The Treasury Department announced new sanctions Friday that target seven family members and associates tied to Nicolás Maduro’s regime, which the Trump administration continues to put in its crosshairs.

The action, carried out by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), seeks to address corruption and deceptive practices involving the Venezuelan state.

‘Today, Treasury sanctioned individuals who are propping up Nicolás Maduro’s rogue narco-state. We will not allow Venezuela to continue flooding our nation with deadly drugs,’ Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said. 

‘Maduro and his criminal accomplices threaten our hemisphere’s peace and stability. The Trump Administration will continue targeting the networks that prop up his illegitimate dictatorship.’

This builds on sanctions issued earlier this month, with the Treasury now targeting family networks, not just individuals. The Treasury release names the familial networks of Carlos Erik Malpica Flores (Malpica Flores) and Ramon Carretero Napolitano (Ramon Carretero).

The named and sanctioned individuals in the Treasury release include Eloisa Flores de Malpica, Malpica Flores’ mother and the sister of Cilia Flores; Carlos Evelio Malpica Torrealba, his father; Iriamni Malpica Flores, his sister; Damaris del Carmen Hurtado Perez, his wife; and Erica Patricia Malpica Hurtado, his adult daughter.

According to the Treasury Department, sanctions are not meant to punish indefinitely, and OFAC provides a formal process for petitioning removal.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), a conservative legal group, is requesting the Trump administration remove race from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) ‘Social Vulnerability Index,’ which the groups claim is being used by liberal localities to steer funds to communities based on race.

WILL refers to what has been taking place as ‘DEI redlining’ in its letter to Trump administration officials at the CDC and the Health and Human Services Department (HHS). It says the tool helps localities prioritize Black and Hispanic neighborhoods over White neighborhoods due to racial composition, independent of any other factors, like poverty.  

‘In the name of ‘racial equity,’ local officials prioritize certain geographic areas for public safety, parks improvements, public swimming pool closures, broadband access, safe drinking water, and disaster assistance,’ the letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CDC Acting Director Jim O’Neill stated. ‘And these governments point to CDC’s SVI as the reason for their race-based spending.’

Among various examples the group highlights is Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s county parks department, which states on their website that the Milwaukee Parks Foundation ‘works to reduce or eliminate racial disparities through investments and activation of park spaces that rank high on the Milwaukee County Park’s Equity Index.’ 

Meanwhile, an inter-office communication from 2024 obtained by WILL, updating officials on the ‘Parks Equity Index,’ the Milwaukee Parks Foundation points out that ‘the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index’ is part of its ‘weighted composite data analysis’ meant to help streamline decision-making within the department.         

‘In other words, parks in white neighborhoods are de-prioritized, while parks in non-white neighborhoods are prioritized,’ WILL argues in its letter to HHS and the CDC.

To show the real life consequences of this, the conservative law group pointed to a community pool that has been closed for the past few years in a local town that is 90% White.  According to local media reports, the pool needs about $600,000 in repairs, but WILL said those will likely never come to fruition, since the community ranks low on the parks department’s ‘Racial equity Index.’ 

Milwaukee County Parks Department came out with a study indicating it was considering shutting down the pool or transferring it to be run through a public-private partnership similar to other pools in the area, according to local outlet Urban Milwaukee.

‘According to Milwaukee County, Hales Corners ranks 128 out of 153 parks in Milwaukee County, with a 3 out of 10 score and a 0.33 SVI score. So the kids and families in Hales Corners will lose their swimming pool, which has been a community fixture since 1968, because the residents are too white,’ WILL argued in their letter. ‘Race-based SVI encourages the use of race for its own sake, or at best, as a proxy for other elements already accounted for within the SVI.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Milwaukee Parks Department for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.

WILL pointed to numerous examples of case law determining such activities are unconstitutional, including the recent Students for Fair Admission case that resulted in an overhaul of affirmative action rules in higher education. 

