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Cooper faces soft-on-crime claims from critics ahead of NC Senate race
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FIRST ON FOX: North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is facing renewed accusations of being “soft on crime” after critics pointed to the January murder of a teacher by a career criminal who had been released after a Cooper-appointed judge reduced his charges and allowed him back on the streets.
Cooper is running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is retiring, setting up what is expected to be one of the most competitive races this midterm cycle. Democrats view North Carolina as a key pickup opportunity as Cooper faces Republican candidate Michael Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chairman.
Ever since the killing of Iryna Zarutska by a career criminal last summer, Cooper and North Carolina’s criminal justice system have faced mounting scrutiny from critics who argue repeat offenders are too often cycled back onto the streets.
“Roy Cooper is a soft-on-crime lunatic who lets monsters out of prison instead of fighting to keep North Carolinians safe,” Republican National Committee Spokesperson Emma Hall said. “Cooper’s record has deadly consequences, and he owes every victim and their family an apology for his failure to keep dangerous criminals off the streets.”
CHARLOTTE TRAIN MURDER FRONT AND CENTER IN CRUCIAL 2026 SENATE BATTLE: ‘SOFT-ON-CRIME POLICIES’
Then-Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat from North Carolina, speaks with reporters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 10, 2024. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Those concerns are now resurfacing following the brutal killing of Raleigh science teacher Zoe Welch that critics say may have been preventable.
Welch was found dead in her home in January, and an autopsy revealed she died from blunt force trauma to the head. Her accused murderer, Ryan Camacho, was facing four charges of breaking and entering in April 2025. However, despite having 20 prior arrests, Durham District Court Judge Dorothy Hairston Mitchell reduced his charges to a misdemeanor, allowing Camacho to walk free.
Mitchell was appointed by Cooper in 2021 to serve as District Court Judge in District 14. In a press release announcing Mitchell’s appointment, Cooper praised her, stating that she would lead with “dedication and fairness.”
North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley gives an address. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)
At the time, Mitchell was appointed to replace Brian Wilks, but she won election to the position in November 2022. Now, his office is distancing Cooper from Mitchell’s judgeship.
“To be clear, this judge was elected to her position,” a spokesperson for Cooper’s campaign told Fox News Digital.
The spokesperson added that “while Roy spent his career putting rapists and violent criminals behind bars, Michael Whatley spent his appointing a convicted child sex predator who served time in prison for multiple counts of felony child sex crimes to a powerful position within the North Carolina Republican Party.”
In 2021 and 2024, Whatley, then with the North Carolina GOP, appointed convicted child sex offender Harvey Lee West to the state’s Plan of Organization Committee. In 1999, West pleaded guilty to statutory rape of three girls, two 14-year-olds and one 16-year-old. West claimed that he had been open and honest about his criminal past with North Carolina party leadership.
Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper appears alongside booking photos of suspects in recent criminal cases cited by critics questioning the state’s public safety and criminal justice policies. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg/Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office/Rowan County Sheriff’s Office)
Cooper’s campaign points to his 16 years as North Carolina’s attorney general, along with legislation he signed as governor—such as a law making it easier to prosecute drug dealers who sell fatal doses—as evidence of his strong support for law enforcement.
But under Cooper’s watch, 3,500 inmates were released over a 180-day period in 2021 as part of a settlement agreement with civil rights groups who sued the state over inmates dying of Covid-19. Some of the inmates released were convicted of serious offenses against children and sexual assault.
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Five hundred sixty inmates released during the Cooper administration were arrested on new charges within two years of their release. Among those released was Tyrell Brace, who was later charged with first-degree murder in the killing of young father Elante Thompson in Charlotte.
Another individual released was Jimmie Speight, who had been convicted of indecent liberties with a child and failure to register as a sex offender and was released just under nine months early. In 2023, he was sentenced to more than 32 years in prison for second-degree murder.
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Labor’s budget will benefit the young – but does little to woo voters drawn to One Nation | Australian budget 2026
Labor’s fifth budget will do what it says on the tin: it will benefit the young and the poor at the expense of the older and the rich.
This is the most obvious takeaway from distributional analysis conducted by Ben Phillips, an associate professor at the ANU’s Centre for Social Policy Research.
But lift the lid on what Jim Chalmers has called his most ambitious reform package to date, and it becomes evident there is little inside for the many middle-aged, middle-income Australians who are increasingly drawn to the populist politics of parties like One Nation.
