Authorities overseeing some of Britain’s most famous countryside landscapes are launching targeted outreach programs aimed at ethnic minority communities, after a government-commissioned review warned rural areas are widely perceived as a ‘white’ and unwelcoming space.

‘The countryside is seen by both black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and white people as very much a ‘white’ environment,’ the report stated, ‘We are all paying for national landscapes through our taxes, and yet sometimes on our visits it has felt as if National Parks are an exclusive, mainly white, mainly middle‑class club, with rules only members understand and much too little done to encourage first time visitors.’

Critics say the initiative reflects misplaced government priorities. Michael McManus, director of research at the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital: ‘At a time of low growth, high taxes and stretched public services, it’s astonishing that ministers are spending time and money worrying about the ‘whiteness’ of the countryside. Government exists to grow the economy and fix real problems, not to indulge in culture war distractions that deliver nothing for working people.’

The initiatives stem from the 2019 Landscapes Review, commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and led by author Julian Glover. The review concluded that England’s protected landscapes often feel disconnected from large parts of the population.

The review also criticized the leadership of protected landscapes, arguing that governance bodies do not reflect the country they serve. ‘Of the almost 1,000 people on National Park and AONB boards today, the great majority are male… and a tiny fraction are of black, Asian or minority ethnicities,’ the report said, calling that imbalance ‘wrong for organizations which are funded by the nation to serve everyone.’

Following the review, organizations representing National Landscapes, formerly known as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, have published updated management plans outlining steps to attract more diverse visitors. According to individual plans published between 2024 and 2025, and as reported by U.K. outlets including LBC and GB News, the measures apply to landscapes including the Cotswolds, the Chilterns, the Malvern Hills and others.

Under those plans, the Chilterns National Landscape will launch targeted outreach programs in Luton and High Wycombe, areas with large Muslim populations. One barrier cited in follow-up research was concern among some visitors about unleashed dogs in rural areas.

The Cotswolds National Landscape referenced the DEFRA findings directly, saying it is seeking to broaden its appeal to reach ‘the widest demographic.’

In its own management strategy, the Malvern Hills National Landscape said many minority communities lack a generational connection to the countryside because parents and grandparents ‘did not always feel welcome in it.’ The plan added that while many white English visitors value solitude, ethnic minority visitors may be more inclined toward group or family-based activities.

Other landscapes raised similar concerns. Nidderdale National Landscape in North Yorkshire warned that ethnic minority visitors may worry about how they will be received in unfamiliar rural settings. Dedham Vale, Surrey Hills, and Suffolk and Essex Coast Heaths said they aim to identify and address barriers limiting access for under-represented groups, including people without English as a first language.

Together, the plans signal a broader shift in how Britain’s publicly funded countryside is managed, as landscape authorities face growing pressure to demonstrate cultural relevance to a changing society, even as critics warn the focus risks sidelining economic priorities and traditional conservation goals.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs in England for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

Six Iranian gunboats unsuccessfully attempted to halt a U.S.-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The security firm Vanguard Tech told its clients on Tuesday that the Iranian vessels were armed with .50-caliber guns, and they ordered the oil tanker to turn off its engines and prepare to be boarded. Instead, the tanker sped up and was ultimately escorted to safety by a U.S. Navy vessel, according to the Journal.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

The incident comes as the U.S. continues to ramp up its military presence surrounding Iran, with President Donald Trump describing an ‘armada’ arrayed in the area.

Iran’s regime has vowed that any military strike on its territory would ignite a regional conflict, even as senior Iranian officials signaled a willingness to negotiate with the U.S.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to arrive in Israel on Tuesday for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, according to Axios. The publication also reported that Witkoff will meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Istanbul on Friday.

The talks in Israel are expected to focus on Iran, following Zamir’s weekend visit to Washington, where he held a series of meetings with U.S. defense officials on the Islamic Republic.

Trump said on Saturday he believes Iran is negotiating ‘seriously’ with the U.S., stressing that he hopes an ‘acceptable’ deal can be brokered.

When asked by a reporter aboard Air Force One whether he had decided on a strike against Iran, Trump responded, ‘I certainly can’t tell you that.’

‘But we do have very big, powerful ships heading in that direction,’ he added. ‘I hope they negotiate something that’s acceptable.’

The president then sidestepped a question about whether Tehran would be emboldened if the U.S. opted not to launch strikes on Iran, saying, ‘Some people think that. Some people don’t.’

‘You could make a negotiated deal that would be satisfactory with no nuclear weapons,’ Trump said. ‘They should do that, but I don’t know that they will. But they are talking to us. Seriously talking to us.’

Fox News’ Efrat Lachter and Michael Sinkewicz contributed to this report.

The Senate’s top Republican leader threw cold water on President Donald Trump’s desire to nationalize elections, arguing he was in favor of ‘decentralized, distributed power.’ 

Trump, during an appearance on former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s podcast, contended that it was ‘amazing Republicans aren’t tougher’ on elections. 

‘The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over, we should take over the voting in at least many — 15 places,’’ Trump said. ‘The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked.’

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., rejected the notion. He said that while he was supportive of only citizens voting and showing identification at polling places to do so, he was not in ‘favor of federalizing elections.’

‘That’s a constitutional issue. You gotta be a citizen to vote in our elections,’ Thune said. 

Trump’s ability to morph and shape the election landscape runs into constitutional barriers, notably that elections are run by state and local officials in all 50 states. The federal government has a limited role in that process. 