Besides Milwaukee, WILL highlighted examples from California’s Community Development Block Program, run by the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development, which the conservative law group alleges is using the CDC’s SVI index to help prepare for, and respond to, natural disasters. Connecticut’s ‘Drinking Water State Revolving Fund,’ which helps maintain public water systems and assigns a ‘Social Vulnerability Index score’ to each project, was listed as well.

Cook County, in Chicago, was also among those listed. Their ‘Comprehensive Broadband Planning Initiative’ says explicitly on its website that it ‘prioritizes communities with the highest Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) in Illinois.’

It’s not just Minnesota.

The past few weeks have made clear that fraudsters stole billions of dollars from states’ welfare programs, much of it from Medicaid. It also appears that Democratic politicians tolerated the heist for their own political benefit. 

Yet politicians in virtually every state have let waste, fraud and abuse spread like wildfire in Medicaid, putting taxpayers on the hook for an estimated $2 trillion in improper spending over the next decade alone. 

Thankfully, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have given states a reason to clean up this mess and spare taxpayers that pain.

In a new paper, I show how Democrats have turned Medicaid into one of the most fraud-ridden programs in America — and how Republicans are fixing it. While Medicaid has long been plagued with improper spending, Democrats supercharged this crisis in the Obama years.

ObamaCare added tens of millions of able-bodied adults to the program, yet that population is much more likely to be ineligible.

The Obama administration refused to rigorously check eligibility, and the Biden administration adopted the same policy, deliberately hiding an explosion in waste, fraud and abuse. Meanwhile, states refused to police their Medicaid programs, confident that the federal government would look the other way and cover the tab.

The first Trump administration found that 27.4% of federal Medicaid spending was improper in 2020, or about $120 billion at the time. The administration also found that four out of every five improper payments were the result of eligibility errors. This money flowed to people who shouldn’t have been on Medicaid and therefore diverted money and care away from its intended recipients. Five years later, it’s highly likely that at least one in five Medicaid dollars is still wrongly spent.

Call this what it is — an assault on taxpayers. It’s also a clear violation of federal law. States are legally required to reimburse the federal government for Washington’s share of Medicaid payments if their improper payment rates are above 3%, a far cry from the 27.4% rate in 2020.

The Trump administration is once again conducting eligibility checks, but even without that info, it’s all but certain that every state already exceeds the 3% threshold. The only reason they’ve avoided a budget blowout is by receiving so-called ‘good faith waivers’ from Washington. Essentially, states have promised that they’ll tackle fraud and abuse, even when they have no intention of doing so.

Republicans called time on this rigged game in the law President Trump signed July 4. They effectively eliminated good-faith waivers and told states that, starting in 2030, they will be forced to cover the federal share of any improper payments above 3%. While five years may seem like an eternity, it’s an acknowledgment that states have a mountain to climb to bring their error rates into the low single digits. 

Consider Ohio. In 2019, it had an improper payment rate of nearly 45%, giving the Buckeye State the worst record in the nation for waste, fraud and abuse. Based on its most recent spending levels, Ohio would be on the hook for $9.7 billion, equal to roughly 15% of its current state budget. Illinois, with a 35.4% rate, would pay $6.4 billion, a tough ask given the state’s famous fiscal woes. Even states with lower improper payment rates, like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Missouri, would still be looking at annual costs of more than $1 or $2 billion.

Without reform, I estimate that states will pay a combined $100 billion in penalties beginning in 2030. Their only hope to avoid this fiscal pain is to immediately start rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. In the state legislative sessions that start in January, lawmakers should focus on several key reforms.

First, stop allowing Medicaid recipients to self-attest their income, address and other personal information. Using the honor system invites abuse.

Second, review recipients’ eligibility at least twice a year for able-bodied adults and once a year for everyone else, thereby removing ineligible individuals early and often.

Third, cross-check Medicaid data with easily accessible information such as wage, hiring and tax records; returned mail and changes of address; out-of-state food stamp transactions; and prison and death records. These basic good government measures can quickly identify people wrongly receiving taxpayer money.

