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A new study has shown promising results for a nasal COVID-19 vaccine, according to researchers at the Institute of Virology at Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. 

When two doses of the live nasal vaccine were administered to hamsters, the animals showed a stronger immune response compared to their response to two doses of the vaccines that are currently available.

The study was published in the journal Nature Microbiology on Monday.

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The lead author of the study told Fox News Digital this week, "We find that a live attenuated vaccine prevents virus replication — this could be a game changer in controlling SARS-CoV-2 transmission."

Today, there are four approved COVID vaccines in the U.S. — all of which are administered via injection into the muscle, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are both mRNA vaccines, which use mRNA (messenger RNA) to trigger cells to produce a viral protein. 

This prompts the immune system to create antibodies.

Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen is a viral vector vaccine, which delivers DNA "instructions" to the body’s cells via a different, non-harmful virus.

The Novavax vaccine is a protein subunit vaccine, which uses some proteins of the virus that causes COVID-19 — known as the "spike protein" — to "train" the immune system to act against future spike proteins.

The nasal COVID vaccine that's being tested is a live-attenuated vaccine, which means it contains a live but weaker form of the coronavirus. 

It works by stopping the virus in the upper airway before it can travel further into the body.

The researchers used Syrian hamsters for their vaccine testing. 

The study’s lead author, Dr. Jakob Trimpert, head of diagnostics at the Institute of Virology at Freie Universität Berlin in Germany, said hamsters are the "prime non-transgenic [not genetically modified] small animal model" for COVID-19 research.

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"These animals have the great advantage of being naturally susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, including natural spread between hamsters," he explained to Fox News Digital. 

"The infection of Syrian hamsters resembles many key features of moderate human COVID-19 — this makes the hamster an ideal model to study COVID-19 vaccines and therapies."

The nasal vaccines have significant advantages over the injectable vaccines that are currently available, Dr. Trimpert said. 

"An intra-nasally applied live-attenuated vaccine provides superior protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to intramuscularly applied vaccines," he told Fox News Digital.

While he said currently marketed vaccines do a good job of preventing severe illness from COVID, Dr. Trimpert pointed out that they don't prevent the infection, moderate illness or spread.

"We find that a live attenuated vaccine prevents virus replication" — so "this could be a game changer in controlling SARS-CoV-2 transmission."

The main benefit of a nasal vaccine is that immunity is activated right where it’s needed, Dr. Trimpert said.

"It is the induction of local immunity at the site of natural infection that could be a game-changer here," he said. 

"Judging from our results, this has considerable impact and greatly reduces the risk of infection."

Dr. Marc Siegel, professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, said he finds this new research promising. He was not involved in the study.

"The goal is very important: to create a barrier to stop virus spread," he told Fox News Digital.

"This involves IGA antibodies and works at the level of the mucus membranes." 

IGA, or Immunoglobulin A, is an antibody that plays an important part in the immune function of mucous membranes.

The mucous membrane, or the nasal mucosa, is the tissue that lines the nasal cavity.

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The nasal vaccine could be standalone or could work in conjunction with other vaccines, said Dr. Siegel. 

"If it’s effective and human trials of the German vaccine are ongoing, it will be a big step forward," he said.

Dr. Norman B. Gaylis, who has treated over 1,000 patients at his Long Haul COVID Clinic in Aventura, Florida, also reviewed the findings.

"I believe it’s a brilliant idea to create a vaccine that can build immunity in the nasal mucosa," he told Fox News Digital. 

"Research has shown that COVID and other viruses often enter through the nose, and travel up the olfactory nerve … and then into the brain," he explained.

Developing a nasal vaccine could help prevent viruses from gaining easy access to the brain, said Dr. Gaylis. 

"This is important because many ‘long COVID’ patients are reporting brain damage from the virus," he added.

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Additionally, a nasal vaccine would provide a helpful alternative for patients who have a fear of needles, allowing them to get protected without a jab, said the doctor.

As of July 2022, there were at least 12 nasal COVID vaccines in clinical development, according to Science Immunology.

The biotechnology company Codagenix announced in October 2022 that it had entered the Phase 3 clinical trial for CoviLiv, its intranasal COVID-19 vaccine that is intended for healthy adults.

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City has launched a Phase 1 study evaluating a new egg-based COVID vaccine, called NDV-HXP-S, which can be administered nasally or via muscular injection.

In June 2022, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases published a study illustrating the effectiveness of nasal COVID vaccines in hamsters. 