Scaling back the capital gains tax discount, getting rid of negative gearing for landlords, and a minimum 30% tax rate on income from discretionary trusts – which are a favourite tax minimisation vehicle for the well-off – were all part of a suite of measures framed as striking a blow against intergenerational inequity.
And as part of an effort to ease the growing tax burden on workers, taxpayers will receive a $250 offset on earned income and an instant $1000 tax deduction.
These policies have staggered start dates, but to get a sense of their combined effect, Phillips modelled a world where all of the policy changes applied in the 2026-27 financial year.
Starting by age, the research shows what you would expect.
Gen Z and millennials enjoy the lion’s share of the benefits with an average annual income boost of $300 to $400.
Boomer households lose out, with over 65s suffering a $500 to $1,000 hit thanks to the changes in Tuesday’s budget.
It’s a similar story by wealth and income.
The richest 20% of households suffer a reduction in their average earnings of about $1,500 a year, while the poorest are better off by a few hundred dollars.
Perhaps the most stark difference is between those who rely mainly on “other” income – from dividends, interest, rents and capital gains – and everybody else.
The tax changes in the budget reduce their annual income by nearly $2,400, while there are only negligible changes for households generating income in other ways.
So far, so good for a budget aimed at tipping the scales back towards younger Australians and making the system fairer.
But there are two other important points.
The first is the most obvious.
While Labor’s “ambitious” budget tips the scales in the favour of younger and less well-off households, it doesn’t tip it very far.
“The budget has been reasonably progressive, but not transformative,” Phillips says. “Overall, the impacts are not wild.”
Here’s where we see Chalmers’ ambition and rhetoric meet Anthony Albanese’s caution.
Because, besides some wealthier households, the impact on living standards for the vast bulk of Australians will be “pretty small” – in the order of 1% to 1.5%, Phillips says.
“Most people don’t have negatively geared property and don’t have CGT discounts and don’t use trusts,” he says.
The other observation from the ANU modelling is that as millennials benefit from tax changes at the expense of boomers, middle-class gen X will also feel the squeeze.
This is the age group who are heading to One Nation in droves, and Labor’s budget has little to offer them.
This points to the next policy on the horizon: broader income tax cuts for the middle-income, middle-age mortgage belt before the next election.
Chalmers himself during his post-budget address described the $250 working Australian tax offset as a “down payment” on future tax relief.
Finally, while residents in the wealthiest Sydney and Perth suburbs take the biggest hit from the budget changes, there’s little in it for battlers living in areas such as western Sydney, Phillips says.
“These are areas of high rates of housing stress and poverty, and for low income areas there’s not much in this particular budget for them.”
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Senate unanimously passes resolution to withhold pay during shutdowns
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Senators will now go without pay during future shutdowns in a bid to instill the same pain on lawmakers that federal workers have felt several times in recent months.
The upper chamber unanimously passed a resolution to prevent senators from being paid in the event of a shutdown in a move that could thwart future closures by making the consequences real for lawmakers.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who pushed the measure, argued that preventing lawmakers from collecting a paycheck was a “shared sacrifice” after tens of thousands of federal employees went without pay during the two shutdowns that have happened since last year.
SCHUMER BACKS GOP’S PLAN TO BRING THE PAIN DURING FUTURE SHUTDOWNS: ‘I’M GOING TO VOTE FOR IT’
The Senate passed Sen. John Kennedy’s resolution to stop lawmakers being paid during future shutdowns on a massive bipartisan vote, but the move hasn’t ended fears that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats will try to shut the government down again. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“Last October, we shut down the government for 43 days. That is the longest shutdown in history. And we had FBI agents, national park rangers, CDC scientists, our staff here in Congress — nobody was getting paid,” Kennedy said on the Senate floor.
“And then, three months later, after we finally got out of that 43-day shutdown, we shut down the Department of Homeland Security. It was shut down for 76 days. This is all in one year,” he continued. “We ought to hide our heads in a bag. It’s got to stop.”
Both shutdowns led to real-world effects on Americans, particularly those traveling through the nation’s airports, as Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers went without pay during both record-shattering closures.
