Preparations for the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan are underway, according to U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff. The announcement comes after representatives from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey participated in high-level U.S.-led talks in Miami.

"In our discussions regarding phase two, we emphasized enabling a governing body in Gaza under a unified Gazan authority to protect civilians and maintain public order," Witkoff wrote on X. "We also discussed regional integration measures, including trade facilitation, infrastructure development, and cooperation on energy, water, and other shared resources, as essential to Gaza’s recovery, regional stability, and long-term prosperity."

"We reviewed next steps in the phased implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Plan for Gaza, underscoring the importance of sequencing, coordination, and effective monitoring in partnership with local Gazan institutions and international partners," Witkoff added.

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In addition to looking forward to the next phase, the group reflected on the implementation of the first part of the ceasefire, which Witkoff said "yielded progress."

During the first phase, humanitarian aid went into the Gaza Strip, hostilities were reduced and there was a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces. Additionally, all living hostages and most deceased hostages were released. The last remaining hostage is Ran Gvili, an Israeli police officer who was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

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The U.S.-led talks on the second phase of the plan were proceeded by a similar meeting in Cairo, which reportedly included Turkey and Egypt's intelligence chiefs, as well as Qatar's prime minister.

"During the meeting, [they] also agreed to continue strengthening coordination and cooperation with the Civil Military Coordination Center to eliminate all obstacles to ensure the continuity of the ceasefire and to prevent further violations," a Turkish source told Reuters, adding that they also discussed countering alleged Israeli ceasefire violations.

The second phase of the deal involves the deployment of an international stabilization force and the development of an international body to govern Gaza. It also includes the disarmament of Hamas. Additionally, Israel will move further from the so-called "yellow line" ahead of the international force taking over, according to The Times of Israel.

Two Florida cold cases that have remained shrouded in mystery for years have finally been solved, according to authorities. 

Both cases — a fatal stabbing in 2007 and a fatal shooting in 2022 — took place in Kissimmee and were solved by the Osceola County Sheriff's Office’s Cold Case Program, FOX 35 Orlando reported. 

The first case began on June 24, 2007, when 17-year-old De’Andre Nathaniel Wellnitz was reportedly attending a house party and was fatally stabbed in the chest. The case ran cold just several months into the investigation. 

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In October 2024, investigators identified a person of interest in the killing and subsequently located the individual in Orlando earlier this year. 

In an interview with investigators, the person of interest confirmed they attended the same party as Wellnitz and had been hit during a fight. The individual said he picked up a nearby kitchen knife and began waving it to keep others from hitting him, according to investigators.

Investigators ultimately determined the person of interest acted in self-defense and declined to file charges. 

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"I appreciate the empathy that was shown as well as them being straightforward with all of the details," Wellnitz’s mother, Kelly McDonald said, according to FOX 35. "What it has done for me has given me closure… I'm able to stop playing the story that I've played for 18 years over and over again in my head. I'm able to see something different. I'm able to have peace now." 

McDonald added that she hopes other families who have experienced a similar loss can also receive some sort of closure, "even if it’s not what you think it should be." 

The second case stemmed from the fatal shooting of Jommil Baez-Quinones, who was shot multiple times near Indian Point Circle on Feb. 23, 2022. 

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After investigators spent months exhausting all leads, the case ultimately ran cold. However, in October 2024, authorities subsequently reopened the investigation. 

Luis Eluvar Gonzalez, 23, was identified as a suspect and, with help from U.S. Marshals, was arrested by authorities. Gonzalez is charged with first-degree manslaughter with a weapon and first-degree robbery with a firearm stemming from the death of Baez-Quinones, according to FOX 35. 

The sheriff’s Cold Case Program was formed in 2024 and has solved two cases out of the 32 that remain unsolved in the county. 

The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

In a Thursday press conference, federal authorities in Minnesota announced new charges in the fraud scandal that has grabbed national headlines and spoke on the scope of the crisis, saying that it goes beyond what has previously been reported.

"Minnesotans and taxpayers deserve to know the truth of the fraud," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson told reporters at a press conference.  "The fraud is not small. It isn't isolated. The magnitude cannot be overstated. What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It's staggering industrial-scale fraud. It's swamping Minnesota and calling into question everything we know about our state."

Thompson explained that 14 programs have been identified as containing fraud and those programs have cost taxpayers $18 billion overall since 2018.

