Florida is becoming the first state to impose sweeping new limits on how welfare cash can be spent, blocking recipients from using cash-assistance benefits loaded onto EBT cards for purchases like tattoos, theme park tickets, video games, vaping products and other items not generally considered “basic needs” under a plan the Trump administration is urging other states to emulate.

Florida’s cash-assistance program, known as Temporary Cash Assistance (TCA), is funded through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. It is separate from SNAP, the food-assistance program, though families may receive both types of benefits through separate balances on the same EBT card.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) determined Florida’s updated TANF plan to be complete Thursday in a letter sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis and obtained by Fox News Digital. The letter praised the Sunshine State governor for putting “common-sense restrictions” on what it calls inappropriate, luxury and non-essential purchases.

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“Taxpayer-funded assistance should help families put food on the table, keep the lights on, purchase clothing, provide for their children and overcome barriers on the path toward independence,” DeSantis said in announcing the policy. “We will continue supporting Floridians who genuinely need assistance, while working to improve accountability and transparency so that these programs operate as intended.”

Florida had already barred EBT cards from being used or accepted for alcohol purchases and transactions at adult-entertainment establishments, casinos and commercial bingo locations several years ago, but the updated plan moves beyond those merchant and location-based restrictions by imposing item-level limits at otherwise eligible retailers, including on purchases for tattoos and other body piercings, entertainment services and products like theme park admission and video games, intoxicants like vapes and other nicotine products, and pornography products.

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The governor’s press release announcing the change also cites “Psychic and fortune-telling services” among those purchases that will be prohibited.

Florida’s separate Healthy SNAP initiative, launched in April, barred recipients from using food benefits on soda, energy drinks, candy and ultra-processed prepared desserts. The new action from the Sunshine State, with backing from the Trump administration, applies those same food limits to Florida’s cash-assistance program, which is funded through TANF, while adding restrictions on non-food purchases deemed non-essential.

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ACF Assistant Secretary Alex J. Adams told Fox News Digital the administration sees TANF as temporary help for families in need, not an unrestricted cash benefit.

“When people come to us for those basic needs, we will give them short-term assistance for those needs, but not for superfluous purchases,” he said.

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Florida distributes its welfare benefits through EBT cards to help eligible families cover basics such as food, clothing, housing, utilities, household goods and personal-care items. The governor’s office says the average participating household receives roughly $250 a month, and Adams stressed that the policy does not reduce anyone’s benefit amount.

“No one loses any of their benefit,” Adams said. “What this is saying is, if an individual or a family is going to come to the government to cover their basic needs, it is the government’s expectation that they be used for those basic needs.”

The restrictions will be phased in as Florida works with its EBT vendor and participating retailers to block prohibited purchases. Under the final plan, recipients will be allowed to withdraw TCA cash only at SNAP-authorized retailers and financial institutions that accept EBT cards.

Adams told Fox News Digital the administration hopes Florida becomes a model for other states. He said 27 states lack EBT location restrictions beyond those required by federal law and that most states do not impose item-level TANF purchase limits.

“While Florida is the first state, hopefully it’s not the last state,” Adams told Fox News Digital, adding that ACF plans to highlight Florida’s approach as “a best practice” for other states.

President Donald Trump on Friday touted an agreement with Venezuela that he said would lower gas prices by giving the U.S. majority control over 65 billion barrels of oil from the South American country’s proven reserves.

The breakthrough comes as disruptions to global energy markets from the Iran war continue to push up prices at the pump, with Americans now paying an average of $4.08 per gallon for regular gasoline, up from $3.20 a year ago, according to AAA.

The agreement with Venezuela will give the U.S. a 55% effective interest in the output of a new private company formed to manage the reserves, a U.S. official familiar with the deal told The Associated Press.

While the U.S. will not immediately gain access to 35.75 billion barrels of oil, the 55% interest applies to the oil ultimately produced by the 17 Venezuelan fields covered by the agreement.

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The agreement also allows the U.S. to purchase Venezuelan oil at cost, a provision that could give American buyers access to cheaper crude once production from the fields increases.

The deal is unlikely to translate into an immediate drop in U.S. gasoline prices, however, because experts have said bringing significantly more Venezuelan crude to market will require years of infrastructure work and billions of dollars in investment, according to the AP.

Rystad Energy, an independent energy research firm, said in July that Venezuelan oil production could jump 17% by 2028, but only if significant advances are made.