This was followed by another study in September 2022, which showed that nasal vaccines produced a strong immune response in rhesus monkeys.

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Both China and India have approved nasal COVID vaccines for humans, as reported in the journal Nature in September 2022.

Iran and Russia have also approved nasal forms of the vaccine, though there is limited data available about their effectiveness.

The German research team plans to continue investigating the effectiveness of its vaccines and looks forward to moving into clinical trials.

"While our results in the animal model are robust, only clinical trials will be able to ascertain translatability to human medicine," Dr. Trimpert said.

Questions remain about the vaccine’s safety for people with weakened immune systems and the potential risk of combining it with different variants of the virus.

The CDC states that severely immunocompromised people and pregnant women should avoid live vaccines.

Said Dr. Trimpert, "We do think there is reason to hope for next-generation COVID-19 vaccines that better control virus transmission and greatly reduce disease burden."

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Former trans influencer and detransition activist Oli London blames TikTok and its transgender stars for the rise in gender ideology and confusion among adolescents. 

London, who identified as a woman for six months and later detransitioned, blames TikTok and its proliferation of content affirming gender transitions as the main reason why he started to question his own gender identity.

"I was spending eight hours a day on TikTok," he told Fox News Digital. "I was really, really addicted. Now, I barely use it, and I'm so much happier."

London has been open about his identity struggle, so when he saw videos about people's new personas and pronouns garnering attention, he started to wonder if that was the solution to his problems. 

"You think, 'Oh, wow, look at them, they're popular, they're getting love, they're getting validation' and I thought, ‘Maybe I can feel validated,'" he said. 

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Many transgender influencers have gained notoriety for a variety of reasons like encouraging minors to alienate themselves from their parents if they don't affirm their chosen gender or for sending prescription drugs across the country to states where puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones aren't legally prescribed to minors. London said TikTok's AI algorithm is responsible for promoting this type of content.

"They [TikTok] check what you're interested in, and they push and feed you videos related to your interests," he explained. "If you're a kid that maybe stumbles across a video that's about gender ideology, and you watch the whole video for 15 seconds, TikTok will remember that and just keep showing you the same kind of content."

"That was what happened with me," he added. "I saw a lot of gender identity videos … [and] I was like, ‘You know what, maybe I can change my identity, maybe I can transition’ and that was really when I transitioned, during the height of my TikTok addiction."

He said the love and attention he received from documenting his transition with his followers left him constantly seeking greater validation through more likes and views. 

"I was sharing all of my changes and the amount of positivity I got was insane," he said. "I was getting millions and millions of views, hundreds of thousands of likes per video and before that, I was just getting abuse, before that I was getting hate."

"I kind of fell for that … ‘Maybe this is the only way I feel love, I feel valid is by getting this attention,’" he continued. "I kind of went along with that and thought, ‘Maybe these people are right’ and that's what really pushed me to transition."

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London said this feeling of acceptance made him want to take his transition to the extreme, so he ultimately opted for surgery. 

"They're telling me I am doing the right thing, so it must be right," he recalled. "I started wanting to change myself more. I got hair extensions, I changed my entire face, I started dressing in women's clothes."

"Every time it was just nothing but praise from all these people that have pronouns in their bios … saying, 'This is amazing, you're incredible. We finally support you.' When previously, months earlier, they were attacking me and sending me hate," London added. 

He said his experience isn't unique, explaining that when you see someone share their transition journey, their notoriety on TikTok skyrockets. 

"For instance, it might be a boy, they might start doing a little bit of lipstick, their views will go up," London explained. "They might do hair extensions or wigs, suddenly views go up more. They put on the dress more and more and more."

The #topsurgery hashtag on TikTok has over 2.1 billion views with women and girls showing off their experiences getting double mastectomies, often showing their scars and sharing their transition process. London said the TikTok algorithm promotes this content heavily, which he is concerned about because the app is so popular among children, teens and young adults. 

"This goes unchecked. In fact, it's actually amplified," he said. "These videos often get hundreds of thousands, if not millions [of views], so it's really become a problem. TikTok seriously needs to address this."

"But this is not just any trend, it's not a trend where you become goth for the day, or you start a dance trend," he added. "This is a trend that destroys lives, it destroys families, it destroys the lives of children. It teaches children that the only way to feel happy and to accept themselves is to mutilate their bodies through surgery and through taking very harmful hormones."