SENATE TAKES MAJOR FIRST STEP TO PREVENT FUTURE SHUTDOWNS WITH PAINFUL ACCOUNTABILITY PLAY
Passengers stand in the TSA PreCheck line at LaGuardia Airport in New York on March 26, 2026. (Fox News)
Kennedy’s resolution, which applies only to senators, would direct the secretary of the Senate to withhold lawmakers’ pay until a shutdown is resolved. Effectively, their paychecks would be thrown into escrow while lawmakers hash out a deal to reopen the government.
Once a shutdown ends, the money will flow again.
A rank-and-file senator earns $174,000 per year, while a leader of either party can earn over $193,000.
SENATE REPUBLICANS BALK AT $1B WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM REQUEST: ‘YOU MADE THAT NUMBER UP’
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., has a bill that would prevent shutdowns altogether by automatically but temporarily extending funding for two weeks at a time. (James Lankford/Reuters)
It’s one of many moves lawmakers have made during and after the pair of historic shutdowns to make shuttering the government a self-inflicted wound, or prevent shutdowns from happening altogether.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has a bill backed by federal labor unions that would ensure federal workers were paid during a shutdown, while Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., has a bill that would prevent shutdowns altogether by automatically but temporarily extending funding for two weeks at a time.
It comes after the notion of shuttering the government was, for several decades, an option of last resort. But the last year has shown that Senate Democrats are willing to use the consequential tool as a political cudgel.
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Despite having the blessing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Republicans aren’t convinced that the top Senate Democrat and his caucus will not try to shut the government down again before the midterm elections.
Notably, Kennedy’s resolution wouldn’t kick in until after the upcoming election cycle in November, meaning that lawmakers would still skirt having their paychecks withheld.
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Ukraine hit by second day of large-scale Russian missile and drone strikes | Ukraine
Russian missiles and drones are pounding Ukraine for a second day, as almost continuous heavy attacks hit the country, with Kyiv bearing the brunt of an assault that has killed at least eight people, including a 13-year-old, and injured 44 in the capital.
The overnight attacks followed heavy daylight raids with missiles and drones across the country on Wednesday, one of the longest single attacks of the war.
“As of now, already five people have been reported killed in Kyiv as a result of last night’s Russian attack,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote in a statement on social media.
“There must be a just response to all these strikes,” he added, saying he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces to prepare options for retaliation.
The assault began at 3am on Thursday with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles fired by Moscow, with the sound of explosions echoing through Kyiv. Water and power supplies were disrupted in the east of the city.
The scale of the Russian attacks and their intensity appeared to put paid to claims by the US president, Donald Trump, that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was close, following recent remarks by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that the war may be approaching an end.
Ukraine’s air force said the latest attack involved 56 missiles of various types and almost 700 drones. Separately, Ukraine reported that Russian drones on Thursday had struck a UN vehicle in the southern city of Kherson.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said a large apartment block had collapsed in the city’s Darnytskyi district.
“Eighteen apartments have been destroyed. A rescue and search operation is ongoing. According to preliminary information, 11 people have been rescued from the building,” he told local media.
“Forty people have been injured in the capital as a result of the enemy large-scale attack. Among them are two children. Thirty-one of the injured have been taken to hospital, including one child.”
Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said “more than 10 people were still believed to be missing” from the attack.
Wednesday’s daytime raids killed at least 14 people and injured more than 80 others. They appear to have included “double-tap” strikes aimed at first responders sent to the sites of attacks, and also struck two dozen sites associated with Ukraine’s railway system and other critical infrastructure.
After strikes in western Ukraine close to the Hungarian border, Hungary summoned Russia’s ambassador on Thursday, a stark example of the change brought about by the election of Péter Magyar as prime minister after years of cosy relations between Budapest and Moscow under his predecessor Viktor Orbán.
The scale of the recent raids led to warnings that Russia was attempting to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defence systems by swarming them with drones and missiles.
In a late afternoon post on Wednesday, Zelenskyy had described the raids as “one of the longest [and most] massive Russian attacks against Ukraine”, suggesting Moscow’s aim was to spoil the “political atmosphere” during Trump’s visit to China.
He added that Ukraine’s intelligence had assessed Moscow was attempting to overwhelm Kyiv’s air defences through the scale and intensity of the attacks to cause “as much grief and pain as possible”.
The attacks followed Trump’s latest claims of progress in negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which were offered on Wednesday with scant detail and followed similar unfounded claims.
“The end of the war in Ukraine I really think is getting very close,” the US president told reporters as he left the White House for a summit in Beijing. “Believe it or not, it’s getting closer.”
