The U.S. National Security Council released on Thursday its first-ever memo on artificial intelligence (AI), ordering federal agencies to use the “most powerful” AI systems while balancing the risks associated with the new technology.

The National Security Memorandum (NSM) details the U.S. approach to harnessing the power of AI for national security and foreign policy purposes “to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of AI,” senior administration officials said.

“We are directing that the agencies gain access to the most powerful AI systems and put them to use, which often involve substantial efforts on procurement,” the officials said.

The NSM, which was signed by President Biden, serves as the framework for the AI Safety Institute in the Department of Commerce, which already issued guidance on safe AI development and entered into agreements with companies to test new AI systems before they are released publicly.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

“This is our nation’s first-ever strategy for harnessing the power and managing the risks of AI to advance our national security,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said as he described the new policy to students during an appearance at the National Defense University in Washington.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have been hailed as potentially transformative for a long list of industries and sectors, including military, national security and intelligence.

FLORIDA MOTHER SUES AI COMPANY OVER ALLEGEDLY CAUSING DEATH OF TEEN SON

But there are risks to the technology’s use by governments, including possibilities it could be harnessed for mass surveillance, cyberattacks or even lethal autonomous devices.

The framework announced Thursday also prohibits national security agencies from certain uses, such as applications that would violate constitutionally protected civil rights or any system that would automate the deployment of nuclear weapons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Pro-life groups are livid at Vice President Kamala Harris after she took an uncompromising position on abortion rights at odds with many faith-based health care providers.

Harris told NBC’s Hallie Jackson on Tuesday that she does not support religious exemptions for abortion and would not make any concessions on that issue, if elected, under a potentially divided government. 

“I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” Harris said in the interview. 

Christian and pro-life leaders said her position is hostile toward believing doctors and Catholic hospitals, who view abortion as the sinful taking of innocent life. They questioned whether she would respect constitutional protections for religious Americans if she wins the presidency. 

HARRIS REFUSES TO MAKE CONCESSIONS TO REPUBLICANS ON ANY ABORTION LEGISLATION, INCLUDING RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS

“Kamala Harris’ comments here show that she believes the First Amendment no longer applies to people of faith, including Catholics,” said Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote, in an interview with Fox News Digital.

“She is setting the stage to put Catholic doctors in jail, to strip medical licenses from Catholic physicians and to shut down Catholic health care as we know it.” 

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a senior fellow with The Catholic Association, said Harris “should clarify, and quickly, whether given the chance she would force Americans who object on religious or conscience grounds, to participate in abortion” 

“Sadly, it would not be the first time Harris has used her political power to trample the rights of religious Americans,” she added. 

HARRIS CLAIMS SHE WAS ‘HONEST WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’ ABOUT BIDEN’S MENTAL ACUITY: ‘CAPABLE IN EVERY WAY’

The Biden-Harris administration has come under fire from Christians and pro-life groups for filing lawsuits against activists who prayed outside of abortion clinics under the Freedom of Access to Clinical Entrances Act. Activist Lauren Handy, with Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, was handed a nearly five-year prison sentence in May for organizing one such protest outside a clinic in Washington, D.C., in 2020.

CatholicVote and others have accused the Biden-Harris administration of “weaponizing” the Justice Department against abortion opponents. The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

In interviews, Harris has refused to say whether there is any restriction on abortion that she supports. When Jackson repeatedly pressed her on whether there were any compromises she might support to pass legislation to expand abortion access, Harris refused to “engage in hypotheticals.” 

“Let’s start with the fundamental fact. A basic freedom has been taken from the women of America, the freedom to make decisions about their own body. And that cannot be negotiable, which is that we need to put back in the protections of Roe v Wade, and that is it,” Harris said. 

KAMALA HARRIS AVOIDS QUESTIONS ABOUT BIDEN’S MENTAL DECLINE: ‘JOE BIDEN IS NOT ON THE BALLOT’

The vice president has supported legislation in Congress that would codify the Supreme Court’s now defunct opinion in Roe v. Wade, which would guarantee federal protections for abortion access and override nearly all abortion restrictions enacted by pro-life lawmakers at the state level nationwide.  

William Wolfe, founder and executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, said Harris’ position makes “crystal clear” that “Christians are not welcome in the modern, pro-abortion Democrat Party.” 