London pointed to influencers like Dylan Mulvaney, who was previously an actor, but went viral for her "365 Days of Girlhood" series detailing her daily experiences in her first year identifying as a transgender woman. 

Mulvaney has partnered with a number of prominent brands and was rumored to have a relationship with Tampax, posting to TikTok in 2022 about a proposed partnership.

"When Tampax offers to sponsor you but you don’t have a [cat emoji]," Mulvaney shared at the time. 

On Saturday, Mulvaney revealed she was a brand influencing partner with Bud Light, and the beer company sent her packs of Bud Light featuring her face as a way to celebrate a full year of "girlhood." 

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London said people like Mulvaney get rewarded for "bad behavior" which he sees as "offensive" to women who have been females their whole lives. He also said it is a problem when young TikTok users, who are 13 and 14 years old, idolize these transgender influencers and could think "One day I want to be just like Dylan. He's successful, he's famous, he's hanging out with all the biggest Hollywood stars."

"Every kid wants to feel accepted and loved," he added. "This is the hottest trend right now, kids are going to want to do that. It's incredibly dangerous and harmful."

Other influencers like trans activist Eli Erlick told Instagram followers in a since-deleted post that she was coordinating efforts to send prescription drugs, including hormones and puberty blockers, to states where it is illegal to prescribe gender transitions treatment for minors.

"If you need hormones, I'm working with a distribution network to get you access," Erlick posted. "Everything is free, no questions asked."

"I realize this is only a band-aid solution: we need full access to affirmative medical care from professionals immediately," she added. "However, missing a single dose of hormones can be devastating (especially for trans teens and those new to hormones)!"

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"Instead of this person being charged with criminal misconduct, this person is being praised as an LGBT hero," London said. 

Many parents have been alarmed by the social media activity of 46-year-old nonbinary activist Jeffrey Marsh, whose videos speak directly to children, telling them to cut off contact with their parents if they don't affirm their gender identity. 

In multiple videos, he coaches people on the best way to go "no-contact" and tells his followers they are making "the right decision," boasting that he doesn't communicate with any member of his family.

"TikTok really is causing irreparable harm to a generation of young people that are now going to have hormones, they're going to change their gender, they're having these irreversible surgeries that cause so many health complications, all because of a harmful trend," London said. "We need to combat this. We need to stop rewarding bad behavior."

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London has a new book titled, "Gender Madness: One Man's Devastating Struggle with Woke Ideology and His Battle to Protect Children," coming out in August that will detail his experience with TikTok, the influence it had on his transition and his concerns about its power. 

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Country singer-songwriter Travis Tritt announced on Twitter that he would be removing Anheuser-Busch products from his tour hospitality rider amid pushback the company is receiving after beer giant Bud Light celebrated transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney in a new promotion.

"I will be deleting all Anheuser-Busch products from my tour hospitality rider. I know many other artists who are doing the same," Tritt wrote on Twitter Wednesday evening.

Hours later, the multi-platinum-selling artist shared a second tweet that included a photo of Ru Paul’s Drag Race show teaming up with Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey company.

"All the Jack Daniels drinkers should take note," he wrote.

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Tritt also responded to a user who asked for a clear list of Anheuser-Busch products.

"Here they are," the singer wrote, with a photo of various beer brands including Budweiser, Stella Artois, Corona, Michelob Light, Rolling Rock, Busch, Natural Ice, O’Douls, Red Hook, and more.

His next show is scheduled for April 14, in Hinton, Oklahoma.

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Tritt is the latest figure to vocalize opposition to Bud Light’s polarizing promotion — a celebration of Mulvaney’s "365 Days of Girlhood" — which has been met with significant backlash on social media. Several users speculated the announcement was an April Fool’s joke with how poorly it was received.

On Monday, singer Kid Rock used several Bud Light cases for target practice, sharing a video on social media of him using a rifle on their products.

In the video, Rock turns to the camera and shouts, "F--- Bud Light and f--- Anheuser-Busch!"

The video swiftly went viral.

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Mulvaney, born a biological male, revealed the "365 Days of Girlhood" campaign over the weekend and said the beer company sent packs of Bud Light featuring her face on them. The trans activist described the cans as her "most prized possession" on Instagram. She also shared a video of her drinking a Bud Light beer in a bathtub.

Several people have called for Bud Light boycotts.

Several others celebrated Anheuser-Busch’s decision and said it helped drive the national conversations of trans representation and inclusivity.

