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Marshall Billingslea was a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer in the 1990s when he sat down with one of the highest-ranking defectors from the Soviet biological weapons program and began learning the extent of what Moscow had secretly built.And what he found out from Ken Alibek, the former No. 2 official in the Soviet biological weapons apparatus, is raising red flags for Billingslea over the Oct. 2, 2026, death linked to an anti-plague institute in Russia.”I think one of the most important things that Ken shed light on was the sheer scale of the Soviet program, which then Russia inherited,” Billingslea told Fox News Digital. “Just mammoth.”Three decades later, the mysterious death of a researcher at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East has put new attention on what became of that program — and Billingslea argues the world should be demanding answers from Moscow.MYSTERY DEATH AT RUSSIAN PLAGUE LAB TRIGGERS SWEEPING PRECAUTIONS AS US WATCHES CLOSELY”It’s not acceptable in this day and age for the Russians to have a biological warfare program,” said Billingslea, who previously served as President Donald Trump’s special presidential envoy for arms control. “They need to cut it out, and they need to tell us. They need to come clean about what they’re doing at this lab and whether this lab is still involved in their warfare program.”The U.S. government says Russia’s offensive biological weapons program did not disappear with the Soviet Union.”Russia maintains an offensive biological weapons program and is in violation of its obligations under the BWC,” a State Department official told Fox News Digital this week.BWC, or Biological Weapons Convention, is an international treaty that prohibits the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons.State’s 2025 arms control compliance report assessed that the Soviet-era program was “absorbed, not dismantled” by Russia after the collapse and has “continued and evolved” since then.There is no evidence linking the Irkutsk researcher’s death to Russia’s biological weapons program, and Billingslea told Fox News Digital he has seen no evidence that the the institute remains involved in the program today.But the unexplained death has revived scrutiny of the Soviet program’s work and the network of ostensibly civilian laboratories that Billingslea said Alibek identified as also performing classified work.Alibek’s disclosures included Soviet efforts to alter pathogens to make them more lethal, transmissible or difficult to treat, Billingslea said, adding that some of the most troubling revelations involved plague.BIOWEAPON THREAT EXPOSED AS ANTHROPIC SOUNDS ALARM ON FOREIGN ACTORS PLOTTING VIRUS EXPERIMENTS”The goal was to render the plague bacteria far more resistant to antibiotics,” he said.Billingslea said Soviet researchers also experimented with combining plague with toxin-producing pathogens, with the aim of making infections even harder to treat. “They took the plague bacteria and they merged it with a non-dangerous bacteria,” Billingslea said.”The goal was to render the plague bacteria far more resistant to antibiotics.”According to Alibek’s account, researchers also worked on combining plague with toxin-producing pathogens so that treating an infected person with antibiotics could trigger the release of toxins.Billingslea said that U.S. officials were not relying solely on Alibek for their understanding of the program and that there were “multiple other sources of information” that made him “very confident in the basics” regarding the disclosures regarding Soviet-era research.”So this doesn’t all derive from Ken Alibek,” he insisted when speaking with Fox News Digital.By the time Billingslea was interviewing Alibek in the mid-1990s, he said, Washington had already confronted Moscow over its biological weapons work. “We knew about the plague programs, we knew what they were up to, and we knew where the sites were,” he said.Among the facilities Alibek identified were at least six Soviet Ministry of Health laboratories that had legitimate civilian public-health missions while also performing classified work connected to the biological weapons program, according to Billingslea.The Irkutsk institute was among the facilities Alibek identified, but Billingslea cautioned he does not recall the Soviet defector saying that antibiotic-resistant plague or plague chimeras were specifically developed there.That distinction has become particularly important following the unexplained death of a 28-year-old researcher at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute.Russian authorities have said they found no microorganism linked to the woman’s professional activities, while the World Health Organization has sought additional information from Moscow about what caused her fatal pneumonia.Billingslea said the pressure for answers — and for Russia to end its offensive biological weapons program — should not come from Washington alone.”It’s very, very important that this is not viewed as a U.S. versus Russia discussion,” he said. “This is a topic of grave concern to the entire international community.”He also said that Russia needs to release the genetic sequence of the pathogen that killed the researcher, along with information about contact testing, the timeline of her illness and the institute’s biosafety procedures.The genetic sequence could allow outside experts to determine “what it was and whether it was modified,” he said.Billingslea called on countries outside the traditional U.S. alliance system, including Brazil and Mexico, to press Moscow for greater transparency, and pointed to a December meeting of parties to the Biological Weapons Convention as an opportunity for countries to confront Russia over the program.”At the December meeting, Russia is going to get grilled,” he said. “And they should.”