“Frankly, I’m not surprised to learn that a Kamala administration would shred the First Amendment and force Christian doctors and hospitals to provide abortions because ‘expanding abortion access’ is a key tenant of their progressive ‘religion.’ There is nothing that the Democrats value more than the ‘freedom’ to end innocent, pre-born human life in the womb with no legal restrictions or repercussions,” said Wolfe.  

“Her fanatical commitment to abortion access and disregard for the First Amendment isn’t a bug – it’s a feature of her platform. I fail to see how any Christian can support such a barbaric and unconstitutional candidate in good faith.” 

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Public opinion polls show, and political analysts agree, that the 2024 presidential election is on a trajectory to be one of the closest in decades. Seven battleground states will determine the winner, and those states are expected to be decided by slim margins – where support from significant voter blocks, like Catholics, could very well make the difference.

“The Catholic vote will be critical, as it has been in every election over the last 40 years,” said Burch. 

“The Democratic Party has gone from safe, legal and rare to now let’s force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, or we’ll throw you in jail. That’s quite the shift, and I think voters recognize this as a bridge too far.” 

Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The Family Leader, an Iowa-based socially conservative group, said he has “never seen an election that represents a bigger contrast of worldview” than the 2024 presidential contest.

“You can’t tell a doctor my so-called ‘right’ to abortion trumps your right of conscience, so I can force you to commit what you believe is murder. That’s not the America I grew up in, not the America our Founders would have ever permitted, but that’s the Kamala Harris America,” he said. 

“The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the guarantee of religious liberty, is on the ballot. Choose well, America.”

Harris will travel to Texas on Friday, a state her campaign has called “ground zero of Trump’s abortion bans.” She will attend an event in Houston with women “who have faced the direct impacts of these extreme laws” and will speak about the “harm Donald Trump’s abortion bans have caused across the nation.” 

Vice President Kamala Harris stood outside the vice president’s residence in Washington, D.C., launching a blistering attack on former President Trump, her rival in the 2024 White House race.

Harris charged that the former president was “increasingly unhinged and unstable” as she pointed to critical comments made by retired Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, in a New York Times interview.

The vice president argued Trump was a “fascist” as she noted Kelly’s allegations that the then-president repeatedly voiced admiration for Nazi Germany dictator Adolf Hitler.

Hours later, at a CNN town hall in battleground Pennsylvania on Wednesday night, Harris doubled down on her charges.

NEW NATIONAL POLL SHOWS WHETHER HARRIS OR TRUMP HAS THE EDGE IN THE FINAL STRETCH

Asked if she believed the Republican presidential nominee was a fascist, the vice president answered “yes, I do.”

And she emphasized that American voters “care about our democracy and not having a President of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

Trump, who has vehemently denied Kelly’s allegations, took to social media to fire back at Harris, arguing that her criticisms were a sign that she’s losing the election.

The former president claimed that Harris was “increasingly raising her rhetoric, going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and anything else that comes to her warped mind.”

CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS IN THE 2024 ELECTION

If Harris’ criticisms that Trump is “unfit to serve” in the Oval Office sound familiar, there’s a good reason – they are.

As he ran for re-election, President Biden made his argument that Trump was an existential threat to democracy a centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

Biden spotlighted what he called the former president’s “assault on democracy” – as he pointed to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aiming to upend congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory – during a January speech as he kicked off the election year.

As he continued to run for another four years in the White House, the president repeatedly argued that Trump was “a threat to democracy.”

But after a besieged Biden in July dropped his re-election bid and backed Harris to replace him atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket, the vice president and her advisers seemed to discard the Biden playbook on Trump.

Instead, “joyful warrior” Harris spotlighted a more upbeat message and when she focused on Trump, she noted his petty grievances and called him an “unserious man,” as she argued during her Democratic National Convention address in late August.

But as the calendar moved from summer to autumn, and Election Day neared, in a margin-of-error race where plenty of polls suggest the momentum belongs to Trump, there’s been an apparent shift of tone coming from the vice president and her campaign.

“Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged and will stop at nothing to claim unchecked power for himself,” Harris charged last week during multiple campaign rallies in battleground Wisconsin.

According to a senior campaign official, Harris will deliver what’s being described as a major “closing argument” address next Tuesday – one week until Election Day – on the Ellipse, which is just south of the White House and north of the National Mall.