"I think it’s a win for Bud Light and I think it was a win for other brands," Bryan Kramer, an award-winning influencer and brand marketing guru, told Fox News Digital.

He added: "It can become the template, if you will, for what we do moving forward for this marginalized community and others. The real thing here is that this is about inclusion and diversity and inclusion, and diversity as a whole is not propaganda. It's an essential part of our society."

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Kramer also predicted that "moving forward, it's something that brands are having to take a position on."

Commenters on Tritt’s posts were also split, though a majority appeared to express support for his decision.

Fox News' Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.

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The judge had warned Donald Trump: Tone down the rhetoric or he might have to impose a gag order.

"Please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest," Judge Juan Merchan cautioned at Tuesday’s arraignment of the former president. He asked Trump to avoid language that could "jeopardize the rule of law."

While the admonition applied to both sides, it was prosecutors who jumped in to say they were worried about Trump’s inflammatory style, citing his link to photos showing him holding a baseball bat next to a shot of Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s head. Trump’s attorneys said that as a candidate, he had the right to defend himself and counter illegal leaks.

Once Trump flew back to Florida from New York, the question hung in the air: Would he follow the judge’s advice?

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This is, after all, the man whose aides, advisers and even family members have been trying to persuade to curtail his personal attacks and insults since he launched his first campaign in 2015.

Yet for the first time, Trump is facing certain constraints. He is under indictment. The judge will have plenty to say about how the trial plays out.

But when Trump spoke in prime time to an enthusiastic crowd at Mar-a-Lago, it seemed that toning it down was not in his DNA.

He called Bragg a "radical left" prosecutor, adding: "The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts" of grand jury material, and should resign.

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He called Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith a "bomb thrower who is harassing hundreds of my people day after day over the boxes hoax." That refers to the probe of Trump mishandling classified documents, in which Smith is reported to be pursuing possible obstruction of justice charges.

He called Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor looking into vote-tampering, "a local racist Democrat district attorney" who is doing everything in her power "to indict me."

And then he went after Judge Merchan himself: "I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris." 

So much for restraint.

Trump has drawn particular flak for going after the judge’s daughter, a young professional who actually worked for a liberal consulting firm supporting Harris, especially after Donald Trump Jr. posted a picture of her.

This is how the former president campaigns. He’s convinced that is how he won the White House the first time around, by punching and counterpunching.

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The defendant blames Merchan for the imprisonment of his friend Allen Weisselberg, overlooking the fact that the former Trump Organization CFO chose to plead guilty.

There is a pattern here. In 2016, Trump attacked Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was hearing a fraud lawsuit involving Trump University, by saying his Mexican background presented an "inherent conflict of interest" based on the candidate’s plan to build a border wall. He also called Curiel, who was born in Indiana, a "hater." 

During the Mar-a-Lago speech, which MSNBC refused to carry on the grounds that Trump was lying, he didn’t repeat some previously scathing language–such as calling Bragg a "degenerate psychopath." But he came out swinging.

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In a Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump said: "REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES. THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TOTALLY WEAPONIZED LAW ENFORCEMENT IN OUR COUNTRY."

Defund the police? For my adult lifetime, the Republicans ran as the party of law and order and called the Democrats soft on crime. Now that seems flipped on its head. Trump and many Republicans are constantly on the attack against federal law enforcement, while the Democrats argue no one is above the law.

The Bragg indictment is a flimsy document that has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. Of course Trump is entitled to attack the case and the man who brought it, but as both candidate and criminal defendant, he may learn that his life has changed.

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Nashville Christian school killer Audrey Hale, a transgender artist who gunned down three 9-year-olds and three adults last week, kept journals on other school shootings under her bed – which were seized along with a trove of documents and electronic devices, court filings reveal.

The 28-year-old apparently left behind a suicide note on a desk under one of several laptops police recovered, near a list of passwords. They also found two "memoirs," a 12-gauge Mossberg 590 and a 20-gauge Winchester Model 1200. One of them had been sawed off, police said previously.

Hale also kept notes on firearms training, according to the warrant.

But whatever that training involved, heroic Nashville police officers intercepted the active shooter within minutes of rushing into the Covenant School, a private school that educates children from preschool through sixth grade.

NASHVILLE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL SHOOTING TIMELINE: AUDREY HALE'S 14 MINUTES OF MAYHEM

Moments later, bodycam video showed Hale crumpled on the floor near a window where she had been perched and fired at police officers outside.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives identified Hale with facial recognition technology, the search warrant reveals.

