According to a new report, the United Arab Emirates quietly conducted military counter-strikes against an Iranian oil refinery. “Sources confirm to Fox News’ Bret Baier, reporting from The Wall Street Journal, that forces from the United Arab Emirates are carrying out military strikes inside Iran,” John Roberts said. “Fox is told that the UAE forces are directly engaged inside the Islamic Republic and have been for several days. This comes after Iran launched dozens of missiles and drones at the UAE during the conflict,” he continued. Watch below: FOX NEWS ALERT: “Sources confirm to Fox News’ Bret Baier that forces from the United Arab Emirates are carrying out military strikes inside Iran,” says John Roberts. “The UAE forces are directly engaged with the Islamic Republic and have been for several days.” “This comes… pic.twitter.com/e0d6NcvWuq — TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) May 11, 2026 More from the New York Post: After suffering repeated bombardments from Iran, the UAE fired a series of retaliatory attacks against the Islamic republic, with one of the known strikes hitting the Lavan Island oil refinery in the Persian Gulf, sources told the Wall Street Journal. The attack, which came just as the US was solidifying a cease-fire on April 8, sparked a large fire in the facility and is expected to leave its output crippled for months, the outlet added. At the time, Iran had said that the refinery was struck by enemy fire. While the Islamic Republic did not name the source, it launched an attack against the UAE and Kuwait in response, similar to what it had been doing throughout the height of the war. While the UAE has not commented on the strikes, the country has repeatedly asserted its right to defend itself against Iran’s mass retaliation campaign in the Gulf. Watch below: Strikes hit an Iranian oil refinery on Lavan Island today. Iran is now retaliating with strikes on targets in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE. pic.twitter.com/xOptoGRjbB — Clash Report (@clashreport) April 8, 2026 The UAE has faced a barrage of thousands of drones and missiles fired by Iran during the war. Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz became the first government official to publicly confirm that Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system has been used to shoot down Iranian missiles targeting the UAE. US envoy becomes 1st official to publicly confirm Israel supplied UAE with Iron Dome during Iran warhttps://t.co/TGkoulrpFF — zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 12, 2026 The Jerusalem Post shared further: The United States silently welcomed the UEA’s initiative to participate in the strikes, according to the WSJ, with officials telling the newspaper that the Trump administration expected more active participation from the Gulf nations during the war. The UAE was among the countries hardest hit by the recent war between Israel, the US, and Iran, both economically due to the closure of airspace and the Strait of Hormuz, and physically, as many Iranian attacks targeted infrastructure in the Emirates. The active participation of the UAE in the Iran war, with recent reports also saying that the Emirates were behind some of the most recent attacks on Iranian assets, seems to be another step by the Gulf state to position itself as a security powerhouse in the region. The kingdom has been investing in its air force, has some of the most advanced radar detection systems, and it even had an Iron Dome system with IDF operators in the country during the latest round of fighting. Multiple Israeli officials have stated that the decision to send the Iron Dome battery and interceptors was made after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ).

President Trump urged South Carolina lawmakers to postpone congressional primaries ahead of a redistricting vote in the state legislature. “The South Carolina State Senate has a big vote tomorrow on Redistricting. I’m watching closely, along with all Republicans across the Country who are counting on their Elected Leaders to use every Legal and Constitutional authority they have to stop the Radical Left Democrats from destroying our Country, including leveling the playing field against their decades of egregious Gerrymandering and Census Rigging,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “South Carolina Republicans: BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS, just like the Republicans of the Great State of Tennessee were last week! Move the U.S. House Primaries to August, leave the rest on the same schedule. Everything will be fine. GET IT DONE!” he added. “President Trump is right. South Carolina has an opportunity to act, and we need leaders willing to get it done. Now is the time to be bold and lead,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said. President Trump is right. South Carolina has an opportunity to act, and we need leaders willing to get it done. Now is the time to be bold and lead. pic.twitter.com/IQPdBlDzpa — Alan Wilson (@AGAlanWilson) May 11, 2026 WIS News 10 has more: Members of the House’s Constitutional Law Subcommittee passed a resolution 3-2 along party lines that would postpone the state’s Congressional primaries until August, giving lawmakers time to redraw the state’s current maps. Lawmakers in the subcommittee declined to discuss a proposed map Friday that would redraw South Carolina’s Congressional districts in an effort to have all seven districts represented by a Republican. South Carolina’s regular session ends on May 14. The state’s congressional primaries are scheduled for June 9. Former state Rep. Adam Morgan, the Founding Chairman of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, said there are currently “9 South Carolina GOP senate holdouts.” UPDATE: Only 9 South Carolina GOP senate holdouts! Here are the holdouts based on intel from all of you (thanks for all the emails!)