The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s newly elected liberal majority on Wednesday voted to strike down a near-total state abortion ban, voting 4-3 to overturn the stringent, 176-year-old law. 

The decision reflected a deeply partisan split, with all four liberal justices voting to invalidate the 1849 abortion law and the three conservative justices dissenting.

It also crystallized the impact of the state’s Supreme Court election earlier this year that raked in millions of dollars in donations, the highest amount in U.S. history for a judicial race. It included involvement from then-Trump ally Elon Musk, former President Barack Obama and others.

Writing for the majority, Justice Rebecca Dallet said the law had been superseded by more recent precedent, including a 1985 statute that allowed for abortions up to the point of fetal viability, or around the 20-week mark.

‘We conclude that comprehensive legislation enacted over the last 50 years regulating in detail the ‘who, what, where, when, and how’ of abortion so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion,’ Dallet wrote. 

‘Accordingly, we hold that the legislature impliedly repealed [the 1849 ban] to abortion, and that [that law] therefore does not ban abortion in the State of Wisconsin.’

Conservative Justice Annette Ziegler, in a dissent, described the ruling as ‘a jaw-dropping exercise of judicial will’ and charged that the liberal justices ruled on the matter based on their personal preferences.

The 1849 law, and efforts to revive it, came to the fore in Wisconsin in 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade — effectively snapping back into place the state law that had been dormant for decades. 

The Wisconsin law made it a felony for individuals in Wisconsin to perform abortions, including when the health of the woman was at risk, and without exceptions in cases of rape or incest. 

Though the law was not enforced by the state in recent years, at least some Republicans had urged the state Supreme Court to keep it in place, prompting opponents to push more urgently for it to be struck down.

The 4-3 decision puts to rest the possibility that it could be revived. 

It’s also the clearest sign to date of the impact that liberals on the bench could have after they regained the court majority in 2023 for the first time in 15 years. 

The closely watched state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin was the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, attracting more than $100 million in donations and far eclipsing the $56 million spent on the state Supreme Court race just two years earlier, according to figures compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. 

Susan Crawford ultimately beat out conservative candidate Brad Schimel, who was backed by President Donald Trump and Musk.

Musk personally donated $3 million to the Wisconsin Republican Party earlier this year, while his two super PACs spent more than $17 million on Schimel’s behalf.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers praised the state Supreme Court decision Wednesday, describing it as a win ‘for women and families’ and healthcare professionals in the state.

‘Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upended five decades of precedent and threw reproductive freedom in Wisconsin and across our country into chaos,’ Evers said in a statement. ‘I promised then to fight like hell to ensure every Wisconsinite has the freedom to consult their family, their faith and their doctor and make the reproductive healthcare decision that is right for them, and I’ve never stopped.

‘Today, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld that basic freedom.’

Hamas confirmed on Wednesday that it is ‘ready to accept’ a ceasefire agreement with Israel, but did not endorse a 60-day pause put forward by President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said the terrorist organization is ‘ready to accept any initiative that clearly leads to the complete end to the war.’ Trump has increasingly pressured Israel and Hamas to accept a ceasefire, but the details of such an agreement still have not been worked out.

A Hamas delegation is expected to meet with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss Trump’s proposal, according to an Egyptian official.

Hamas has previously said it was willing to release the remaining 50 hostages as part of a ceasefire agreement, though it has noted that fewer than half of the hostages are still alive. In return, however, Hamas demands that Israel fully withdraw from Gaza and end the war.

Meanwhile, Israel has said Hamas must surrender, disarm and exile itself from Gaza.

An Israeli official said the latest proposal calls for a 60-day deal that would include a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a surge in humanitarian aid to the territory. The mediators and the U.S. would provide assurances about talks to end the war, but Israel is not committing to that as part of the latest proposal, the official said.

Roughly 10 hostages would be released under the agreement.

Trump announced the ceasefire proposal in a Tuesday statement on social media.

‘My Representatives had a long and productive meeting with the Israelis today on Gaza. Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

‘The Qataris and Egyptians, who have worked very hard to help bring Peace, will deliver this final proposal. I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better – IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’ he added.

‘Israel is serious in its will to reach a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza,’ Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said Monday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian enacted a law passed by the country’s parliament last week that would end Tehran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 

The legislation was approved within days of the U.S. carrying out Operation Midnight Hammer, in which it struck three major nuclear sites in Iran: Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow.