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When asked specifically by a reporter how much of that $18 billion is suspected to be fraudulent, which reports have previously suggested could be around $1 billion, Thompson suggested that number will be higher when the investigations are concluded. 

"I think a significant portion," Thompson responded.

Thompson later said, "When I say significant, I'm talking in the order of half or more. But we'll see."

Six new defendants have been charged in connection with a Minnesota housing services fraud, Thompson revealed on Thursday.

Two defendants pocketed $750,000 instead of helping Medicaid recipients find stable housing, Thompson said. Prosecutors allege they used the proceeds to travel to international destinations, including London, Istanbul and Dubai.

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One defendant submitted $1.4 million in fraudulent claims, using some to purchase cryptocurrency, Thompson said. Federal officials say he fled the country after receiving a subpoena.

The six new defendants join eight others charged in September for their alleged roles in the scheme to defraud the Minnesota Housing Stability Services Program.

Two dependents mentioned by Thompson sent significant sums of money overseas to Kenya, in one case over $200,000.

"There's been a significant amount of money sent abroad, mostly to East Africa, much of it to Kenya and to Nairobi, that the money that we've traced most, most of which has been used to purchase real estate in Nairobi," Thompson said, mentioning the "large Somali diaspora" in those areas.

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Prosecutors also named a new defendant accused of defrauding another state-run, federally funded program that provides services for children with autism, alleging he submitted millions of dollars worth of claims for Medicaid reimbursement. One woman previously charged with exploiting that program pleaded guilty Thursday morning, officials said.

Thompson said that two of the dependents aren't from Minnesota but came from Philadelphia because "they heard that Minnesota and its housing stabilization services program was easy money."

"What we're seeing is programs that are just entirely fraudulent," Thompson said. "These aren't companies that are providing some services, but overbilling Medicare, Medicaid. These are companies that are providing essentially no services. They're essentially shell companies created to defraud the program created to submit on a wholesale level, fraudulent claims for services that aren't necessary and are provided."

In a press release, dependents were identified as Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, Anthony Waddell Jefferson, Lester Brown, Hassan Ahmed Hussein, Ahmed Abdirashid Mohamed, and Kaamil Omar Sallah.

Minnesota's fraud crisis has been in the spotlight in recent weeks as the Trump administration and local Republicans have blasted Minnesota's elected officials over the scandal, which dates back to at least 2020 and involves fraudulent billing for a wide range of government services, mostly involving, but not limited to, the state's Somali community. 

"When I was on the Feeding Our Future case, the big thing that jumped out to me was, honestly, how easy this fraud was to do," former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab, who worked on the fraud investigation into Feeding our Future, one of the most high-profile examples of organizations that prosecutors say was propped up by fraud, recently told Fox News Digital. 

"I mean, these fraudsters were just saying that they were spending all this money on feeding kids, and they were just making up these PDFs, putting false names into Excel sheets. I could do that in five minutes on a computer if I had absolutely no conscience."

The Trump administration has launched a variety of efforts to crack down and investigate the fraud at a federal level and Fox News Digital first reported that Education Secretary Linda McMahon had sent a letter to Walz calling on him to resign over the scandal. 

"It's been allowed to go on for far too long, and we need to do whatever we can to stop it in its tracks," Thompson said in the press conference. 

Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Oscars will be airing on YouTube in 2029 and ditching ABC, according to a Tuesday announcement from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Academy announced in a press release that the platform will start airing the award ceremony at the 101st Oscars. ABC has been home to the Oscars since the 1970s.

YouTube will host the Oscars through 2033 and ABC will keep the program through the 100th Oscars in 2028.

"The Oscars, including red carpet coverage, behind-the-scenes content, Governors Ball access, and more, will be available live and for free to over 2 billion viewers around the world on YouTube, and to YouTube TV subscribers in the United States. YouTube will help make the Oscars accessible to the Academy’s growing global audience through features such as closed captioning and audio tracks available in multiple languages," the press release reads.

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"The Oscars are one of our essential cultural institutions, honoring excellence in storytelling and artistry," Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, said in a statement. "Partnering with the Academy to bring this celebration of art and entertainment to viewers all over the world will inspire a new generation of creativity and film lovers while staying true to the Oscars’ storied legacy."

The Academy's press release says that YouTube will make the Oscars accessible globally with closed captioning and audio tracks available in multiple languages.

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"We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming," Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor said in a statement about the partnership.

