Illinois, Wyoming, Hawaii and Colorado were the states where family homelessness doubled or worse.
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A statement from the Republican caucus of the California State Assembly keyed into Newsom’s recent thorough defense against an op-ed in the outlet CalMatters that made similar criticisms.
"In case you missed it, Governor Newsom’s office threw a tantrum over a column… that broke down his history of failure on homelessness," the caucus, led by Assemblyman James Gallagher of Yuba City, collectively wrote.
The CalMatters op-ed claimed Newsom’s handling of the homelessness crisis will be a key point of attack for his prospective 2028 Democratic presidential primary challengers if he chooses to seek higher office then.
The column cited Newsom as saying "what’s happening on the streets has to be a top priority," and reported he indicated a willingness to hold local officials accountable as well.
"People have to see and feel the progress and the change…" Newsom said, according to the column.
Gallagher’s caucus then cited Newsom’s response to the column, which consisted of a series of pointed posts.
"Given the sheer population size of California, to talk about homelessness without any of the broader context or how this administration's efforts compare to the prior is a disservice to Californians, plain and simple," Newsom’s office’s account wrote on X.
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"As the Governor has said many times, the work is far from over and urgency and results at the local level are needed more than ever. It's why new accountability tools have been put in place, for quicker results. It's also a longer-term effort -- through implementation of Prop 1, CARE Court, conservatorship reform, the just approved BH-Connect waiver all of which are aimed at addressing the systemic issues of homelessness but not yet fully online."
Newsom’s office also posted that unsheltered homelessness grew four times faster during the waning years of Gov. Edmund "Jerry" Brown’s administration than under his.
"The number of unsheltered homeless increased by 13.83% during the Newsom Administration (2019-2023), compared to an increase of 51.79% in the five-year period prior to the administration (2015-2019)," the post read.
California’s 14% homelessness increase in 2023 also fell below the national increase of 21%, the governor’s office added in the statement released just before this year's numbers.
In 2024, California saw a homelessness increase of 3%, according to a weekend statement released by Newsom’s office. The rate bests 40 other states, the release said.
Assembly Republicans responded to Newsom’s original comments.
"Since the governor is committed to gaslighting on this issue, we’ll state the obvious: an increase of 20% is not progress," their statement read.
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Jones, the Senate minority leader, cited Friday that he co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to change California’s homelessness policies and focus on "compassionate enforcement" of encampment violations.
One of his proposals from this past term, which did not make it to Newsom’s desk, focused on existing state law deeming "lodging" in a public or private place without permission to be disorderly conduct.
The bill would have delayed any indictment on that count for 72 hours after first notice and imposed a "state-mandated local program" for homeless individuals in those situations.
In a separate statement, Newsom said no American should be without a place to call home:
"Homelessness continues to rise and increase at ever-higher numbers nationwide, but we are seeing signs of progress in California," he said.
"We have turned the tide on a decades-long increase in homelessness – but we have more work to do. California‘s plan is ambitious and challenging but the data is proving that it is not impossible: our strategies are making a positive difference."
Data also showed other large-population states like New York, Florida, Illinois and Texas also suffered a higher growth in unsheltered homelessness than California's, which the governor's office said was under one percent.
Too Good To Go
Everything is expensive right now. It's rare that I ever leave the grocery store having spent less than I wanted to.
I've heard of apps like Too Good To Go, which sell surplus food at a discount, but never gone much further than signing up.
To test it out, I spent a week in early December only buying food from the app. I wanted to see if it was a viable way of saving money, sticking to a budget, and learning to be a bit more flexible with my cooking.
I also want to be more mindful about the groceries I buy and, unfortunately, sometimes waste.
Too Good To Go's CEO, Mette Lykke, told me in a recent interview that the app now operates in 19 countries across North America, Europe, and Australia, and covers 170,000 stores.
Lykke said the company hopes to inspire people "to make that the first step in a journey toward having a more responsible relationship with food."
"If we look at the state of the planet and the climate crisis, then it's pretty clear that something needs to change," Lykke said.
It was fun trying out new places in my city, London. While the pastries I received were hit-and-miss, the fresh produce from local stores was a real highlight.
Monday was largely spent figuring out the platform. I found that its map feature was the best way to find local cafés and stores.