A shootout sparked by an argument over President Donald Trump at an Ohio dog park could end with a jury finding that both men acted in self-defense, or that neither did, a legal expert told Fox News Digital.Emmanuel “Mike” Mathews, 81, is charged with felonious assault for shooting David Mattai, 55, on April 21 at Centerville Mills Park in Bainbridge Township, according to authorities.Mathews has pleaded not guilty.Case Western Reserve University law professor Michael Benza said that under Ohio law, defendants lose the right to claim self-defense if they helped ignite the confrontation that led to the shooting.VIDEO SHOWS MOMENTS BEFORE ARMY VETERAN WAS FATALLY SHOT IN WALMART PARKING LOT DISPUTESince both men allegedly took part in the escalation, he said, the case presents a unique legal puzzle.”They could both be found at fault, which means neither of them would get self-defense,” Benza told Fox News Digital.Since self-defense relies heavily on subjective fear and perceived danger, Benza said, “It’s also possible both get self-defense.”Mathews’ attorney, Ian Friedman, said the encounter began as a verbal argument, which turned physical in the park before ending in gunfire in the park’s parking lot.”Mr. Mathews was attempting to leave,” Friedman told Fox News Digital. “He was attempting to keep himself safe.”Friedman said it started when Mattai, who overheard Mathews talking to an eyewitness about Trump, disagreed with Mathews’ view that Trump is one of the country’s greatest presidents.Bainbridge Township Patrolman Friedrich Kaufmann testified at Mathews’ May 5 preliminary hearing at Chardon Municipal Court that following that initial verbal altercation, Mattai drove away, then returned to the park about five minutes later.FLORIDA MEN WIELDING HATCHET AND MACHETE CLASH IN PUBLIX PARKING LOT, POLICE SAYMathews was still sitting at a picnic table with his dog when Mattai returned.Mathews gathered his belongings and began walking toward his vehicle, but after crossing to the other side of a park fence, an exchange of insults between the pair caused a physical confrontation.GUN-WIELDING COUPLE IN VIRAL BLM STANDOFF GOT FIREPOWER — AND ‘A VOICE’ — BACK AFTER LEGAL SAGAFriedman said that Mattai grabbed Mathews by the hair and pulled him into the fence. Mathews also reported being headbutted. Mattai denied the headbutt allegation, but Friedman said an injury below Mathews’ eye supports that account.Following the physical altercation, both men retreated toward their vehicles after witness Jamie Jedlinsky, 70, reportedly stepped in to diffuse the situation.OHIO MAN CONVICTED AFTER TRYING TO SHOOT EX-WIFE AT POINT-BLANK RANGE INSIDE RESTAURANT IN CHILLING VIDEOMathews got into his vehicle and allegedly placed a .45-caliber gun on his dashboard, when Mattai, who stood in the parking area after loading his dog in his vehicle, saw the weapon.The men allegedly exchanged words before Mathews fired once. Mattai retrieved a 9mm Taurus handgun from inside his Hyundai, then fired six shots “almost contemporaneously” near Mathews’ head and body, according to Friedman.”We believe that Mattai was turning to retrieve his gun and coming back to aim at Mathews when the bullet struck the lower right portion of his back,” Friedman added.Mathews was not injured in the gunfire exchange, but Mattai’s return fire hit Mathews’ vehicle at least four times.Mattai previously told The New York Times that he did not physically touch Mathews after seeing Mathews’ weapon, and fired back in fear of his own safety.Mattai’s wife, Sally Mattai, told the Times that her husband almost died after suffering a severe gunshot wound to his lower back that damaged his spine and required two separate emergency surgeries.Mattai’s attorney, Ryan Fisher, said he believes public opinions have convoluted the case and created confusion.”There are a great deal of differing opinions of what went on in the dog park that day,” Fisher told Fox News Digital.Fisher’s response did not address the defense’s claims about the gun or the timing of the shots.Geauga County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Mattai Aug. 5. He’s currently facing misdemeanor charges of assault and disorderly conduct.Benza said introducing a firearm changes the legal footing of a physical scuffle, but he emphasized that the order of events greatly matter.”You go from OK, we’re hitting each other… physically, punches are being thrown. Now you’ve pulled a weapon. You have now escalated this fight, which then justifies me escalating my response by then pulling my own gun and defending myself,” he said.”But you can’t be the first one to draw the gun.”Ohio law removes the duty to retreat when someone is lawfully in a location. Friedman said that since Mathews was legally allowed to be at the park, he had no obligation to flee.”He certainly had no duty to retreat,” Friedman said. “Had he done anything different from what he