— Sean Bennett (Dorchester)Chip Campsen (Charleston)Tom Davis (Beaufort)Jason Elliott (Greenville)Greg Hembree (Horry)Michael Johnson… — Adam Morgan (@RepAdamMorgan) May 12, 2026 The Hill shared further: If lines are redrawn, candidates who have already begun campaigning in the current congressional districts have raised concerns with the transfer of campaign funds to back canvassing efforts under a newly drawn map. “It’s sort of late in the game. Is it too late? I don’t know. I think the Trump people believe that the new map can lead to a pick up and it won’t jeopardize seats,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said during a campaign event on May 8, per The Post and Courier. Trump has strongly supported redistricting in red states nationwide in hopes of maintaining the party majority in both the House and the Senate. Efforts to redraw congressional lines in South Carolina are likely to result in Rep. Jim Clyburn’s (D-S.C.) forcible exit from office after five years as the only Democrat in the Palmetto State’s congressional delegation. He represents the sixth district, created to protect minority voting power as authorized under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which took a blow from the Supreme Court ruling earlier this month. “Republicans are trying to break apart South Carolina’s 6th District. Not because voters demanded it, but because Donald Trump requested it,” Clyburn said of redistricting efforts, adding that “we cannot let them succeed.”

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that a lower court had previously blocked for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. “The justices threw out the lower-court order barring Alabama from using the map, which it had adopted in 2023, and sent the dispute back to the lower court for another look,” SCOTUSblog reports. The decision follows the high court’s consequential ruling in Louisiana, where the majority ruled a majority-Black U.S. House district was an unconstitutional gerrymander. The Supreme Court has restored Alabama's 2023 congressional map with only one majority-black district, vacating several orders that struck down the map under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. pic.twitter.com/wH4OOGReOd — SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) May 12, 2026 SCOTUSblog explained further: Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from Monday’s decision, in a four-page opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In her view, the court’s order was “inappropriate and will cause only confusion as Alabamians begin to vote in the elections scheduled for next week.” The dispute began five years ago, when Alabama enacted a new congressional map in the wake of the 2020 census. A group of Black voters and civil rights organizations went to federal court, where they alleged that the new map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, because it spread Black voters in southern Alabama across three congressional districts, leaving them a minority in each. The district court agreed that the 2021 map likely violated Section 2, and it barred the state from using the map. The Supreme Court upheld that decision in 2023 in Allen v. Milligan. Later that year, Alabama adopted a new map. But a federal court concluded that the 2023 map also likely violated Section 2 and prohibited the state from using it. The Supreme Court declined to pause the lower court’s ruling. A court-appointed special master ultimately created a new map, which the district court ordered the state to use going forward. In 2025, the court ruled after a trial that the 2023 map did indeed violate the VRA. It reasoned that the map was “an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians’ voting strength and evade the unambiguous requirements of court orders standing in the way.” Alabama went to the Supreme Court, which delayed its consideration of the state’s appeals until after the justices issued their April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, in which it struck down Louisiana’s congressional map. On Friday, the state – which had asked the justices to expedite their consideration of those appeals – also sought to have the lower-court orders barring Alabama from using the 2023 map put on hold immediately because the justices are not scheduled to issue orders from their next private conference until Monday, May 18, just one day before the state’s primary election is currently scheduled to take place. “This is an incredibly unfortunate decision by the Supreme Court that not only continues their trend of breaking from the norms and precedents set by the Court, but also sets the stage for Alabama to go back to the 1950s and 60s in terms of Black political representation in the state. The conservative justices on the Supreme Court just literally substituted themselves in to be the defense lawyers for the State of Alabama. The Court just gave the state the benefit of an argument the Supreme Court acknowledged just a week ago that the State did not even present in defending its maps,” Rep. Shomari Figures (D-AL) said. “This Supreme Court did not dismiss the case, so the litigation will certainly continue. My hope is that this is a temporary setback and that three-Republican appointed judges will again find what they found the first time: that the State of Alabama intentionally discriminated against Black voters in drawing its congressional district lines. I ran for this seat to be a voice for all of Alabama, and I’m not backing down from that mission now. The fight must and will go on,” he continued. “Beyond the courts, we know what has to be done. We will organize, we will register, and