The campaign spotlighted that Trump headlined a large rally of supporters at the Ellipse on Jan 6, 2021. Many of those who attended Trump’s rally then marched to the U.S. Capital and joined other protesters in storming the building. The campaign sees the Ellipse as a symbolic location that they believe will help make clear to voters the choice in the presidential election.

The contrast with the former president that Harris is working to sketch comes as she and her campaign make a full court press to attract dissatisfied Republicans who supported Trump rival Nikki Haley earlier this year in the GOP presidential primaries. 

WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLS INDICATE IN THE HARRIS-TRUMP SHOWDOWN

While Trump continues to hold massive sway over the Republican Party, even a sliver of GOP voters casting ballots for Harris could make a difference in some of the battleground states in a race likely to be decided in the margins.

Harris in recent weeks has teamed up in the key battleground states with high-profile anti-Trump Republicans, including former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

A Democratic strategist in Biden’s political orbit told Fox News that the shift in Harris’ messaging is a sign that the president was right to repeatedly take aim at Trump on the campaign trail as an existential threat to democracy.

The Trump campaign argues that the new messaging will backfire with voters.

“Kamala Harris is focused on Donald Trump and President Donald J. Trump is focused on the American people,” Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez argued on “Fox and Friends” on Thursday. “Our closing argument is so different than theirs. They are throwing everything they can at the wall to see what sticks because Kamala Harris is floundering.”

Longtime vocal GOP Trump-critic Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire – who was a top Haley supporter and surrogate in the Republican nomination battle but says he’ll vote for Trump – said that the attacks wouldn’t succeed in courting voters.

“You’re dealing with an individual who makes outrageous statements all the time,” Sununu said of Trump during an interview on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” “They’re baked into the noise.”

Sununu argued that “the reason the Harris campaign has completely frozen, lost all their momentum, is because all they do is talk about crazy things that Trump says and does.”

Longtime Republican strategist Colin Reed, a veteran of multiple presidential campaigns, agreed.

“Voters have been hearing versions of this overheated rhetoric for the better part of the last decade, and they’re starting to tune it out as background noise,” he told Fox News Digital.

Reed also noted that the new criticism comes after Trump survived two assassination attempts against his life this summer, and many of the former president’s allies blame rhetoric from some Democrats for fueling the toxic political climate.

“It’s especially ironic coming from the Biden-Harris Administration that ran on an idea of unity, and are now demonizing someone who has been subject to multiple attempts on his life,” noted Reed, who supported vocal Trump critic former Gov. Chris Christie this cycle.

But Reed said “the bigger challenge is that life was easier under the previous presidency than the current one. Prices were lower, the border more secure and ‘inflation’ was an esoteric term from an economics class and not a headache of everyday life. The Harris campaign has failed to lay out their vision and positive plans to address these issues, leaving them with no choice but to focus solely on the negatives around Trump and hope for the best.”

He called it “a risky bet when voters are looking for concrete solutions to real problems.”

Even some Democrats have issues with the new messaging.

“I worry that the threat to democracy message rings hollow with the majority of voters who are much more focused on improving their own personal situation and want to vote for someone who will make their life more affordable,” seasoned Democratic strategist and communicator Chris Moyer told Fox News Digital.

Moyer said that “if I were the Harris campaign, I would continue to hammer home through Election Day the message of what Harris will do for these voters to lower costs and help them get ahead. In doing so, she will be speaking to the top priority across multiple subsets of the electorate. Voters who have the luxury of worrying about the broad concern of the fate of democracy are most likely already voting for Harris.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

The House Judiciary Committee celebrated a “big win” this week after a Japanese company said it would not pursue a plan that would reorganize or create a new version of an advertising association that allegedly engaged in censorship and boycotts of conservative media companies. 

“Following the Committee’s inquiry into Dentsu potentially creating the new ‘GARM,’ Dentsu expresses to the committee that it WILL NOT pursue the ‘Dentsu Coalition’ initiative,” the committee said. “They will not pursue any other effort with similar aims.” 

ELON MUSK’S X FILES ANTITRUST LAWSUIT AGAINST WORLDWIDE ADVERTISING GROUP

The committee touted it as a “BIG WIN!” in a post on X.

The committee first began investigating the World Federation of Advertisers and its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative. Dentsu was a founding member. 