The law stipulates that any future inspection of Iran’s nuclear facilities by the IAEA must be approved by the country’s Supreme National Security Council, according to Reuters. Iran maintains that the IAEA sided with the U.S. and Israel in the recent conflict. Additionally, Tehran claims that the IAEA’s resolution in early June paved the way for Israel’s strikes.

Pezeshkian’s order reportedly had no timetable or details about what the suspension of cooperation would entail, The Associated Press reported.

IAEA head of Media, Multimedia and Public Outreach Section and spokesperson Fredrik Dahl told Fox News Digital that the agency was still awaiting confirmation from Iran.

Nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran have been on pause since Israel launched Operation Rising Lion. Iran then wavered on whether it would continue the talks, claiming that the U.S. was complicit in Israel’s actions. However, President Donald Trump appeared hopeful that the two countries would return to the table, even after the U.S.’ historic strikes. On June 25, the president told reporters that the U.S. would talk with Iran the following week.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently told CBS News that ‘the doors for diplomacy will never slam shut.’ However, he also cast doubt on Trump’s timeline for when talks would resume.

‘I don’t think negotiations will restart as quickly as that,’ Araghchi told CBS News. ‘In order for us to decide to reengage, we will have to first ensure that America will not revert back to targeting us in a military attack during the negotiations.’

While Trump’s critics have argued that the administration has exaggerated the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites, parties involved in the conflict seemingly agreed on the status of the facilities. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei acknowledged that the sites were ‘badly damaged’ in an interview with Al Jazeera. 

Once a revolutionary militia, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps built power through ideology and fear. Now, after devastating losses, its future is uncertain.

After major military setbacks, Iran’s IRGC faces a turning point. Experts explain its roots, power, and whether its reign of repression and terror can endure.

Once a fringe militia born of revolution, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has grown into the regime’s most feared and powerful force. But according to Dr. Afshon Ostovar, a leading expert on Iran and author of ‘Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,’ said the recent U.S. and Israeli strikes in Iran may have permanently altered its trajectory.

‘What the IRGC tried to achieve over the last 25 years is basically toast,’ Ostovar told Fox News Digital, ‘Their campaign to build a military deterrent at home through missiles and nuclear enrichment, and to expand regionally through proxies, has essentially collapsed.’

Founded in the wake of the 1979 revolution, the IRGC was created to safeguard and spread the Islamic Republic’s values — often through violence. Ostovar describes how its legitimacy evolved over time, initially drawn from the overthrow of the Shah, then the Iran-Iraq War, and later through the manufactured narrative of an eternal struggle with the U.S. and Israel.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, Senior Director of FDD’s Iran Program Behnam Ben Taleblu, told Fox News Digital the IRGC’s origin reflects a deep mistrust of Iran’s traditional military, which had remained loyal to the Shah. 

‘The IRGC were created through efforts to collect pro-regime armed gangs called Komitehs. They enforced revolutionary edicts and developed a parallel and ideological military force due to clerical skepticism in the national army,’ he explained.

‘The IRGC are tasked with preserving and defending the revolution in Iran,’ Taleblu said. ‘That’s one reason why the 1979 Islamic Revolution has not been tamed, nor has the regime’s extremism lost any luster. If anything, terrorism and hostage-taking have continued.’

‘They created a boogeyman in the U.S. and Israel,’ Ostovar added. ‘But today, that ideology no longer resonates with most Iranians. The majority want better relations with the West and are tired of the regime’s isolationist stance.’

Today, the IRGC is deeply intertwined with the clerical elite. ‘The IRGC and the clerical elite are partners in power, treating Iran as a springboard to export their revolution,’ Taleblu noted.

Over the past year, Iran has suffered a series of strategic defeats: Hezbollah has been degraded in Lebanon, Hamas crippled in Gaza, Syria effectively lost, and Iranian military infrastructure — including nuclear and missile sites — destroyed in many cases by U.S. and Israeli strikes. Ostovar says these losses have decimated the IRGC’s regional footprint and forced the regime to reevaluate its strategy.

‘They can try to rebuild everything — but that would take too long and be too difficult,’ he said. ‘More likely, we’ll see them repress harder at home and lean on China and Russia to rebuild conventional military capabilities like air defense and advanced jets.’