According to the firm’s report, Venezuela will need “higher drilling activity, extensive workover campaigns, improved infrastructure and significantly greater rig availability.”

Since much of Venezuela’s crude is extremely heavy and viscous, the country also needs a steady supply of diluents — lighter hydrocarbons blended with the crude to make it thin enough to flow through pipelines and reach refineries and export terminals.

In 2021, S&P Global described Venezuelan oil as having “the viscosity of asphalt.”

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration has also previously weighed in on Venezuela’s troubled oil industry.

In October 2023, after the Biden administration lifted most U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, the agency said “years of underinvestment and mismanagement” would limit growth.

The Trump administration, however, is betting that U.S. involvement and a massive influx of private investment can reverse the decline.

Trump said Friday the new agreement would greatly increase the U.S. oil supply and “substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly said the deal would bring nearly $100 billion in private investment to Venezuela and lower gas prices in the United States.

U.S. oil companies have been cautious about investing in Venezuela, citing the country’s deteriorated infrastructure and uncertain business environment.

Days after the Trump administration ousted Nicolás Maduro, Trump met with oil executives to discuss potential investment in Venezuela’s energy sector, but several expressed reservations.

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said at the time that he viewed Venezuela as “un-investable.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A waitress running for Congress in Wisconsin’s third district was on the payroll of two left-leaning organizations with ties to billionaire investor George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

Rebecca Cooke has portrayed herself as a working-class outsider, touting her experience as a waitress, small-business owner and nonprofit leader raised on a dairy farm. But a personal financial disclosure released two days after Wisconsin’s Aug. 13 primary shows she received more than $5,000 apiece for work with Third Way and the Pipeline Fund, two left-leaning organizations with financial ties to George Soros’ Open Society network.

The Open Society network awarded $1 million to Third Way’s nonprofit research arm between 2023 and 2024, while the Pipeline Fund received $1.4 million directly from the Open Society Action Fund in 2024.

Through the Open Society Foundation, which serves as the umbrella organization for Soros’ philanthropy network, Soros has distributed tens of millions of dollars to nonprofits and groups championing left-leaning causes like policing reform, LGBTQ rights and drug decriminalization.

Soros has donated more than $32 billion of his personal fortune to the Open Society’s Foundation, which has been overseen by his son Alex Soros since 2022.

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The financial disclosure forms only report that the amount of money Cooke received from each organization was above $5,000, but they do not specify the exact amount. The personal financial disclosure form covered Jan. 1, 2025, through July 14, 2026.

A spokesperson for Third Way confirmed with Fox News Digital reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Cooke received $30,000 in payment “for a project focused on elevating the voices and concerns of working-class Americans that have too often been missing from the rooms where decisions are made.”

The Foundation to Promote Open Society, a grant making arm of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations network, donated a $500,000 grant to the Third Way Institute in 2023 and another one in 2024, according to IRS-derived grant records.

Third Way Institute serves as the 501(c) research arm of the Third Way. In 2024, Third Way Institute transferred $21.9 million to Third Way, accounting for roughly 98% of the institute’s total spending that year. The institute said the money was used to support charitable and educational work on economic, national security, energy and social policy issues.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Third Way for comment.

Pipeline Fund is a organization that works to train, recruit and support progressive candidates running in state and local election races. It began operating independently in 2024 after spinning off from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a liberal nonprofit network that has received tens of millions of dollars from the Soros-founded Open Society network.

Tax records also show that the Pipeline Fund received $1.4 million directly from the Open Society Action Fund and approximately $2.26 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2024.

Scattered across the country, Pipeline Fund has a network of campaign consulting groups, including one in Wisconsin known as Wisconsin Progress.

“We can confirm Rebecca Cooke worked as a contractor for The Pipeline Fund in 2025 to help advance our mission of building a reflective democracy where working-class people, women, people of color, and other underrepresented communities are fully supported to run for office and advance the needs of their communities,” Pipeline Fund said in an emailed statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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Prior to making a bid for Congress herself, Cooke opened up her own Democratic campaign consulting firm in 2015, in which she worked with eight state and federal campaigns from 2015 to 2021.

“Radical Rebecca Cooke is a paid political operative for far-left liberals and wants to push their socialist agenda. Commie Cooke may fit in at [a] Soros-funded consulting firm, but she is far too extreme to represent western Wisconsin,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Zach Bannon said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

Cooke’s personal financial disclosure was not released until two days after the Aug. 13 primary, following an extension she requested from the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives in April.