The committee found “collusive activity” of GARM, and it was ultimately disbanded. 

When operational, GARM was an association of advertisers, advertising agencies, online platforms and advertising tech companies that publicly said they were creating standards for media advertising. But privately, the House Judiciary Committee revealed, GARM was discussing ways to ensure conservative news outlets and platforms could not receive advertising dollars and were engaged in boycotts of conservative voices and Twitter once it became “X” under the ownership of Elon Musk. 

Musk and video-sharing platform Rumble ultimately sued GARM for illegally boycotting companies, including X. Shortly after, it was disbanded. 

The House Judiciary Committee this month sent a letter to Japanese company Dentsu as part of its oversight of the adequacy and enforcement of U.S. antitrust laws. 

The committee then learned Dentsu was beginning the process of starting a new coalition — the Dentsu Coalition — of the world’s largest marketers with “striking similarities to GARM.” The Dentsu Coalition was expected to be “aimed at fostering substantial and sustainable investments in credible news.”

Dentsu, though, replied this week, vowing to stop its reorganization.

WHAT IS GARM? ‘COLLUSIVE’ AD GROUP ALLEGEDLY TARGETING CONSERVATIVES FACES GRILLING FROM TOP HOUSE COMMITTEE

“Dentsu appreciates the opportunity to allay any concerns that the recently announced research project with The 614 Group gives rise to any anticompetitive issues, constitutes any kind of effort to revive the now-disbanded Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), or was intended to do anything other than promote all forms of journalism,” general counsel of Dentsu, Susan Zoch, wrote to committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. 

“Recognizing the confusion that has surfaced surrounding the initiative, Dentsu has elected not to pursue the initiative referred to as the ‘Dentsu Coalition’ and further not to pursue any effort with similar aims,” Zoch said. 

Zoch said the “goal” of researching the new project was to “provide insights for advertisers and the full spectrum of the news industry on how best to optimize their ad spend in news and the potential for increased ad spend in news.” 

“From Dentsu’s perspective, the success of the initiative depended on the support (financially or otherwise) of all stakeholders in news — advertisers and all facets of the publishing industry,” Zoch wrote. 

“To be clear, Dentsu did not intend or understand that the initiative would replace or succeed GARM,” she continued, saying public reporting on its initiative was “mischaracterized.”

EXCLUSIVE: With less than two weeks until Election Day, the Trump campaign is giving its closing message to voters: Vice President Harris “broke it” and former President Trump “will fix it,” officials told Fox News Digital as they previewed their strategy for the final stretch. 

Fox News Digital spoke exclusively with Trump campaign officials about the former president’s strategy to rally supporters to the ballot box on Nov. 5, or before, by focusing heavily on the economy and the crisis at the southern border.

“Kamala Harris for the last four years has wrecked the economy and the border,” Trump campaign senior advisor Tim Murtaugh told Fox News Digital. “Donald Trump will fix both of them.” 

Murtaugh said that “the beauty of this election cycle is that everybody who is going to vote has lived through the Trump years and the Harris years.”

TRUMP MEETS WITH LATINO LEADERS AFTER NEW POLL SHOWS HIM 11 POINTS AHEAD OF HARRIS IN KEY VOTING BLOC

“They have experienced both administrations. When Trump was president, the economy was fantastic, inflation was nonexistent, the border was secure, and the world was at peace,” Murtaugh said. “By contrast, under Harris’ leadership, the economy is in shambles, inflation is still sky-high, our border has been erased, and the world, at large, is on fire.”

Trump has relentlessly hammered home that message in stop after stop as he crisscrosses the country campaigning in the final weeks of the cycle, something his campaign believes has given him momentum over the vice president who they say has largely shifted her message to attacking the former president.

“Trump is talking about solving problems for Americans while Kamala Harris is focused exclusively on attacking him,” a campaign official told Fox News Digital.

Harris on Tuesday accused Trump of seeking “unchecked power” and being “unhinged and unstable.”

But the Trump campaign said the former president is “asking people to vote for something, while she is asking for people to vote against something.” 

“He is selling optimism and positive messages to fix the problems she and President Biden created,” a campaign official said. 

The latest Wall Street Journal poll shows Trump leading Harris nationally by 2 points. Trump grabs 47% support among likely voters nationwide, with Harris at 45%, according to the WSJ survey- on a ballot that also includes third-party and independent candidates.