Thune also noted that echoes of the idea were once pushed by congressional Democrats years ago — something that Senate Republicans resoundingly crushed.

‘But there are other things that the Dems had in their proposal to federalize elections which are really bad outcomes for the country,’ he said. ‘I’m a big believer in decentralized, distributed power. And I think, you know, it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one.’ 

Congressional Republicans strongly pushed back against pushes by their counterparts to pass election reform legislation, notably the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act, which they argued at the time would effectively nationalize elections and give Democrats control of the election system across the country. 

Trump’s suggestion came after the FBI raided an election hub in Fulton County, Ga., where federal law enforcement officials were authorized to seize election records, voting rolls and other data tied to the 2020 election.

It also comes as congressional Republicans wrestle with the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which previously passed the House but has not gotten a vote in the Senate. 

That legislation would require states to obtain proof of citizenship in-person when people register to vote and remove noncitizens from voter rolls. A modified version of the bill gaining steam among conservatives would require photo ID when voting.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., slammed Trump’s comments and the SAVE Act and affirmed that the bill would never pass through the Senate. 

‘Now as for the SAVE Act itself: it has nothing to do with protecting our elections and everything to do with federalizing voter suppression,’ Schumer said. ‘The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0.’

Thune rejected the idea, citing constitutional concerns about federalizing elections

The end of the current government shutdown is in sight on its fourth day after Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., managed to corral nearly all of his House GOP lawmakers to advance the legislation.

The Senate’s federal funding deal survived an important hurdle late Tuesday morning, clearing a House-wide ‘rule vote’ to allow for lawmakers to debate the measure and set up a vote on final passage by early afternoon.

It comes after a pair of House conservatives announced they would be backing off their threats to sink the legislation during the rule vote if the legislation was not paired with an unrelated election integrity bill called the SAVE America Act.

A rule vote is a House-wide test vote of sorts for most bills before they are considered for final passage. They normally fall along partisan lines even if the underlying bill has bipartisan support.

The same is true in this case, where at least several House Democrats are expected to support the funding bill during final passage — despite House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., strongly coming out against it.

But for Johnson, that meant navigating a razor-thin one-seat majority to get nearly all House Republicans to vote in lockstep to advance the legislation.

Democrats had initially walked away from a bipartisan House deal to finish funding the federal government through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026 on Sept. 30, rebelling against a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over President Donald Trump’s handling of unrest in Minneapolis.

It left roughly 78% of the government’s yearly funding hanging in the balance. The DHS bill was lumped into a wider package authorizing budgets for the departments of War, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Education.

A new deal hashed out between Senate Democrats and the White House would fully fund those remaining areas while only extending current funding levels for DHS through Feb. 13, in order to give Democrats and Republicans time to hash out a longer-term bipartisan plan.

And despite most House Republicans coming on board — some more reluctant than others over the prospect of dealing with Democrats — Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., and Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., warned they would not support the bill during the rule vote without the SAVE America Act attached.

The SAVE America Act would require voter ID at the polls and create a new proof of citizenship mandate in the voter registration process.

But that would require it to be sent back to the Senate for additional approval, where Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said it was dead on arrival.

However, Luna told reporters on Monday night that she and Burchett both changed their minds after getting assurances from the White House that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would force a vote on the SAVE America Act.

‘As of right now, with the current agreement that we have, as well as discussions, we will both be a yes on the rule,’ Luna said. ‘There is something called a standing filibuster that would effectively allow Senator Thune to put voter ID on the floor of the Senate. We are hearing that that is going well, and he is considering that…so we are very happy about that.’

House lawmakers will now debate the underlying bill, which will see a final vote around 1 p.m. ET.

A group of Senate Republicans warned the Trump administration that floods of ‘illicit Chinese e-cigarettes’ entering the country carried a darker side effect.

Several Senate Republicans alerted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in a letter first obtained by Fox News Digital that the Chinese government was reaping massive profits from the devices.

And given that connection between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (CSTMA), it’s possible that so-called smart vapes could be used as spying devices.

The lawmakers charged that the ‘highly sophisticated’ vapes had the ability to connect to a person’s cellphone and have become extremely commonplace.

‘These devices have the capacity to initiate data breaches or malware infections and can also access and collect sensitive user data,’ they wrote. ‘Given the interconnected relationship between Chinese industry and state intelligence services, the targeting of U.S. military personnel with these devices raises profound national security concerns.’

President Donald Trump made the crackdown against Chinese vapes one of the many side quests that his administration pursued last year, going so far as to try and crush the supply of the devices at ports across the country.

Last year, for example, the Trump-led Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the capture of roughly $90 million worth of vape products from China in one fell swoop.

The lawmakers, which included Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Katie Britt, R-Ala., Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and nine others, lauded Trump’s ‘aggressive, multi-agency enforcement actions’ against the influx of vapes, but noted that the ‘magnitude and consequence requires a comprehensive strategy and response.’

It’s not just a spying threat either.

The Republicans contended that the funding generated by the sale of vapes could be funneled toward military or technological initiatives in China meant to undermine American interests.

They also noted that the vapes have been linked by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to Mexican cartels, specifically using the devices and operations as a money laundering front. That trade-based money laundering scheme, the lawmakers said, was part of a plan to move fentanyl proceeds on behalf of the cartels.

‘Given the scale and severity of this threat, we urge the Treasury Department and USTR to use their respective enforcement and diplomatic authorities to combat illegal Chinese e-cigarettes,’ they wrote.