I saw that an expensive café on my local high street offered pastries, so I opted for that — £3.90 ($4.95) for a blueberry muffin, chocolate chip cookie, and slice of banana bread.
Lindsay Dodgson/Business Insider
After the sugar rush I was still hungry, so I chose a bag of sandwiches and pastries from my local Costa Coffee for £3.50 ($4.44).
I got a slightly stale pan au raisin and two sandwiches — one seasonal turkey feast, and a BLT which my boyfriend took for lunch the next day.
Lindsay Dodgson/Business Insider
In total, I spent £7.40 ($9.39) on items worth at least £22.90 ($29.08), so the week was off to a good start.
On Tuesday, I switched things up by trying out fresh produce from a couple of local stores. They offered "surprise bags" of groceries for £4 ($5.08) each.
While I was slightly overwhelmed with what to do with it all, it was an absolute hit with my boyfriend, who is always thrilled to be met with a culinary challenge.
One of the bags had Padron peppers, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, radishes, and beets. I also received three packets of pita bread, a sourdough baguette, a fruit bar, some buttermilk, and fresh herbs.
The multivitamin patches were a curveball, which I have to admit I didn't try.
Lindsay Dodgson/Business Insider
In the other bag, I got a melon, some Greek yogurt, lettuce, butter, rainbow chard, and sausages.
Lindsay Dodgson/Business Insider
The sausages went in the freezer, but almost everything else was used to make a pasta sauce, roasted peppers, sauteed mushrooms, buttermilk pancakes, and basil oil. The beets got pickled.
The only thing we ended up having to waste was the watercress, which was already looking past its best.
In total, I spent £8 ($10.16) on items worth at least £24 ($30.48).
Tuesday's groceries went further than expected, so I bought another pastry bag to satisfy my snackiness during the day.
I'm not convinced the sourdough loaf and pastel de nata (which I squashed) I got for £4.09 ($5.19) truly had a full sale value of £12 ($15.24), but they were both pretty good.
The server recommended putting the loaf in the freezer and toasting the slices, which was a great tip that lasted me the rest of the week.
Lindsay Dodgson/Business Insider
I knew I was out for dinner with friends on Thursday so I picked up some Starbucks pastries on the way. This was the biggest letdown of the experiment.
Throughout the week, I realized that several cafés don't offer anything until quite late in the day, by which time the food has been sitting out for hours. This makes sense from their perspective, but it does mean that some of the food isn't at its best.
But for £2.50 ($3.18), a muffin, cookie, cinnamon bun, and cheese stick is certainly better than nothing.
Lindsay Dodgson/Business Insider
In total, I spent £2.50 ($3.18) on items worth at least £7.50 ($9.52).
I'd been eyeing up a nearby Bangladeshi restaurant all week, so knowing I had a night in alone on Friday, I went for the £4.09 ($5.19) curry bag they were offering.
I got a few bhajis, some chicken and rice, two veggie curries, more rice, some okra, and what I thought was probably cabbage.
It was all good and spicy, though the bhajis were slightly stale.
Lindsay Dodgson/Business Insider
In total, I spent £4.09 ($5.19) on items worth at least £12 ($15.24).
For the whole week, I spent £26.08 ($33.11) on £78.40 ($99.54) worth of food.
Not every bag felt like amazing value. But some, especially the grocery bags, were genuinely impressive.
The experience taught me a lot about how to be flexible. I'm now committed to focusing less on "use by" dates on food and sticking to the safety assessment Lykke taught me — "look, smell, taste, don't waste" — before throwing things out.
My advice for anyone downloading Too Good To Go is to use it with foresight. The app is great for saving money for those on a strict budget who are OK with some compromises.
Too Good To Go is available in huge stores in the UK (such as Asda) and the US (including Whole Foods), so there are plenty of places to try.
Lykke told me the nice thing about Too Good To Go is you don't have to give anything up, and she's right. From a quick scan of my area, there is bubble tea, ice cream, Turkish food, burgers, doughnuts, and more. You don't get to choose exactly what you want, but as long as you don't mind a bit of a surprise, it's worth a try,
"You actually get good food, it's a good deal, and you do something good," Lykke said. "It's win-win for businesses, for consumers, and for the planet."
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces had conducted an airstrike that killed ISIS leader Abu Yusif in eastern Syria.
One other ISIS operative was also killed in the strike that occurred on Thursday, the agency said in a release on Friday morning.