That’s a switch from the Journal’s previous national survey – conducted in late August – which indicated Harris with a two point edge.

The survey indicates views of Harris have turned more negative since August, with her favorable rating eight points underwater and her approval rating as vice president at 42%-54%. Meanwhile, views of Trump have improved, with voters approving of his past performance in the White House by a 52%-48% margin.

And the latest Fox News Poll shows Trump ahead of Harris 50% to 48% nationally.

“Donald Trump is leading all the battleground states, and the momentum and polling averages continue to move in his direction,” Murtaugh said, citing national trends.

Campaign officials pointed to ads being run in the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by vulnerable incumbent Democrats who have sought to distance themselves from Harris.

KAMALA HARRIS ‘HAS BECOME TOXIC’ FOR PENNSYLVANIA, TOP KEYSTONE STATE LAWMAKER SAYS

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., is running an ad in the Keystone State highlighting how he “bucked Biden” and “sided with” Trump while painting the Democrat senator as an “independent.” The ad features a Republican woman and her Democrat husband and does not once mention Harris. 

Similar ads featuring Trump are running in Wisconsin for Sen. Tammy Baldwin and in Michigan for Rep. Elissa Slotkin who is running for Senate. 

“Democrat Senate candidates are spending Democrat donor money promoting Donald Trump in the Blue Wall battleground states,” an official said.

And the latest USA Today/Suffolk University poll also showed Trump leading by a margin with a key group: Latino voters. Trump is leading Harris by 11 percentage points in that critical voting bloc. 

“But the polls are only theoretical election results and polls don’t win races. Actual votes win elections, and that’s why we’re continuing to accelerate,” Murtaugh added. “And we’ll run through the tape on Election Day.” 

The Trump campaign said it is confident they have the “momentum.”

“President Trump will be relentless and tireless,” an official told Fox News Digital. “He’ll be barnstorming the country — rinse and repeat — over and over and over again until Election Day.” 

TRUMP MAKES FRIES AT PENNSYLVANIA MCDONALD’S: ‘I’VE NOW WORKED FOR 15 MINUTES MORE THAN KAMALA’

Trump held events in battleground Georgia on Tuesday, holding a massive rally with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, country music singer Jason Aldean and former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines.

Trump this week made a campaign stop at a McDonald’s location in Pennsylvania to mock Harris for claiming that she once worked at the fast-food chain.

“The McDonald’s trip was an encapsulation of his positive message,” an official said. “He is a cheerful, optimistic guy who knows he can fix it. And what was the Harris campaign’s reaction? They mocked it.” 

‘BLUE WALL’ DEMOCRAT ALIGNS WITH TRUMP IN NEW PITCH TO VOTERS BEFORE ELECTION

The Harris campaign blasted that campaign stop as a “staged photo-op,” saying Trump “doesn’t understand what it’s like to work for a living” and that the vice president “has a record of standing up for workers and taking on bad actors who rip people off, and she’ll do the same as President.”

The next scheduled stops for Trump include major campaign rallies in Tempe, Arizona; Las Vegas; Traverse City, Michigan; Novi, Michigan; State College, Pennsylvania; and then a massive rally on Sunday at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

Campaign officials said the former president will continue to engage with the press and sit for major media interviews. On Friday, Trump will be interviewed for the Joe Rogan podcast. Rogan has 17 million subscribers on YouTube and 14 million on Spotify. 

And his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, will also continue engaging with the media and has already held major campaign events this week in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. In the coming days, Vance will be in Waterford, Michigan, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

But Trump campaign surrogates are also hosting major events, including Donald Trump Jr. campaigning in battleground states; a Trump campaign bus tour; and Women for Trump visiting areas damaged by recent hurricanes.

Even Dr. Phil and RFK Jr. are joining forces to host a “Make America Healthy Again” event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

And Trump campaign officials expressed the importance of early voting and are encouraging their supporters to “vote by any way they possibly can.” 

“Whether they vote by mail, vote early in person, vote on Election Day, we want them to make a plan to vote,” an official said. “We need people to show up. And we are getting to the point where persuasion is almost over, and now we are getting to turnout.” 

Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

HARRIS CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCES CONCERT SERIES WITH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN TO MOBILIZE VOTERS AHEAD OF ELECTION DAY

Harris, though, is expected to deliver what’s being described as a major “closing argument” address next Tuesday – one week until Election Day – on the Ellipse, which is just south of the White House and north of the National Mall. The Harris campaign spotlighted that then-President Trump headlined a large rally of supporters at the Ellipse on Jan 6, 2021.

Her campaign this week also announced a new concert series featuring Bruce Springsteen and former President Obama, while the Democratic National Committee launched a new Taylor Swift-themed, get-out-the-vote campaign for young voters. 

As for President Biden, he’s largely stayed off the campaign trail as Harris alternates between promising to continue the policies and vision of the Biden-Harris administration while also promising to bring “a new way forward.” 

But on Tuesday, Biden weighed in. 

BIDEN CALLS FOR TRUMP TO BE ‘POLITICALLY’ LOCKED UP AT NEW HAMPSHIRE EVENT

“We got to lock him up,” Biden said of Trump. However, the president quickly added, “Politically lock him up, lock him out. That’s what we have to do.” 

A Trump campaign official reacted, telling Fox News Digital that “for four years, it has been clear to the American people that the Biden-Harris administration has been using the weight of the federal government to go after Donald Trump and his supporters.” 

The official added, “Two weeks before the election, Joe Biden finally confirmed it.”

Maryland residents can begin heading to their polling places for in-person early voting on Thursday.

Here is everything you need to know to cast a ballot.

Voters will decide on several closely watched down-ballot races in addition to the presidential race. For a full list of competitive elections, see the latest Senate and House rankings.

HOUSE GOP DOUBTS GROW AS JOHNSON DIGS IN ON FUNDING FIGHT: ‘PLAYING WITH A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN’

This is a guide to registration and early voting. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes, and deadlines, please go to Vote.gov and the election website for Maryland.

‘OUT OF MONEY’: WHISTLEBLOWERS ALLEGE LACK OF SECRET SERVICE FUNDS, DELAYED PAYMENTS, TOP SENATOR REVEALS

Maryland began absentee voting in late September. Applicants do not need to provide an excuse to receive a ballot. The state must receive a ballot application by Oct. 29, and that ballot must be delivered to county officials by Nov. 5.

As of Wednesday evening, 397,430 mail-in ballots have already been cast, according to The Associated Press.

Absentee ballots can be returned in person through Election Day. Early voting begins Thursday, Oct. 24, and runs through Oct. 31.

Maryland residents can register to vote in person during early voting (Oct. 24-31) or on Election Day. The deadline for registering online or by mail was Oct. 15.

Former President Trump is in a neck-and-neck race with Vice President Kamala Harris in three critical swing states, according to new polling.

The Thursday Marist polls found Trump and Harris virtually tied in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia, while Harris holds a 5-point lead in national polling.

Trump leads Harris by one point in Arizona with a 50%-49% match-up. Meanwhile in North Carolina, Trump holds another slim 50%-48% lead. Both candidates are tied at 49% in Georgia, according to the poll.

The Marist polls were conducted from Oct. 17-22, surveying over 1,400 residents from each of the states. The margin of error for North Carolina was 3.2%, while it was 3.7% in Arizona and 3.9% in Georgia.

CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS IN THE 2024 ELECTION

The poll lines up with other surveys in the final stretch before Election Day. The Wall Street Journal released a poll on Wednesday showing Trump and Harris in a dead heat nationally, giving Trump a slight 47%-45% lead.

WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLS INDICATE IN THE HARRIS-TRUMP SHOWDOWN

The polls widely indicate that the honeymoon period has passed for Harris, though she remains much more popular than President Biden when he led the Democratic ticket.

The latest Fox News poll results, with Trump with 50% support and Harris at 48%, were a reversal from last month, when the vice president had the edge.

“Overall, the movement toward Trump is subtle but potentially consequential, especially if he is making gains among college-educated voters,” said veteran Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, who conducts Fox News surveys with Republican Daron Shaw. “However, the race has been well within the margin of error for three months and the outcome will likely hinge on which side is more effective at getting their voters to the polls as opposed to persuasion.”

CAMPAIGN BATTLE BETWEEN THE BILLIONAIRES: MARK CUBAN AND ELON MUSK HIT THE TRAIL FOR HARRIS AND TRUMP

While national polls are helpful, the race for the White House is not based on the national popular vote. The winner on Election Day will be determined by their performance in the swing states.