The statement continued, "The Academy is an international organization, and this partnership will allow us to expand access to the work of the Academy to the largest worldwide audience possible — which will be beneficial for our Academy members and the film community. This collaboration will leverage YouTube’s vast reach and infuse the Oscars and other Academy programming with innovative opportunities for engagement while honoring our legacy. We will be able to celebrate cinema, inspire new generations of filmmakers and provide access to our film history on an unprecedented global scale."

The ratings for the Oscars have generally declined over the past decade, with some occasional year-over-year bumps, from 37 million viewers in 2015 to less than 20 million in 2025.

A Brown University senior is mourning the loss of her friend Ella Cook, one of the students killed in Saturday’s campus shooting, calling it a "devastating loss" for the community.

"It’s just such a devastating loss. I can’t believe that she’s not with us anymore," Phoebe Peus said Tuesday on "America’s Newsroom."

Peus and 19-year-old Ella Cook, one of two confirmed victims, met at the Brown Republican Club, where Cook served as vice president. Peus described the club as close-knit and said her friend was a "bright light."

"Ella was really outspoken. I just want to live through her in that way and try to make a difference," she said.

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Peus said she only learned there was an active shooter on campus when friends called her in a panic, not from school officials.

"At Brown, we use a platform called Sidechat, which is pretty much an anonymous text chat. And this chat was blowing up, saying that there’s a shooter," she said.

Though Peus did not personally see the messages about the incident, she said her friends did and immediately called her while she was on her way to the science library. She said she was "completely unaware" of the situation until those calls came in.

BROWN UNIVERSITY REPORTS ACTIVE SHOOTER ON CAMPUS

"I had previously told my friends that I was walking to the science library… I was about three minutes away from the library when my friends called me and said, ‘Phoebe, there’s an active shooter. You need to turn around right now,’" Peus said.

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She said that after hours passed without hearing from Cook and noticing that her phone location had not changed, she began to fear the worst.

"Her location hadn't moved. And we were all just hoping that she had dropped her phone running out, and that's why we couldn't get ahold of her," Peus said.

Freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov was confirmed as the second victim of the shooting. A GoFundMe from his family noted that Umurzokov "had big dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and helping people," and asked that people keep him in their thoughts and prayers.

Police arrested a person of interest in the case, but that individual was later released. The shooting left at least nine others injured on the Ivy League campus.

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani condemned the horrific Hanukkah attack that took place in Australia on Sunday as a "vile act of antisemitic terror," but has not said if he's changing his stance regarding his past reluctance to denounce the phrase "globalize the intifada."

Fox News reached out to the mayor-elect's team on Monday but did not receive a response at the time this report was posted.

The mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach left at least 15 people dead and dozens wounded. Australian authorities have described the attack as an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community. Police said the suspected attackers were a father and his adult son. The father was killed at the scene, while the son was shot by police and taken to a hospital in critical condition.

Mamdani, who made history last month as the first Muslim elected mayor of the nation's most populous city and who has had strained relations with many in New York City's Jewish community, said he would "discourage" the use of the phrase, which has been seen as a call to violence against Jews, following his double-digit June victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary.

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His stance — and the phrase itself — is once again drawing scrutiny.

An opinion piece by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, published Monday, argued that the Bondi Beach shooting is the ultimate manifestation of what "globalize the intifada" actually means.

"Though we’ll probably learn more in the weeks ahead about the mind-set of Sunday’s killers, it’s reasonable to surmise that what they thought they were doing was ‘globalizing the intifada,'" Stephens wrote. "That is, they were taking to heart slogans like ‘resistance is justified’ and ‘by any means necessary,’ which have become ubiquitous at anti-Israel rallies the world over. For many of those who chant those lines, they may seem like abstractions and metaphors, a political attitude in favor of Palestinian freedom rather than a call to kill their presumptive oppressors."

He went on to add, "But there are always literalists — and it’s the literalists who usually believe their ideas should have real-world consequences. On Sunday, those consequences were written in Jewish blood. History tells us that it won’t be the last time."

In a statement, Mamdani said of the attack, "Another Jewish community plunged into mourning and loss, a holiday of light so painfully reduced to a day of darkness. This attack is merely the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world."

Mamdani pledged, "When I am Mayor, I will work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe—on our streets, our subways, at shul, in every moment of every day. Let this be a purpose shared by every New Yorker, and let us banish this horrific violence to the past."

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The incoming mayor, who will take office next month, noted that one of the victims was Rabbi Eli Schlanger, "who held deep ties to Crown Heights," which is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn that has long been home to a large population of Hasidic Jews.