His comments followed remarks by Putin in a speech last weekend that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was possibly coming to an end.
The attacks came as Ukraine’s battlefield prospects appeared to have been improving in recent months. It has gone from pleading for international help with its defence to offering other countries expertise on how to counter attacks thanks to its domestically developed drone technology.
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Trump says he’ll press Xi on Iran nuclear threat at China summit this week
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President Donald Trump said Tuesday he expects to have a “long talk” with Chinese President Xi Jinping about Iran this week, an issue now looming over a summit that was originally expected to focus heavily on trade, technology and Taiwan.
“It was a fantastic day,” Trump said Thursday during a state banquet of his welcome to China and his initial round of meetings. “And in particular, I want to thank President Xi, my friend, for this magnificent welcome … and for so graciously hosting us on this very historic state visit. We had positive and productive conversations and meetings today with the Chinese delegation earlier. And this evening is another cherished opportunity to discuss among friends some of the things that we discussed today.”
Instead of arriving in Beijing with the Middle East conflict behind him, Trump faces the added challenge of confronting Xi over China’s ties to Tehran while trying to preserve leverage in one of the world’s most consequential relationships.
China’s role as a top buyer of Iranian oil has long frustrated U.S. officials. But with Trump now trying to choke off Tehran’s economic lifeline, Beijing’s support for Iran is no longer a side issue.
TRUMP DELAYS XI MEETING AS IRAN CONFLICT LETS US STRONG-ARM CHINA’S OIL SUPPLY
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan welcome U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump at the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, in Beijing on Nov. 8, 2017. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua)
Ahead of the summit, Trump also appeared to downplay the extent to which Iran would dominate the talks, telling reporters before departing for Beijing that “we have a lot of things to discuss” and adding, “I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control.”
China purchases roughly 90% of Iran’s exported oil, making Beijing Tehran’s primary economic lifeline — though Iranian crude accounts for only about 13% to 15% of China’s total oil imports.
The Trump administration has ramped up pressure by imposing secondary sanctions on Chinese refiners processing Iranian oil — a move that threatens to cut those firms off from the U.S. financial system and underscores how the Iran conflict is increasingly colliding with the broader U.S.-China relationship.
During the first bilateral meeting between Trump and Xi Thursday morning, the Chinese president expressed interest in buying more American energy.
“The two sides agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy,” a White House official said in a readout of the meeting.
“President Xi also made clear China’s opposition to the militarization of the Strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use, and he expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China’s dependence on the Strait in the future,” the official continued. “Both countries agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”
Beijing, in turn, ordered Chinese companies not to comply with those sanctions, a far more direct confrontation with Washington than China has typically embraced in past disputes, where it has often quietly worked around U.S. pressure.
Even as Beijing publicly urged firms to ignore the U.S. sanctions, Chinese regulators quietly instructed major banks to suspend new lending to several sanctioned refineries, according to a Bloomberg report, a sign Beijing was trying to shield its financial system from exposure to U.S. secondary sanctions rather than openly escalate the standoff.
Trump said he expects to have a “long talk” with Chinese President Xi Jinping about Iran this week, an issue now looming over a summit that was originally expected to focus heavily on trade, technology and Taiwan. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Elaine Dezenski, who heads the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Iran conflict is “quietly changing China’s strategic calculus.”
“Thus far, China has weathered the economic disruption of the Iran conflict reasonably well,” Dezenski said during an FDD media briefing previewing the summit. But she noted Beijing has been forced to draw on strategic oil and gas reserves originally intended for a potential Taiwan contingency.
The dynamic has fueled debate in Washington over whether the Iran conflict ultimately weakens Trump’s hand with Beijing by pulling U.S. resources back toward the Middle East — or whether it instead highlights China’s own vulnerabilities.
Craig Singleton, senior director of FDD’s China Program, argued Beijing has little interest in allowing the conflict to spiral further.
“China does not want a wider Middle East war,” Singleton said. “It does not want sustained energy disruption.”
Even if China is better positioned than many countries to absorb short-term shocks, Singleton argued Beijing ultimately wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened because “China’s export economy depends on predictable energy, transport and insurance conditions.”
But the Trump administration’s campaign against Iran is increasingly running through Chinese interests — transforming what had been a regional conflict into a direct point of friction between the world’s two largest powers.