we will turnout people in record numbers at the polls,” he added. This is an incredibly unfortunate decision by the Supreme Court that not only continues their trend of breaking from the norms and precedents set by the Court, but also sets the stage for Alabama to go back to the 1950s and 60s in terms of Black political representation in the… https://t.co/abWRzaZBjh — Rep. Shomari C. Figures (@repscfigures) May 11, 2026 More from the Associated Press: Anticipating a court reversal, Alabama officials recently enacted a law allowing it to void the results of a May 19 primary for some congressional districts and instead hold a new primary under the revised district boundaries. Alabama had asked for an expedited decision ahead of the primary. Alabama Republicans praised the decision. “Today, the Supreme Court vindicated the state’s long-held position. Now, the power to draw Alabama’s maps goes back to the people’s elected representatives. That’s our Legislature,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a video statement. Marshall said his job was “to put the legislature in the best possible legal position to draw a congressional map that favors Republicans seven-to-zero.” He concluded with the statement, “Stay tuned.” Republican House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter called the decision “a massive victory not just for Alabama, but for conservatives across the country.” In a dissent to Monday’s brief ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Louisiana case had reversed only one of the grounds upon which the Alabama case had been decided. Although the Voting Rights Act violation is gone, Sotomayor said a lower court could still find that Alabama had intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the 14th Amendment.

President Trump has nominated Cameron Hamilton to serve as administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Hamilton, a former member of the Navy SEALs, briefly led the agency last year as acting administrator. FEMA has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since Trump took office. “Cam Hamilton is a great pick by President Trump to be FEMA Director. I will move his nomination quickly through our committee,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) commented. Cam Hamilton is a great pick by President Trump to be FEMA Director. I will move his nomination quickly through our committee. https://t.co/G7AiAW20bO — Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) May 11, 2026 More from The New York Times: The nomination is the Trump administration’s latest step toward an overhaul of FEMA that could shift significant responsibility for disaster response back to state and local governments, though officials have backed away from eliminating the agency. A Trump-appointed FEMA task force released a set of proposals Thursday that laid out goals to limit federal disaster aid to “truly significant events” while speeding up the flow of that money to communities. The choice is likely to face opposition from Democrats and critics of the administration’s approach to disaster response, who have cited a federal law passed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that requires the FEMA administrator to have experience leading disaster management. Mr. Hamilton previously managed emergency medical technicians on the southern border as a division director in the Homeland Security Department, according to a biography posted by the Special Operations Association of America. He also worked as an emergency management specialist in the State Department “directly supporting crisis response teams and the Bureau of Counterterrorism,” according to the biography. FEMA administrators typically have backgrounds leading emergency management agencies at the state or city level, or as regional administrators within FEMA. Hamilton, who previously worked as the director of business strategy for a defense contractor and unsuccessfully ran for a U.S. House seat in Virginia, has been one of three temporary FEMA leaders since January 2025. Trump Nominates Cameron Hamilton To Lead FEMA Again—After Previously Firing Himhttps://t.co/I3wUYPMSxW pic.twitter.com/8dttfhiNBN — Forbes (@Forbes) May 11, 2026 NBC News shared further: FEMA’s workforce has been worn down by mass staff departures, policies that hamstrung operations and a 75-day-long DHS shutdown that ended April 30. Hamilton will need to ensure the agency is prepared for summer disaster season, just weeks away, while answering to Trump, who is likely to expect major reforms after a council he appointed recommended sweeping changes last Friday. “Now is the opportunity to stabilize FEMA,” said Michael Coen, the agency’s chief of staff in the Obama and Biden administrations. Hamilton, who had never been a state or local emergency management director and who had publicly criticized FEMA in the past, was a controversial choice when Trump named him temporary leader in January 2025, just days before the president floated the idea of “getting rid” of FEMA. His rupture with DHS officials began as he defended a federal role in supporting disaster-impacted states, tribes and territories. “Once the conversation shifted to, ‘Now we’re going to abolish,’ I immediately expressed concern,” he said last September on the “Disaster Tough” podcast with John Scardena, a former FEMA incident management team leader. DHS officials even subjected him to a polygraph test, accusing him and other officials of leaking details of a private meeting. He passed but said he knew his dismissal was inevitable. At a May 7 appearance before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, asked Hamilton if he believed FEMA should be abolished. “I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” he replied. The next day, he was fired.