Waiting to tackle Medicaid fraud is the most foolish thing states can do. So is hoping that Democrats get their wish and successfully repeal Republicans’ Medicaid reforms. That won’t happen while Trump is president. And if states wait to see the outcome of the 2028 election, they may be disappointed. At that point, they’d face an even steeper hill with barely a year to get their act together.

There’s no avoiding the reality that Democrats broke Medicaid — in Minnesota and everywhere else — or that Republicans have given states an urgent mandate to finally root out the waste, fraud and abuse.

 Michael Greibrok is a Senior Research Fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow would refrain from launching new attacks on other nations provided his country is treated ‘with respect.’

The Kremlin made the remarks during his annual televised press conference in Moscow as concerns persist among European nations that Russia poses a security threat, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

‘Will there be new special military operations? There will be no operations if you treat us with respect, if you observe our interests, just as we have constantly tried to observe yours,’ Putin said.

Putin uses the phrase ‘special military operation’ to describe Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, according to AFP.

He added there would be no further Russian invasions ‘if you don’t cheat us like you cheated us with NATO’s eastward expansion,’ according to the BBC.

The Russian leader also claimed he was ‘ready and willing’ to end the war in Ukraine ‘peacefully,’ though he offered few details suggesting a willingness to compromise, the BBC reported.

The yearly news conference, which typically runs at least four hours, features questions from reporters and members of the public across Russia. 

More than 2.5 million questions were submitted for this year’s event, which focused heavily on the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Putin also noted during the event that the nation’s ‘troops are advancing’ and expressed confidence that Russia will accomplish its objectives through military means if Ukraine does not assent to Russia’s terms during peace talks, according to The Associated Press.

‘Our troops are advancing all across the line of contact, faster in some areas or slower in some others, but the enemy is retreating in all sectors,’ Putin declared.

As the war drags on, the European Union has just agreed to provide Ukraine with a loan of over $105 billion.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.

A photo of former President Bill Clinton topless in a dimly lit hot tub with his arms folded behind his head was included in a massive trove of Jeffrey Epstein files released Friday by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

In another photo, Clinton is seen wading in a pool next to Ghislaine Maxwell and a woman whose face was redacted by authorities.

Subsequent photos showed Clinton posing with American pop stars Michael Jackson and Diana Ross and seated on a plane next to a female wearing an American flag pin whose face was redacted.

He was also seen smiling arm-in-arm with the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Epstein at what appeared to be a dinner party, wearing a festive shirt.

The locations where the photos were taken were not included, and no context was provided.

White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson took to social media Friday afternoon to comment on the never-before-seen photos of the former POTUS.

‘Here is Bill Clinton in a hot tub next to someone whose identity has been redacted. Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims and/or minors,’ Jackson wrote. ‘Time for the media to start asking real questions.’

Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Angel Ureña, accused the White House of trying to ‘hide [things] forever,’ in a statement on X, implying President Donald Trump continued a relationship with Epstein after his crimes were revealed.

‘The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever,’ Ureña wrote in the post. ‘So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be. Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton.

‘There are two types of people here,’ he continued. ‘The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that. Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats.’

The DOJ dumped thousands of documents and hundreds of photos on its website Friday, all supposedly obtained by authorities during investigations into Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking cases. 

Other photos showed interior and exterior views of Epstein’s properties, personal photos of Epstein with various people and heavily redacted potential victim exhibits.

While more than a dozen politically known individuals appeared in the files, Clinton and other notable figures’ inclusion in the files does not necessarily imply wrongdoing.

The document drop was triggered by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the DOJ to make the files public 30 days from its Nov. 19 signing by President Donald Trump.

Some files may be withheld by the DOJ if disclosure would jeopardize an ongoing investigation or prosecution, to safeguard victims’ privacy or to avoid publishing sensitive child sexual abuse material.

Ross’ communications teams did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.