All candidates who spend or raise more than $5,000 for a House of Representatives race must submit a personal financial disclosure form 30 days before the election.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., blasted Cooke’s delay in releasing her financial records, saying it tells voters all they need to know about her.

“For months, Democrats and Republicans across the Third District called on Cooke to release her financial disclosures. She had every opportunity to be transparent with voters. Instead, she chose to keep them hidden until after the primary,” Van Orden said in a news release.

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“That tells Wisconsin voters everything they need to know about Rebecca Cooke’s character. She was willing to deceive her own party to protect the political persona she built and gain political power,” Van Orden said.

But Cooke said her financial forms reveal that she truly is a working-class American.

“I’ve always worn multiple hats to make ends meet and in addition to waitressing I worked on two projects related to getting more working class people to run for office and conducted research for an organization about how to better connect with working class voters,” Cooke said in an email to the Sentinel.

“There are unique challenges to running for office as a working class person with an hourly wage job and a full-time campaign schedule. For example, I’m one of the thousands of people in this district who can’t afford health insurance. I’ve been proud to help make it easier for the next generation of working class leaders to step up and take our fight to Washington D.C.”

Fox News Digital reached to Open Society Foundation, Cooke’s campaign and Pipeline Fund for comment.

Conservative legal experts say President Donald Trump’s latest attempts to narrow birthright citizenship and crack down on birth tourism may have stronger legal footing than his first effort.

After the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment, Trump issued two new executive orders taking narrower approaches to citizenship and birth tourism.

The first, signed Aug. 6, directs federal agencies to withhold documents recognizing citizenship from certain children born when neither parent is a U.S. citizen, including some whose parents are members of designated foreign terrorist organizations, foreign-government employees or participants in transactions or fraud intended to obtain birthright citizenship.

Experts from the Manhattan Institute, America First Legal and the America First Policy Institute, all right-of-center organizations, argued that Trump’s new order is narrower than his first and is built around longstanding exceptions to birthright citizenship that they believe could apply here.

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“The Supreme Court has long recognized that there are exceptions to the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause for the aliens who are considered children of invading armies or the children of ambassadors,” America First Policy Institute senior fellow Chad Mizelle, who previously served as the Justice Department’s chief of staff, told Fox News Digital. “So in a situation where you have a terrorist here contrary to the laws of the United States … who is looking to do harm … That has long been recognized by the Supreme Court, and basically going back to the history of our country, as recognized exceptions to any sort of claim of birthright citizenship.”

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, decided by the Supreme Court in 1898, recognized exceptions to birthright citizenship for children of diplomats and children of alien enemies born during a hostile occupation. Trump’s order argues that members of foreign terrorist organizations can fall within that enemy exception.

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“The Supreme Court ruled that you can’t restrict birthright citizenship to kids of people in the country temporarily or illegally,” Manhattan Institute director of constitutional studies Ilya Shapiro told Fox News Digital. “But what the new executive order does is it goes to one of the classic exceptions to birthrights citizenship, two of the classic exceptions, those who owe an allegiance to a foreign government, meaning employed by a foreign governing diplomats otherwise, and those who are invaders of foreign armies and terrorists, members of foreign organizations hostile to America, certainly qualify in that category.”

David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, however, argued that the president’s attempt to redefine what constitutes an alien enemy without going through Congress puts the administration on legally shaky ground.

“Congress ultimately establishes what it means to be subject to U.S. jurisdiction,” Bier told Fox News Digital. “There’s this very limited exception for accredited diplomats and everyone else in the United States is subject to U.S. laws so the idea that the president himself on his own authority can decide who is subject U. S. jurisdiction and U.S. laws is really a radical expansion and assertion of executive power and really would be unprecedented in the history of the United States.”

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“I really do think this case is testing a different proposition from the earlier case,” Bier added, explaining that the issue at hand has more to do with executive power than birthright citizenship. “And I think it’s a lot more questionable as well.”

Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, pointed out that United States v. Wong Kim Ark specifies that only children of enemies “occupying” some portion of the country are barred from citizenship at birth, meaning that Trump’s order would not apply to terrorists simply residing within the country. She said the Trump administration could potentially expand who is legally defined as a diplomat to preclude more people from birthright citizenship, but explained such a move would make it difficult to prosecute individuals for criminal offenses, a concern shared by Bier.

Frost and Bier both believe the new executive order should be ruled unconstitutional.

Some have floated the issue of standing as a potential problem for those looking to challenge Trump’s order. Legal standing requires plaintiffs to show they suffered or imminently face a concrete injury caused by the defendant that a court can remedy.