“President Trump, when you go to China, realize that the person you’re talking to is propping up Russia and Iran,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, adding that “of all the countries on the planet, China could have the most influence of ending this war if they chose to.”
U.S. officials have also accused Chinese and Hong Kong-based entities of helping Iran procure materials tied to its missile and drone programs, further deepening tensions between Washington and Beijing over Tehran.
“China always acts prudently and responsibly on the export of military products, and exercises strict control in accordance with China’s laws and regulations on export control and due international obligations,” Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told Fox News Digital. “China opposes groundless smear and ill-intentioned association. Regarding the situation in Iran, China has repeatedly articulated its solemn position. The pressing priority is to make every effort to prevent by all means a relapse in fighting, rather than exploiting the conflict to maliciously smear other nations.”
A container ship sits at anchor in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, as a motorboat passes in the foreground on May 2, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
Analysts say Trump is unlikely to secure a dramatic breakthrough from Beijing on Iran, but could push Xi to quietly pressure Tehran to avoid further disruptions to global energy markets.
Chinese cooperation could come with expectations of concessions elsewhere in the U.S.-China relationship, even if Beijing’s actual influence over Tehran is limited.
Other experts cautioned against overestimating Beijing’s ability — or willingness — to deliver Iran.
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“I would be very careful about making concessions … for some kind of promise that they’re going to whisper in the ears of their friends in Iran,” said Sarah Cook, a senior fellow at CEPA.
Despite China’s economic importance to Iran, experts note Tehran’s decision-making is driven heavily by ideology and regime survival — factors Beijing cannot fully control.
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‘Magical’ objects from iron age hoard found in UK go on display | Yorkshire
Iron age objects that tell a dramatic story of female power and that dispel the myth that northern Britain was a left-behind backwater have gone on display for the first time.
The objects exhibited in York are from the Melsonby hoard, the largest trove of iron age metalwork ever found in the UK, which experts say could alter our understanding of life in Britain 2,000 years ago.
The hoard, which comprises more than 800 items, was almost certainly associated with a tribe called the Brigantes, who controlled most of what is now northern England and whose most famous leader was Queen Cartimandua.
There are fragments of chariots, bridle bits, weapons, a cauldron, a mysterious mirror and much more – all of them deliberately dismantled and burned before they were buried. It was a “crazy amount of effort and work”, said Yorkshire Museum’s senior curator, Glynn Davis.
The museum acquired the hoard after it raised more than £265,000, including £192,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Everyone associated with the hoard believes it is an unprecedented, once-in-a-generation find. Five years after its initial discovery by a metal detectorist, the public will now be able to see what all the fuss is about.
The big question is why the objects were buried: was it to mark an important feast or festival? Did the Brigantes capture treasures after a fight? Was it for the funeral of one of their most important people?
The exhibition asks the questions rather than answering them, although its lead curator, Emily North, points to one rare object going on display – a large, heavily corroded iron mirror.
“The mirror is my absolute favourite object,” North said. “It is spectacular, and that’s not because of how it looks, because it doesn’t look like an awful lot at the moment. It is the clue that could solve the puzzle of why people buried this hoard.”
Iron age mirrors are exclusively associated with powerful women and have not been found in the graves of men or children.
North said the timing was not quite right for it to have belonged to Cartimandua, but it could have belonged to her mother or grandmother.
“It is a magical object associated with female power,” she said. “This mirror would have given quite a distorted view of the person who was looking into it.”
North said the mirror was less likely to have been an object of vanity and more seen as a “bridge to a past life”. It suggests a story of a powerful older woman “and her connection to a mystical world”.
Just under a fifth of the hoard has gone on display, with more to come in future years. At the centre of the show is a climate-controlled case containing what has become known as “the block” – a 150kg corroded tangle of objects.
Early on it became clear that to dismantle the block would permanently damage objects in it, curators said.
“It is an incredibly tantalising object,” North said. “You can peek through the surface at some of the things that are hidden inside. There’s a stylised boar’s head that’s part of an object and also a man’s face … To see the face of an iron age Briton as they depicted themselves is something very, very special.”
From Roman times onwards, iron age life in northern Britain has been seen as less developed and less connected than in the south, but experts say the Melsonby hoard means we need to rethink that.
“The sheer wealth, artistry, skill and international connections that are revealed by the objects in the hoard really show that the iron age north of Britain was a vibrant place to be,” North said. “It was not left behind in any sense of the word.”
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