The technology quickly gave them a name and driver's license, which along with the registration of the Honda Fit parked outside, led investigators to Hale's parents' house in Nashville. In addition to the passwords on a sticky note, they seized a cache of electronics there, including six laptops, seven cellphones, a tablet and 11 computer drives.

They also found 20 journals throughout the basement, 14 videos and a Tennessee man's driver's license in a bookcase along with photographs of the Covenant School, where the killer was once a student, and five yearbooks from there.

Additional documents recovered at the home included song lyrics, artwork and several handwritten notes.

NASHVILLE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL SHOOTER FIRED 152 SHOTS IN MASSACRE PLOT MONTHS IN MAKING, POLICE SAY

Police previously said they found inside Hale's car a yet-to-be-released manifesto as well as detailed diagrams of the church-linked school and maps of possible entry points for the massacre.

At the home, they recovered boxes of ammunition and "miscellaneous firearm accessories" as well as targets and spent cartridges. 

On March 27, Hale shot through a glass door and entered the Christian school in Nashville, firing 152 shots during an attack that killed three 9-year-olds and three adults, police said.

Hale had been under a doctor's care for an unspecified emotional disorder, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said last week.

Hale's manifesto has not been released to the public. Police said they sent a copy to the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia.

While they are still investigating Hale's potential motive, the killer "considered the actions of other mass murderers" while plotting the massacre, police said.

The child victims were Hallie Scruggs, the daughter of the school church's pastor, Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney. The adults included 60-year-old Head of School Katherine Koonce, custodian Michael Hill and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, both 61.

Harrowing bodycam video shows Officer Rex Engelbert and Detective Michael Collazo storming the school before they found Hale firing out of a second-story window.

Engelbert, in his first public remarks since the incident Tuesday, said he hadn't had his morning coffee and wasn't feeling well, but he immediately snapped into action when he heard the dispatcher over the radio talking about "an act of deadly aggression."

He was among the first to arrive, and a school worker handed him the key that unlocked the door that police used to gain entry, bodycam video shows. Engelbert was unfamiliar with the officers at his back, but that did not hamper the group's response, which experts have told Fox News Digital could be a "training video" for their perfect execution of an active-shooter response.

Three minutes into their arrival, they heard gunshots upstairs and sprinted toward the sound.

Engelbert engaged first, stopping the killer with four shots from a department rifle. He later said he smelled smoke upon rounding the corner, which police told Fox News Digital likely triggered the building's fire alarms, which could be heard blaring throughout the incident in both officers' bodycams.

Collazo, a Marine Corps veteran and former paramedic, rounded the corner next, ordering the shooter to stop moving and drop the gun, then he fired four more shots.

Hale was pronounced dead at the scene. Police recovered three firearms used in the attack and said they had all been legally purchased in advance.

But the job wasn't done, Collazo said Tuesday. There were victims in need of medical attention.

"I think it clicked for every officer that was on scene at that point, it was time to start trying to render aid to the victims and start evacuating the school," he said. "So, we implemented our rescue task force protocol."

He stayed on scene as additional officers continued to arrive, finally stepping back when a commander told him to. Then he called his wife to tell her he was OK.

Fox News' Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.

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Environmental groups heavily financed by a Swiss foreign national spent big on data mining operations targeting millions of President Biden's voters, efforts that could be replicated ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Victory Fund, LCV's independent political action committee, and Climate Power shelled out $15 million last year for a "sophisticated targeting project unlike anything they'd ever undertaken before" to propel Democrats, Politico reported earlier this month. The LCV and Climate Power are two prominent far-left environmental groups that push aggressive green transition policies and have received large funding from Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss' nonprofits.

As part of the operation, LCV Victory Fund and Climate Power hired BlueLabs Analytics, a Washington, D.C.-based data science organization, to mine data of more than two million Biden voters in crucial swing states with advertisements and mailers ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

The operation, and other similar funding schemes for political activity during last year's midterms potentially tied to Wyss, raises legal questions given the billionaire's nationality. Under federal election law, foreign nationals — Wyss is listed as recently as 2021 in financial filings as a "citizen of Switzerland" — are prohibited from contributing directly or indirectly to U.S. political campaigns.