Harris has the clear advantage on the financial front as she and Trump enter the home stretch. The Harris campaign hauled in $221.8 million in September, according to filings, more than triple the $63 million brought in by the Trump campaign last month.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

A new poll shows that former President Trump has historically strong support from young minority voters with less than two weeks before Election Day.

The latest GenForward poll from the University of Chicago, released Wednesday, found that 26 percent of Black men between the ages of 18 and 40 said they would vote for Trump, while only 12 percent of Black women said the same. It is a significant gain since Black voters overall supported Biden over Trump by a nine to one ratio in the 2020 presidential election. 

Trump also has improved with young Latino men, 44 percent of whom said they’d support him compared to about 38 percent who voted for him in 2020. Even so, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris leads Trump overall 47-35 in the poll, which includes large oversamples of young voters of color. 

EX-WWE STAR MICK FOLEY WEIGHS IN ON TRUMP: ‘ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FUN ABOUT THIS MAN’

Still, the underlying results provide further evidence of a potential political realignment among minority voters on generational and gender lines. Young Black and Latino Americans have typically supported Democratic candidates – but several surveys have shown weakened support for Harris among these groups, who say economic issues and immigration are the top concerns for their communities. 

Where Harris is strong is among women of color. A majority of Black (63%), Asian American and Pacific Islander (60%) and Latina (55%) women say they support Harris over Trump.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN’S CLOSING MESSAGE TO VOTERS: ‘HARRIS BROKE IT, TRUMP WILL FIX IT’

White women showed a slight preference for Harris over Trump, 44-40 percent.

The GenForward poll ran from Sept. 26 to Oct. 6 and included 2,359 eligible voters 18 to 40 years old. It has a plus or minus 3.13 percentage point margin of error. 

TRUMP MEETS WITH LATINO LEADERS AFTER NEW POLL SHOWS HIM 11 POINTS AHEAD OF HARRIS IN KEY VOTING BLOC

Both Harris and Trump have focused on outreach to minority voters in the closing days of the 2024 presidential election.

The Harris campaign unveiled an economic agenda for Black men last week, emphasizing her plans to provide small business loans to Black-owned businesses and legalize marijuana. 

Her campaign also ramped up events targeting Latino and Black voters in battleground states, and former President Barack Obama chastised Black men, claiming they could be hesitant to vote for a woman as president. 

Trump has highlighted recent endorsements from Black celebrities and athletes at his rallies, including Detroit rapper Trick Trick, boxing legend Tommy “Hitman” Hearns and former NFL players Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell.  

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

If North Korean troops invade Ukraine, America must “seriously consider” engaging in military action against them, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chair Rep. Mike Turner said in a statement issued Wednesday.

“If North Korean troops were to invade Ukraine’s sovereign territory, the United States needs to seriously consider taking direct military action against the North Korean troops,” the Ohio Republican asserted.

Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin has said that there is evidence North Korean troops are present in Russia.

NORTH KOREAN TROOPS DEPLOYED TO RUSSIA

“We assess that between early to mid-October, North Korea moved at least 3,000 soldiers into eastern Russia. We assess that these soldiers traveled by ship from the Wonsan area in North Korea to Vladivostok, Russia,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said.

“These soldiers then traveled onward to multiple Russian military training sites in eastern Russia, where they are currently undergoing training,” he continued. 

Kirby said that the U.S. does not know whether the North Korean troops will fight alongside Russian forces, but described the prospect as “a highly concerning probability.”

SOUTH KOREA DEMANDS WITHDRAWAL OF NORTH KOREAN TROOPS ALLEGEDLY HELPING RUSSIA FIGHT UKRAINE

The U.S. has provided Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of assistance as the Eastern European nation has been fighting a war against Russia.

Turner suggested that if North Korean forces target Ukraine from within Russian territory, America should allow Ukraine to utilize U.S. weapons to retaliate.

“I have long challenged the Biden-Harris Administration’s unwise position on restricting Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons against targets within Russian territory. If North Korean troops attack Ukraine from Russian territory, Ukraine should be permitted to use American weapons to respond,” the lawmaker declared.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM BLASTS JOHN KIRBY OVER NORTH KOREAN SOLDIERS IN RUSSIA: ‘THEY’RE NOT TOURISTS’

Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois declared in a tweet, “For those who think the war in Ukraine is unimportant, consider who Putin is partnering with. The presence of North Korean troops in Russia clearly indicates that Putin is not interested in ending this conflict—he is determined to escalate it at any cost.”