"As stated before, the United States — working with allies and partners in the region — will not allow ISIS to take advantage of the current situation in Syria and reconstitute," CENTCOM Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said. "ISIS has the intent to break out of detention the over 8,000 ISIS operatives currently being held in facilities in Syria."
"We will aggressively target these leaders and operatives, including those trying to conduct operations external to Syria," he said.
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The agency said they carried out the targeted airstrike in the eastern province of Deir ez Zor in Syria, noting that it's part of their ongoing commitment to "disrupt and degrade efforts" by terrorists.
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They said the area was previously controlled by the Syrian regime and Russian forces before the recent fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Al-Assad fled to Russia earlier this month and ended a nearly 14-year struggle to maintain power in his country.
Attacks by the Turkish military on Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have increased since the Syrian president fled to Russia on Dec. 8.
Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Ryder said that in light of the instability in the region, as well as al-Assad's departure, there are 2,000 U.S. troops deployed in Syria.
Fox News Digital's Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Courtesy of Kara Karboski
Puffs of smoke rose above a meadow in northeastern Washington as a small test fire danced in the grass a few feet away from me. Pleased by its slow, controlled behavior, my crew members and I, as part of a training program led by the nonprofit organization The Nature Conservancy and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, began to light the rest of the field on fire. The scene had all the trappings of a wildfire — water hoses, fire engines, people in flame-resistant outfits. But we weren't there to fight it; we were there to light it.
It might sound counterintuitive, but prescribed fires, or intentionally lit fires, help lessen fire's destruction. Natural flames sparked by lightning and intentional blazes lit by Indigenous peoples have historically helped clean up excess vegetation that now serves as fuel for the wildfires that regularly threaten people's homes and lives across the West and, increasingly, across the country.
For millennia, lighting fires was common practice in America. But in the mid-to-late 1800s, the US outlawed Indigenous burning practices and started suppressing wildfires, resulting in a massive buildup of flammable brush and trees. That combined with the dry, hot conditions caused by the climate crisis has left much of the country at a dangerously high risk of devastating wildfires. The top 10 most destructive years by acreage burned have all occurred since 2004.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, federal land managers reevaluated their approach to fire and did the first prescribed burns in national parks. We're still making up for lost time: Scientists and land managers say millions more acres of prescribed burns are necessary to keep the country from burning out of control.
But the scale of the task doesn't match that of the labor force, whose focus is often extinguishing fires, not starting them. Responding to the increase in natural disasters has left America with few resources to actually keep them from happening. As Mark Charlton, a prescribed-fire specialist with The Nature Conservancy, told me, "We need more people, and we need more time."
This fall, I outfitted myself in fire-resistant clothing and boots, donned a hard hat, and joined a training program called TREX to better understand how prescribed burns work. TREX hosts collaborative burns to provide training opportunities in the field for people from different employers and backgrounds. The hope is that more people will earn the qualifications they need to lead and participate in burns for the agencies they work for back home.
Courtesy of Kara Karboski
The program's emphasis on learning, coupled with the support of the University of Idaho's Artists-in-Fire Residency (which helped pay my way), is why I, a journalist with no fire jobs on my résumé, could join a prescribed-fire module of about two dozen more experienced participants. I had to pass a fitness test — speed walking three miles with a 45-pound backpack in under 45 minutes — take 40 hours' worth of online coursework, and complete field-operations training to participate as a crew member. While hundreds of people have participated in TREX burns across the country since the program's inception in 2008, the dramatic growth of wildfires is outpacing the number of people being trained to reduce their impact.
The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of forests and grasslands across the country, burning an average of about 1.4 million acres, roughly the size of Delaware, each year with prescribed burns. It burned a record 2 million acres in fiscal 2023. But it's still not enough preparation, considering wildfires have burned over 10 million acres in recent years and people continue building and living in wildfire-prone areas. "It's a huge workload we have, and we know it," said Adam Mendonca, a deputy director of fire and aviation management for the Forest Service who oversees the agency's prescribed-fire program. The agency plans to chip away at the problem with the roughly 11,300 wildland firefighters it employs each year who squeeze the work in during the offseason, when there are fewer fires to fight.