“It’s going to be interesting to see who actually does have standing to challenge this order,” America First Legal co-founder and president Gene Hamilton told Fox News Digital. “Is there somebody who thinks that they’re going to swept up in the definition of a foreign terrorist organization? And if so, it would be kind of fun to see them try to sue the government or have someone sue on their behalf.”

Trump’s new order is already facing legal resistance.

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The same groups who challenged his initial order are now arguing that his new one unlawfully creates exceptions to birthright citizenship that conflict with the Supreme Court’s June ruling. The order remains on the books but is not scheduled to take effect until Sept. 6, with a Maryland judge scheduled to hear an injunction request Aug. 28 and a related motion still pending in New Hampshire.

Issued on the same day as the first new executive order, the second order directed the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to deny travel visas to or pursue removal actions against individuals believed to be in the country for the purposes of birth tourism. Birth tourism is a process through which noncitizens enter the United States while pregnant and give birth in order to secure citizenship for their child.

Hamilton described this second order as being on “sound, solid legal footing.”

“It relies and invokes Section 215(a) of the INA to impose conditions and delegates authority of the Secretary of State … to ensure that we are not granting visas and allowing people to remain on visas who may be engaged in birth tourism,” he explained. “It is the sovereign right and province of all governments across the world, and certainly the United States is no different, to determine who should be able to receive a visa and who shouldn’t. There’s no entitlement to a visa. There’s no constitutional right to a visa.”

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Critics also argue that the administration already had tools to combat birth tourism. Since 2020, State Department rules have directed consular officers to deny visitor visas when they have reason to believe an applicant’s primary purpose is traveling to the United States to give birth and obtain citizenship for the child.

“No new executive orders are required for the federal government to go after birth tourism operators or deny fraudulent visa applications,” Center for American Progress senior director of immigration policy Debu Gandhi told Fox News Digital. “Americans should take note that from day one, the Trump administration has tried to evade the Constitution’s clear and unequivocal language on citizenship and unilaterally decide who is born an American.”

If the administration’s latest effort fails, supporters of further limits on birthright citizenship could turn to Congress or pursue a constitutional amendment, which would require approval by three-fourths of the states.

Shapiro says that the administration is on “solid ground” but noted that “if they had proceeded originally in this more targeted, narrower way” then the Supreme Court may not have ruled against them originally.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment when reached by Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

The Abdul-El Sayed campaign on Thursday launched an attack aimed at White House aide Natalie Harp just a week after attacking second lady Usha Vance in a similarly vicious manner.

After President Donald Trump’s edict renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America during a heated trade battle with Canada the El-Sayed campaign waded into the fray on X.

“If we’re just renaming everything now… When are we making this official?” the campaign said in its post, adding a doctored image of the official White House webpage for first lady Melania Trump, crossing out her name and replacing it with Harp’s.

The post was quickly criticized by conservatives on social media.

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“This is just such a weak, phoned-in effort,” GOP communicator Matt Whitlock posted on X. “My four year-old could come up with better burns than this.

“Weird how much time this campaign spends talking about other people‘s wives. When Abdul’s not talking about (and clearly thinking a lot about) the vice president and his wife, apparently he’s thinking about President Trump and his wife?”

“That boy Abdul is drowning, and his team keeps throwing him bricks,” journalist James David Dickson posted on X.

“So this is just gross, right?” Conservative advocacy group Michigan Forward posted on X.

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“A lil more sexism and misogyny from the Left,” political commentator Melik Abdul posted on X. “This time, it’s from the Guy who plays foootsie with Hasan Piker.”

Harp is a longtime Trump supporter who credited his first-term “right to try” order for saving her life after a serious battle with bone cancer. She then joined the second Trump administration as an aide to the president.

In recent weeks, Harp has become the subject of intense media scrutiny and online speculation about the nature of her relationship with Trump.

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In a post over the weekend responding to Vice President JD Vance’s comments that his grandfather, whom he called Pawpaw, would be shocked to know that El-Sayed is a serious U.S. Senate contender, the socialist-aligned candidate from Michigan responded by invoking second lady Usha Vance, who is of Indian descent.

“So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no…,” El-Sayed wrote on X.

Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign.

“Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, who wants to massively raise taxes and defund the police, was just recently exposed for saying American football is ‘toxic masculinity’ and trashing Thanksgiving,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital. “Everything this radical says is moronic.”