did do in those seconds, he may not be here to talk about it today.”Friedman said although the verbal argument began over politics, his client acted out of fear for his safety, not political retaliation.”This was never about a political dispute for Mr. Mathews,” he said.Benza, however, said the county’s politics could potentially complicate seating a jury, regardless of why the incident happened.”In Geauga County, where this happened, it is a very Republican-dominated county,” Benza said.”The one defendant may be concerned that he will end up with jurors who are very pro-Republican or pro-Trump, which would create his concerns about a fair jury.””The other defendant may want a pro-Trump jury because they would be so, well, he got what he deserved or something to that effect.”SEND US A TIPNow, the case may come down to a jury deciding whether Mathews had a genuine, reasonable fear for his life when he is accused of shooting Mattai.GOT A TIP?Friedman predicted the evidence would show Mathews should never have been arrested, while Fisher said the case is “going to have to be flushed out by the jury in the upcoming trial.”Mathews’ trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 16, at the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas.GET BREAKING NEWS BY EMAILIf convicted, he could face a minimum sentence of five years and a maximum potential sentence of 15 years in an Ohio state prison, due to combined penalties of a second-degree felony assault charge and a mandatory firearm specification.Mattai is scheduled for a pretrial hearing Oct. 28, at the Chardon Municipal Court. He told the Times that he is “willing to plead guilty or no contest,” if it means no jail time.

Student protests over crumbling schools despite billions in public spending are fueling a broader crisis in France, as experts warn that the country’s mounting financial troubles, President Emmanuel Macron’s weakened political center and radical movements are pushing the unrest far beyond its original educational grievances.Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ senior envoy for Europe, told Fox News Digital in an interview from Paris that what began in September with legitimate complaints about school conditions has increasingly been exploited by political forces seeking confrontation with the state.”Overall I’d say the anger is real but the violence I would say is organized,” she said, adding that destroying schools would do nothing to improve the education system.FRANCE EXPLODES AGAIN AS STUDENTS RIOT OVER EDUCATIONSeventy-two percent of education expenditure went toward salaries, social contributions and pensions for teaching and non-teaching personnel, while just 8.5% went toward investment, including infrastructure and equipment. The figures cover the entire education system, not just high schools, according to France’s Education Ministry’s 2026 statistical overview.Harvey Feigenbaum, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and an expert on French politics, told Fox News Digital that France’s underlying problem is a government caught between expensive social commitments, sluggish economic growth and mounting pressure to cut spending.”France is in deep debt. It wants to cut its expenses,” Feigenbaum said, explaining that years of financial pressure and neglected school facilities have fueled frustration among students.The scale of the financial predicament is striking. According to Eurostat, French public debt stood at 117.6% of GDP in the first quarter of 2026, the third-highest ratio in the European Union, behind Greece and Italy.Reuters reported October 8 that rising borrowing costs and investor concerns have severely limited the government’s ability to resolve unrest through additional spending, a strategy employed during previous waves of French protests.The financial squeeze has collided with an increasingly fragmented political system, creating opportunities for parties at both ends of the political spectrum to capitalize on public dissatisfaction.FRENCH SCHOOL RIOTS DEEPEN AS EXPERTS POINT TO FAR-LEFT ALLIANCE FUELING ‘BROADER CONFRONTATION’For Feigenbaum, the long-term roots of the crisis lie in Macron’s political legacy.When Macron won the presidency in 2017, he promised to move beyond France’s traditional left-right divide, combining policies from both sides into a new centrist political movement.But Feigenbaum argues that the strategy produced an unintended consequence: weakening France’s established moderate parties without creating a durable governing coalition to replace them.”What he ended up doing was attracting the moderate voters from the parties of the moderate left and the parties from the moderate right, and essentially destroyed those parties,” Feigenbaum said.He argued that the collapse of the traditional political center helped create space for more ideologically polarized movements. “Macron is a smart man, but he’s a