The mayor of Arcadia, California, just resigned from office after federal prosecutors announced she has been charged with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China. Eileen Wang, 58, was charged via federal information with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. In a related filing, Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony count, which carries a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. She is expected to formally enter her guilty plea in the coming weeks. The story blew up on X after Libs of TikTok posted about it: BREAKING: Eileen Wang, the Democrat Mayor of Arcadia, CA, has pleaded GUILTY to acting as a foreign agent on behalf of China. pic.twitter.com/1Fbp1Z2w5T — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 11, 2026 A small clarification on the viral post: Wang has not yet formally pleaded guilty in court. She has agreed to plead guilty, and the formal plea is expected in the coming weeks. The Arcadia City Council is officially nonpartisan, so while the Libs of TikTok post labels her a Democrat, we cannot independently confirm that from the federal filings or city records. What we can confirm is plenty damning on its own. The Department of Justice laid out the case in a press release on May 11: The mayor of Arcadia has been charged in federal court with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Justice Department announced today. Eileen Wang, 58, of Arcadia, is charged via information with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. In a related filing, Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony count, which comes with a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. She is expected to make her initial appearance this afternoon in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles. Wang is expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks. Wang was elected in November 2022 to the Arcadia City Council, a five-person governing body from which the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. “Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli. “This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.” “Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States that they represent,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “It is deeply concerning that someone who previously received and executed directives from PRC government officials is now in a position of public trust at all, but particularly so because that relationship with that foreign government had never been disclosed.” “By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division. “Let this serve as a clear warning: Individuals who act on behalf of foreign governments to influence our democracy will be identified, investigated, and brought to justice. Protecting the rule of law and the transparency of our democratic process remains at the core of the FBI’s mission, and we will continue working alongside our partners to safeguard the integrity of our elections and keep hostile actors from undermining the voices of the American people.” Federal officials say an American mayor previously received and executing directives from officials of the Chinese government, and never disclosed that relationship to anyone. Then she ran for office and won a seat on the City Council, which rotates the mayor title among its five members. According to federal prosecutors, the conduct stretched from late 2020 through 2022. Wang and a co-conspirator named Yaoning “Mike” Sun allegedly worked at the direction and control of PRC officials to push pro-China propaganda through an outlet called U.S. News Center. PRC officials sent pre-written content to the pair via WeChat, including an article denying genocide and forced labor in Xinjiang. Wang allegedly posted the material, edited it at a PRC official’s request, and sent screenshots of the view counts back to PRC contacts, and replied to one of them with the message: “Thank you leader.” Sun has already pleaded guilty to the same charge. He is currently serving a four-year federal prison sentence after entering his plea in October 2025. The FBI was not subtle about the message they are sending here. The mayor of Arcadia, Eileen Wang, 58, has been charged in federal court with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Details: https://t.co/cwlxvm4N6x pic.twitter.com/0NHxiejF7X — FBI Los Angeles (@FBILosAngeles) May 11, 2026 FBI Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the Counterintelligence and Espionage Division put it bluntly: “By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government. Let this serve as a clear warning: Individuals who act on behalf of foreign governments to influence our democracy will be identified, investigated, and brought to justice.” The DOJ’s National Security Division also posted the announcement: The mayor of Arcadia, California, has been charged in federal court with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Justice Department announced today. “Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the… pic.twitter.com/joIXV7xNQK — National Security Division, U.S. Dept of Justice (@DOJNatSec) May 11, 2026 Wang resigned from the Arcadia City Council effective May 11, the same day the charges were announced. The City of Arcadia says Wang vacated both her council seat and mayoral position, and that the council will choose a new mayor and mayor pro tem from the remaining members while deciding how District 3 will be represented until the November 2026 election cycle. The city manager told the Associated Press that no city finances or staff were involved in the alleged conduct. That may be true. The larger concern remains an elected American official secretly taking direction from the Chinese government, publishing their propaganda for them, and never telling a soul about it while she climbed into a position of public trust. The formal plea is still expected in the coming weeks, and sentencing is farther down the road. For now, the DOJ, the FBI, and Wang’s own agreement to plead guilty leave a very clear public-record picture. Americans have a right to know who their local officials are actually serving. In Arcadia, federal prosecutors say the answer led straight back to Beijing.