LIBERAL DARK MONEY NETWORK FUNNELED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO GROUPS CONNECTED TO TOP WH OFFICIALS

"Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss spent nearly $73 million to influence American politics and policy, routing most of that money through the Arabella Advisors network," Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director for watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT), told Fox News Digital. "Without offering any evidence, Mr. Wyss’ groups insist that his foreign money does not end up in partisan electoral activities." 

"But now we have proof that the climate groups he funds funneled money to specifically target Biden voters in key states," she continued. "This dangerous pattern of giving by the left’s largest foreign mega-donor warrants immediate congressional oversight."

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For more than two decades, Wyss has been highly involved financially in various left-wing causes. Wyss founded the Wyss Foundation in the late 1990s as his main tax-exempt funding arm, and the Berger Action Fund in 2007. The billionaire has pushed hundreds of millions of dollars to his two nonprofits which have then spread his money to a vast array of groups, many of which like the LCV are actively involved in political issues.

According to tax filings obtained by APT and shared with Fox News Digital, a single anonymous donor, likely Wyss himself, wired a staggering $278.9 million to the Berger Action Fund between April 2021 and March 2022. The group in turn contributed $72.7 million to 12 separate dark-money organizations.

LCV was among the 12 groups and received $3.5 million from Wyss' nonprofit. Other groups, including the Center for Popular Democracy, Moms Rising Together, National Redistricting Action Fund, and WorkMoney, received millions of dollars in additional contributions from the Berger Action Fund. The groups are involved in political campaigns.

"President Biden has the power of the Executive Order at his command and he should use it to deliver for our communities – Black and brown people, immigrants, working class and low income people, disabled and LGBTQ people," Center for Popular Democracy Co-Executive Director DaMareo Cooper said last year.

"We won’t stop pushing Congress, but we can’t wait," he added. "Biden must commit … to using executive action to get off fossil fuels, protect immigrants, cancel student debt, lower prescription drug costs and pursue justice reform."

DARK MONEY GROUP LINKED TO FOREIGN BILLIONAIRE INFUSED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO MAJOR DEM, LEFT-WING CAUSES

The Berger Action Fund also funneled $20.3 million to a group called Fund for a Better Future (FBF), according to the tax documents provided by APT. While FBF isn't required to disclose its donors in its tax forms, Wyss' contribution amount was the largest anonymous donation FBF reported that year, meaning the Swiss national was FBF's biggest donor.

FBF sent nearly $10.7 million to LCV in 2021, the most significant contribution FBF gave to any group that year. And FBF oversees Climate Power, providing the group with financial, legal, technological, and human resources support.

Climate Power was originally founded as a project of the LCV, Center for American Progress (CAP), and the Sierra Club in 2020. Wyss has donated to CAP and remains a board member of the influential left-wing think tank. 

Climate Power, meanwhile, boasts advisory board members that are also members of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. For example, both South Carolina state Rep. Harold Mitchell and Jerome Foster II, the executive director of the youth-led political advocacy group OneMillionOfUs.

FBF also contributed more than $2.9 million to Building Back Together, an advocacy group that works to primarily promote the Biden administration's policy agenda.

PELOSI-ALIGNED DARK MONEY NONPROFIT RECEIVED $3 MILLION FROM GROUP FUELED BY SWISS BILLIONAIRE

"Thanks to President Biden’s bold economic agenda, communities across the country are seeing billions of dollars in manufacturing investments and millions of new, good-paying jobs," Building Back Together spokesperson Olivia Eggers said Monday. "The president’s policies are investing in people and places that have historically been left out and left behind."

Additionally, Wyss' Berger Action Fund contributed about $42.5 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a key cog in a billion-dollar dark money network.

The dark money network consists of five nonprofits that include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, Hopewell Fund, and North Fund. The funds each act as a fiscal sponsor to other liberal nonprofits by providing their tax status to the nonprofits housed beneath them.

The arrangement allows the fiscally-sponsored progressive groups to evade filing tax forms to the IRS, effectively obscuring their financial information. 

The five funds — each managed by the Washington, D.C.-based Arabella Advisors consulting firm — also do not disclose donor information on their tax forms, keeping the public in the dark to the full extent of who is using the network as a conduit to bankroll left-wing initiatives across the country.

The funds combined for nearly $1 billion in total spending in 2021, their tax documents show.

"The Berger Action Fund and Wyss Foundation are committed to complying with all rules governing their activities and have established strict policies prohibiting their funds from being used for get-out-the-vote activities, voter registration, or supporting or opposing political candidates or parties," a spokesperson for the Berger Action Fund and Wyss Foundation told Fox News Digital. 