terrible politician,” the professor added.Macron’s controversial pension reforms illustrate the difficulty of persuading French voters to accept reductions in longstanding public benefits, Feigenbaum argued. Those efforts triggered widespread protests, while implementation of the 2023 retirement changes has since been suspended until 2028.The situation became especially difficult after Macron called snap parliamentary elections in 2024, producing a deeply divided National Assembly without a governing majority.”Even if the government wanted to do something coherent, they simply don’t have the votes to do it,” Feigenbaum said.That paralysis has left Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu handling the immediate unrest while Macron faces questions about the stability of the political system he helped reshape.FRENCH PM REJECTS POLICE BRUTALITY CLAIMS AFTER TEENS SEVERELY INJURED IN PROTESTS: ‘ACCIDENTS HAPPEN’The protests began in the Paris suburbs in September amid complaints about overcrowded classrooms, inadequate heating and cooling, aging buildings and teachers who were not replaced when absent.Rodan-Benzaquen said the anger reflected years of educational instability, frequent ministerial changes and reforms that have failed to resolve persistent school problems.She also pointed to a broader sense of anxiety among young people about their economic future, artificial intelligence, climate change and international conflicts.According to the OECD’s September 2026 Education at a Glance report, France spent $16,674 in funding per student in general upper-secondary education in 2023, compared with an OECD average of $12,421, adjusted for purchasing power.Yet teachers and students continue to complain about basic shortages.Responsibility for public high school buildings and equipment falls to regional authorities, while the national government oversees much of the education system, including teacher staffing.Feigenbaum said France’s centralized education structure makes national leaders the focus of public anger when schools fail to deliver.The pressure has already forced a concession.Reuters reported Friday that Education Minister Édouard Geffray announced an emergency plan to deploy 3,000 qualified educators to particularly affected schools, costing several dozen million euros.Student unions welcomed the measure as an initial victory but pledged to continue demonstrating.The spending figures raise broader questions about whether France’s financial and political priorities have left sufficient resources for maintaining school infrastructure and meeting students’ needs. They do not, however, establish that teachers’ unions or other organized constituencies have improperly diverted funding.TEEN’S HAND BLOWN OFF BY POLICE GRENADE DURING FRENCH STUDENT PROTESTS: REPORTAs the demonstrations expanded, the involvement of France’s hard-left La France Insoumise party, known as LFI, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, became an increasingly contentious issue.Reuters reported October 1 that French intelligence agencies had told a government crisis meeting that LFI and affiliated activists played a role in fomenting the unrest. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez also cited agitators moving between schools to encourage violence.LFI has denied responsibility and accused authorities of aggravating tensions through their response.Rodan-Benzaquen said far-left movements were capitalizing on students’ frustration.”There is an obvious instrumentalization, obvious manipulation,” she said, arguing that activists were seeking to push some protesters toward violence.She linked the unrest to what she described as Mélenchon’s broader political strategy ahead of France’s 2027 presidential election.”His idea is that on the one hand he will scare voters on the right and on the far right, who will then go to vote for the far-right, and on the other hand he would mobilize his own camp,” she said.Rodan-Benzaquen argued that intensifying political confrontation could help Mélenchon consolidate his support among younger voters and immigrant communities, while portraying the far right as an increasingly serious threat.She described it as a calculated political strategy rather than a spontaneous response to students’ concerns.The involvement of LFI politicians has been documented by French media, although there is disagreement over whether the party helped initiate the demonstrations or became involved after the protests began.An October 2 investigation by Le Monde examined a police intelligence assessment describing radical-left activity around schools in Seine-Saint-Denis but questioned whether the evidence established that the movement itself was politically orchestrated.Feigenbaum offered a more cautious interpretation, describing some of the violent perpetrators as fringe provocateurs who exploit broader demonstrations without necessarily