Internally, the IRGC’s economic empire is also under growing strain. Sanctions, cyberattacks, and battlefield losses have made operations far more difficult. Ostovar said that foreign banks avoid any connection with Iran out of fear they may inadvertently deal with IRGC-linked entities, forcing the group to operate through front companies abroad. ‘They’ve lost a lot, and now they’ll have to redirect their limited resources to rebuild. That’s going to stretch them even thinner.’

Despite these pressures, both Ostovar and Taleblu agree that the IRGC is unlikely to turn against the regime. ‘Much like the regime elite, the IRGC is at a crossroads,’ Taleblu said. ‘They have lost much of their strategic brain trust, but are likely to remain loyal for a combination of ideological and material reasons — so long as the status quo doesn’t change.’

Looking ahead, Iran may shift focus inward, relying more on domestic repression than on external terror. ‘They can’t get weapons into Gaza. They’ve lost access to Lebanon. They may still attempt terrorism, but they’ve failed repeatedly — especially against Israeli targets,’ Ostovar said. ‘In contrast, repressing their own people is something they can do easily.’

He warns that Iran could become ‘more insular, more autocratic — more like North Korea than what it is today.’ While regime collapse is always a possibility, Ostovar believes autocracies are often resilient. ‘Look at Venezuela or Cuba — they’ve run their countries into the ground but still hold on to power.’

Ostovar thinks change — and not for the better — could come via generational shift. ‘The IRGC’s younger cadre is less religious but no less hardline,’ he said. ‘They may not care about hijabs, but they’ve spent the last two decades fighting the U.S. and Israel in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. That’s the war they know.’

Some reformist elements within the regime envision a different path — one focused on normalization and growth. ‘They want to preserve the regime not by fighting the world, but by opening up to it,’ Ostovar said. ‘They look more to Vietnam or China as models.’

Taleblu warned that despite recent setbacks, the IRGC’s grip remains strong. ‘Right now, the Guards have power without accountability, wielding political, economic, and military influence in Iranian policy. How this influence is channeled by the next generation of Guardsmen remains to be seen.’

The State Department is launching a new ‘America First’ rebranding initiative to consolidate all the logos for its offices under a singular one depicting the American flag — an effort that aligns with the agency’s massive overhaul plans. 

Whereas separate logos existed previously for offices, including embassies, bureaus and programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development, the rebranding effort seeks to establish ‘consistent branding’ across all these platforms to best reflect American contributions abroad, according to a State Department official. 

‘The redesign is very simple, and that was to recenter and re-anchor the visual identity of American efforts overseas in the American flag,’ Darren Beattie, undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department, told Fox News Digital Tuesday. 

Beattie said that inconsistent branding across State Department offices and programs has meant that sometimes U.S. efforts abroad aren’t as widely recognized, while other countries that do have uniformity in branding receive greater credit. 

‘There’s some things you look at it, and you have no clue that’s associated with the United States government at all, and that’s obviously contrary to our purposes,’ Beattie said. ‘If we’re contributing something great overseas, we want that positivity and that contribution to be immediately visually distinguished as something associated with the United States.’

The State Department rolled out guidance on the rebranding effort Wednesday — just a day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that USAID would officially no longer continue to provide foreign assistance. 

Fox News Digital first reported in March that the State Department would absorb remaining functions from the previously independent organization, which delivered aid to impoverished countries and development assistance. 

Compliance with the rebranding effort across State Department offices and bureaus is slated for Oct. 1, according to Beattie. 

The effort seeks to visually complement the State Department’s reorganization already underway, which officials have said is the largest restructuring of the agency since the Cold War. 

Rubio unveiled plans in April to revamp the agency because the department was ‘bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission.’

Additionally, Rubio told lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee overseeing foreign affairs in May that the restructuring aimed to ’empower’ regional bureaus and embassies who are responsible for spearheading the ‘best innovations.’ 

‘They are identifying problems and opportunities well in advance of some memo that works its way to me,’ Rubio told lawmakers. ‘We want to get back to a situation or we want to get to a situation where we are empowering ideas and action at the embassy level and through our regional bureaus. Those are literally the front lines of American diplomacy. And so we have structured a State Department that can deliver on that.’

Fox News Digital first reported in May that the agency’s reorganization plans would involve cutting or consolidating more than 300 of the agency’s 700 offices and bureaus in an attempt to streamline operations. 

The reorganization involves axing roughly 3,400 State Department personnel, amounting to approximately 15% to 20% of the agency’s domestic headcount, State Department officials previously told Fox News Digital.