"Berger’s grants to the Sixteen Thirty Fund and Fund for a Better Future supported advocacy, including for the Inflation Reduction Act, which lowers prescription costs, expands access to health care, invests in clean energy, and closes tax loopholes," they continued. "This funding also supported advocacy around the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to ensure the final legislation contained significant investments in climate and green infrastructure."

FBF didn't respond to requests for comment for this story.

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Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been invigorated by the indictment by New York’s Manhattan DA on flimsy charges of falsifying business records seven years ago. The former president has growing momentum, added fund-raising and better poll numbers in the Republican primary.

Maybe this is exactly what Democrats want. After all, President Joe Biden seems dead set on running for re-election even though no president with a job rating as low as Biden’s has ever gotten re-elected. His best chance, many strategists believe, is to run a re-match against Trump. But our recent polling shows that Biden loses to Trump in a rematch given the state of the economy, immigration, and crime.

Last December, Trump had a 2024 campaign announcement that lacked energy, was barely noticed, and he was giving rallies that few news outlets were even covering. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was every month gaining new voters in the Republican primary while Trump was stalled. Then the full force of the law started coming after Trump and resuscitated his campaign and his political life. 

The indictment is splitting Americans along party lines. Eighty percent of Democrats supported an indictment, 79 percent of Republicans opposed it, and Independents were split 51-49 against according to the March Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll. Most Americans, however, also believe that the indictment is politically motivated and the Trump will eventually be acquitted.

JONATHAN TURLEY: DONALD TRUMP INDICTMENT IGNORES THIS CORE LEGAL PRINCIPLE

A review of the actual indictment raises even more questions about how it could possibly be issued. It claims that payments made in 2017 affected the 2016 election and fails to specify any crime that was committed to trigger making it a felony and extending the statute of limitations. Even in NY, this indictment is, in my view, likely to be tossed, further energizing the Trump campaign.

Americans are split along party lines over how the indictment will affect Trump’s presidential chances. Sixty-seven percent of Democrats think it will hurt his candidacy and 57 percent of Republicans say it will help, according to the March Harvard CAPS/Harris poll. The actual effect may depend on how skillfully Trump responds. His speech to his supporters was calmly delivered but was also more of a laundry list of personal grievances than a stirring call to electoral action. A majority of Americans in each party disapproved of his calls for protests in the run-up to the indictment, and he could lose more moderates if he veers anywhere near January 6-style behavior. 

The indictment presents difficult problems for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the clear front-running challenger to Trump. Recently DeSantis has doubled down on cultural conservatism to go after the Trump base but with little success. He would be better off focusing on character and competence rather than the culture wars to bolster his campaign. He won an overwhelming re-election in Florida because he handled COVID and a recent hurricane well, not because he took on Disney. He needs to reset his campaign and differentiate from Trump, not try to mimic him.

Trump will still be a formidable primary frontrunner regardless. Half of Republican voters would pick Trump in an open GOP primary and 56 percent would pick him in a head-to-head primary against DeSantis. But DeSantis has the favorability and growing image to mount a real challenge. DeSantis leads all figures in the Harris Poll with 47 percent favorability and has the largest favorable/unfavorable gap of +14 points. Trump has a similar favorability at 46 percent, but his favorable-unfavorable gap is 1 point underwater with 47% against him. Compared to 94 percent of voters who are familiar with Trump and Biden, only 81% have even heard of the Florida governor, giving him some potential for growth. Tim Scott is also well liked among those who know him, but has a long way to go to establish a national identity. 

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But despite the surge by Trump today, the Republican primary is far from over. DeSantis has a high 76% favorable with Republicans and is polling better in early primary states; an early win in a place like New Hampshire would flip the whole dynamic of the race. 

Over on the Democrat side it seems as if the Democrat establishment is coalescing around Biden rather than go through a bruising primary. The close midterm contest has provided a rationale for continuing to back Biden, and the party has, unlike the Republicans, shown a strong measure of cohesion. The more they bank on Biden, the more they are counting on a Trump rematch they mistakenly believe they can win. By kicking his announcement to late summer, Biden has frozen the field in his favor and staved off lame-duck status. 

The Trump bump is real, and the country is edging closer to a Trump/Biden rematch in 2024. Both these candidates have such baggage with swing voters however, that the party bases may be missing how much better either party would do if they nominated a fresh face with the experience to serve as president. 

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