But relying on wildland firefighters can be problematic. "We only have those resources for a short time," said Charlton, who served as the incident commander on the Washington burns I joined this fall. "After a long fire season, people are exhausted. It's hard to get people to commit." Plus, wildfires are increasingly overlapping with the ideal windows to do prescribed burns — often the spring and the fall, when conditions are cooler and wetter, making fires easier to tame.
That was especially true this year: Multiple large fires burned across the West into October. These late-season wildfires, coupled with two hurricanes that firefighters helped respond to, strained federal resources. That month, the nation's fire-preparedness level increased to a 5 — the highest level — indicating the country's emergency crews were at their maximum capacity and would've struggled to respond to new incidents.
In response to the elevated preparedness level, the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group urged "extreme caution" in executing new prescribed fires, saying backup firefighters or equipment might not be available. "We get to the point where we're competing for resources," said Kyle Lapham, the certified-burner-program manager for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources and the burn boss on the Washington burns.
There's also a qualification shortage. Prescribed burns require a well-rounded group with a variety of expertise and positions — including a burn boss, who runs the show and must have years of training. Charlton estimated that hundreds more qualified burn bosses are necessary to tackle nationwide prescribed-burn goals.
Courtesy of Adam Gebauer
Just as concerning is an interest shortage. The Forest Service has struggled to hire for and maintain its federal firefighting force in recent years, in large part because of poor pay (federal firefighter base pay was raised to $15 an hour in 2022) and other labor disputes over job classifications, pay raises, staffing, and more. The agency is also expecting budget cuts next year and has already said it won't be able to hire its usual seasonal workforce as a result.
Legislation inching its way through Congress could help, though its fate under a new administration is unclear. The National Prescribed Fire Act of 2024 would direct hundreds of millions of dollars to the Forest Service and the US Department of the Interior for prescribed burns, including investment in training a skilled workforce — but it hasn't progressed past a Senate subcommittee hearing in June.
Without a boost in funding, the agency will continue relying heavily on partnerships with nonprofits like The Nature Conservancy and the National Forest Foundation to staff prescribed burns. The Forest Service also recently expanded its Prescribed Fire Training Center to host educational opportunities out West. Critically, though, time is of the essence.
During my TREX training in October, about 20 foresters and firefighters from as far south as Texas and as far north as British Columbia worked beside me. Our group included employees of the Washington Department of Natural Resources and two citizens of the nearby Spokane Tribe of Indians, who have a robust prescribed-fire program of their own.
Over two weeks I got a front-row seat to how much planning (sometimes years) and time a single prescribed burn takes. We conducted several burns in the mountains north of Spokane on the property of a receptive landowner who'd hosted TREX in previous years. He provided the training ground and, in exchange, got work done on his property. This isn't a common scenario — burning on private land can be more complicated, and so more burns happen on state or federal property.
When I arrived, the burn's incident-management team had already put together a burn plan detailing our objectives — reducing wildfire risk to the landowner's house, thinning small tree saplings, knocking down invasive weeds, opening up more wildlife habitat — and the exact weather conditions, like wind speed, relative humidity, and temperature, we needed to safely burn. Prescribed burns on federal lands also go through an environmental review.
At the site, we scouted contained areas we would burn, called units, with trainees making additional plans for how to ignite and control fires. Keeping a fire in its intended location, called "holding," meant lots of prep work, like digging shallow trenches to box the fire in. During the burn, teams monitored smoke and occasionally sprayed the larger trees we wanted to preserve with water when flames threatened their canopies; others poured fuel on the ground, igniting bushes, grass, and smaller trees to slowly build the fire.
Courtesy of Kara Karboski
Managing the fire didn't end when we finished burning the 30 or so acres. In some cases, it can involve days of monitoring and cleanup. To make sure the fire was out, my crew and I combed through areas we'd burned the day before for smoke or heat. If we discovered something still smoking, we'd churn up the ground with a shovel or pickax, douse the hot spot with water, and repeat. Just when we thought we were done, we'd find another spot we'd missed.
I went to bed those nights dreaming of little puffs of smoke and woke up with small flakes of ash embedded behind my ears. The work was rewarding and exhausting — I left with a deeper appreciation for the workers who do it for a living.
While every prescribed burn is different, it's always a careful equation. Everything needs to line up: supportive communities, the right weather, and, of course, the workers necessary to plan, burn, and extinguish. Only then can you light the match.
Kylie Mohr is a Montana-based freelance journalist and correspondent for the magazine High Country News.