FIRST ON FOX: Nearly 1 million illegal immigrants are staying in the U.S. “indefinitely” after their cases were dismissed or closed, or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to file the necessary documentation, according to a new House Judiciary Committee report being released on Thursday.

“Through administrative maneuvering at both the Justice Department and DHS, the Biden-Harris Administration has already ensured that nearly 1 million illegal aliens can remain in the United States without the possibility of deportation—and that trend shows no sign of stopping,” the report by the House majority on the committee, first obtained by Fox News Digital, says.

When illegal immigrants are encountered, they can be put into removal proceedings by which they will eventually face an immigration judge to have their case decided. There are around 700 immigration judges across the U.S., and they currently face a backlog of millions of cases after the historic crisis at the border.

BIDEN ADMIN FACES SCRUTINY OVER RESPONSE TO ‘SIGNIFICANT RISE’ OF ASSAULTS ON BORDER PATROL AGENTS

The report cites briefings to the committee, which staff say revealed that over 700,000 illegal immigrants have had their immigration cases dismissed, terminated or administratively closed in immigration court during the current administration, “allowing those aliens to stay in the country indefinitely without facing immigration consequences.”

Additionally, it says that the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees immigration courts, reported over 109,000 cases as not adjudicated in FY 23, meaning they were completed but not adjudicated on the merits of the claims. 

Additionally, as previously reported, DHS has failed to file the necessary documentation for 200,000 additional cases, “meaning that the overwhelming majority of those aliens can also remain in the U.S. indefinitely.”

“Instead of actually adjudicating illegal aliens’ cases based on the merits of aliens’ claims for relief—such as whether an alien has a valid and successful asylum claim—immigration judges under the Biden-Harris Administration have been tasked with rubberstamping case dismissals, case closures, and case terminations, all of which allow illegal aliens to remain in the United States without immigration consequences,” the report says. “This sort of quiet amnesty has become a staple of the Biden-Harris Administration’s immigration courts.”

The report details that DHS issued a memo in 2022, directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorneys to promote the closure and dismissal of cases, given the enormous backlog. It was framed as removing “nonpriority cases” from the docket — meaning those who do not qualify as national security, public safety or border security threats.

WHAT VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS LEFT OUT ABOUT BIDEN ADMIN’S ROLE IN BORDER CRISIS: A TIMELINE

Meanwhile, at the DOJ, the committee points to a 2021 memo issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland, in which he restored the use of a process known as administrative closure to allow a “focus on higher-priority cases.” The committee found, after interviews with officials including a former EOIR director, that immigration judges were encouraged to dismiss or administratively close cases.

“In weaponizing both immigration judges within the Justice Department and ICE attorneys within DHS, the Biden-Harris Administration has guaranteed that upward of 1 million aliens—the overwhelming majority of whom likely would otherwise not have a legal basis to remain in the United States—can stay in the country indefinitely,” the report says. “This quiet amnesty not only undermines U.S. immigration law but also incentivizes additional illegal aliens to arrive at America’s borders, knowing they will be released into the country and never deported.”

Fox previously reported that dismissing cases can also be problematic for migrants, who may be left in limbo as to their status and what to do next, as a dismissal does not grant a form of legal status either.

The DOJ declined to comment, while DHS pointed to stats showing that 96% of notices to appear in court (NTAs) have been filed successfully since Jan 2021, and 98% since the start of FY 23, with the majority of new NTAs being filed digitally and automatically into EOIR systems. 

The DHS says that when an NTA is not filed correctly or late, the NTA is re-submitted so that the cases can continue at a later date. It stresses that migrants are also told to check in and report changes of address so they can continue to receive information about their cases.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has emphasized a sharp drop in encounters at the border since President Biden signed an executive order limiting entries into the U.S. Encounters are down 55% since then. The agency also says it has completed over 700,000 removals or returns for FY 24, the most since 2010.

It comes as immigration remains a top election issue ahead of Nov. 5, with both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris dueling over who is the best candidate to tackle the situation at the border.

Get the latest updates on the ongoing border crisis from the Fox News Digital immigration hub.