Schlanger had recently penned a letter to Australia's prime minister urging him to be more supportive of Israel.

Mamdani's statement, which he posted on social media, had received over 4 million views on X as of early Monday afternoon.

Hollywood stars, including Gal Gadot, Ashton Kutcher and Rebel Wilson, reacted to the mass shooting during a Hanukkah celebration Sunday in Sydney, Australia. 

Two gunmen descended upon the annual "Chanukah by the Sea" event on Bondi Beach Dec. 14, where members of the Jewish community gathered to light the ceremonial first candle on the menorah. 

Sixteen people were killed in the shooting, including one of the two suspected gunmen, officials with the New South Wales Police Force (NSWPF) said. The second alleged shooter is in critical condition.

"My heart is shattered," Gadot wrote on Instagram. "Following the anti-Semitic terror attack in Bondi Beach, Australia, the grief is immense. Fifteen innocent souls – including a Holocaust survivor, a rabbi and a child – were senselessly murdered while celebrating the first night of Chanukah, the Festival of Light."

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Gadot continued, "This darkness deliberately struck at a sacred moment of community and hope. It is easy to feel defeated. But let us be clear: our strength is not in despair, but in the light we fiercely choose to create in this terrible void.

"We must honor the victims not with silence, but by demanding a world where every life is safe, and by choosing empathy and unity above all else."

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"Send light into the darkness," Gadot urged. "Let's make sure love is the loudest voice. I will light my Chanukah candle tonight in their honor and for a world of light. Only light."

Ashton Kutcher wrote on X, "Antisemitic rhetoric is not abstract—it carries a cost, and my brothers and sisters continue to pay it. May this devastation somehow spark a hidden miracle, one our eyes do not yet have the merit to see."

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Australian actress Rebel Wilson shared on her Instagram stories, "Just waking up to the news about what’s happened on Bondi Beach. An absolute tragedy that is the most un-Australian thing to have happen. We shouldn’t have gun violence in Australia, we shouldn’t have antisemitism – it’s not us! Thinking of everyone affected by this devastating violence."

Sara Foster said that prayers weren't enough for the innocent families in a message shared on X following the mass shooting.

"What did we expect? We have sat back dismissing hate crimes against Jewish people, swastikas on pre schools, college campuses turned into antisemitic indoctrination institutions, the refusal to condemn ‘globalize the intifada’ by American politicians, the acceptance of people who openly chant for the death of Jews(and the west), invited terrorists who have told us they hate us to live amongst us, and shamed the people who have spoken against it," she wrote. 

"Well we have had enough. We have had ENOUGH. Praying for the innocent families in Australia isn't enough. WAKING up to what is happening is the only option."

President Donald Trump encouraged Americans to "celebrate proudly" and to not fear for their safety on the first night of the Jewish holiday.

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"Celebrate proudly – be proud of who you are," Trump said to Fox News on Sunday.

King Charles III, Australia's head of state, shared an emotional statement following the deadly attack. 

"My wife and I are appalled and saddened by the most dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish people attending the Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach," the royal family said. "Our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected so dreadfully, including the police officers who were injured while protecting members of their community. We commend the police, emergency services and members of the public whose heroic actions no doubt prevented even greater horror and tragedy.

"In times of hurt, Australians always rally together in unity and resolve. I know that the spirit of community and love that shines so brightly in Australia - and the light at the heart of the Chanukah Festival - will always triumph over the darkness of such evil."

Officers responded to reports of shots fired at about 6:45 p.m. Sunday. Police say there were at least two gunmen involved in the attack, and they are investigating the possibility of a third.

Police say the attack "targeted" the Jewish community and is being investigated as an act of terrorism.

At least 29 others were hospitalized after the shooting, including two police officers, the agency confirmed. The shooting is the worst attack against the Jewish community since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog acknowledged the attack while speaking at an event in Jerusalem recognizing immigrants' extraordinary achievements on Sunday.

"At these very moments, our sisters and brothers in Sydney, Australia, have been attacked by vile terrorists in a very cruel attack on Jews who went to light the first candle of Chanukah on Bondi Beach," Herzog said. "Our hearts go out to them. The heart of the entire nation of Israel misses a beat at this very moment, as we pray for the recovery of the wounded, we pray for them and we pray for those who lost their lives."

Fox News Digital's Elizabeth Pritchett contributed to this report.