directing them.”They’re not being organized by some, you know, some mastermind at the national level, at least as far as anyone knows,” he said.FRANCE ROCKED BY STUDENT RIOTS AS HUNDREDS ARRESTED, VIOLENCE SPREADS NATIONWIDEThe demonstrations have also raised questions about whether Islamist groups and pro-Palestinian activists are seeking to use the unrest to advance broader ideological causes.Rodan-Benzaquen argued that Mélenchon’s emphasis on Gaza and the Palestinian cause has helped bring together political constituencies that might otherwise have little in common.”It’s sort of the idea of sort of an intersection of different movements where they manage to bring together the different groups, the far left, Islamist movements, pro-Palestinian activists,” she said.She pointed to Palestinian flags appearing during the demonstrations as an indication of how the movement has expanded beyond its original educational demands.The FDD expert argued that Islamist elements were attempting to capitalize on the turmoil, although she cautioned against reducing the entire crisis to immigration or religion.”But this goes far beyond the issue of immigration, it goes far beyond the issue of Islamism, it goes far beyond the issue of Islam,” she said.EUROPE’S LEFT COURTS MUSLIM VOTERS AS ANTI-ISRAEL POLITICS RESHAPE CONTINENTThe government’s latest concessions have not ended the protests.According to Reuters on Friday, 141 schools remained closed while students continued demanding broader reforms. Nearly 10% of teaching hours in French public high schools remained unstaffed.For Rodan-Benzaquen, one of the greatest dangers is that the demonstrations reflect a society increasingly divided into competing political realities.She described how her 17-year-old son created separate left-wing and right-wing Instagram accounts and encountered radically different portrayals of the same unrest: one emphasizing police violence and the other violence by protesters.”Now, if you live in two drastically different realities, it is very complicated to come to any form of dialog and end agreement,” she said.Her warning extends beyond France’s current protests.”We are in an extremely polarized environment,” Rodan-Benzaquen said, noting that social media can deepen divisions and allow confrontations to escalate rapidly.Feigenbaum sees an additional structural danger: a government burdened by accumulated financial obligations and deprived of the political consensus needed to reform them.The result is a country spending heavily to sustain its public institutions while struggling to deliver the services citizens expect — and a political system increasingly consumed by conflict over how to fix them.What began as a rebellion against broken classrooms has become a test of whether France can reconcile its costly promises with its financial reality before the divisions consuming its schools deepen further.

A programming change at SiriusXM has drawn criticism from comedians after the satellite radio company removed hundreds of working stand-up comedians from its comedy channel, cutting off a source of royalty income for affected performers.After SiriusXM replaced its Channel 99, Raw Dog Comedy, in April with comedian Sebastian Maniscalco’s new channel, “Sebastian Maniscalco’s Comedy Radio,” veteran stand-ups began criticizing the move, warning that it threatens an important source of income for independent comedians.According to the comedy industry advocacy group Stand Up for Stand Up, the channel’s active roster shrank 66%, from 812 featured comedians in April to 275 by September, with more than 75% of plays going to the top 50 comedians.COMEDY STARS LASH OUT AT SEBASTIAN MANISCALCO OVER SIRIUSXM SHAKE-UP”Everything in life breaks down to money, numbers and money. That’s what it breaks down to,” veteran comedian Rich Vos, who has performed stand-up for 40 years, told Fox News Digital.Vos was among the comedians who no longer received airplay on the channel, having ranked among the 20 most-played comedians on Channel 99 before the rebrand, according to Stand Up for Stand Up. Although Vos noted that his decades-long career and club relationships keep him busy, he said he decided to speak out because stand-up comedians lack a labor union.”I had a great run with Sirius. I appreciate how much they played me, for how long they played me and, you know, but there’s a lot of comics that aren’t doing as well as I do,” Vos said.”I’ve been around for over 40 years. So, there’s comics that have been doing it five, 10 years and it’s tougher for them. These are the comics that are really getting hurt by this,” he added.Comedians and industry advocates say the programming change has eliminated a reliable source of royalty income for many performers, including those still establishing their careers. Comedians can earn royalties when their recorded performances air on satellite radio, typically around $15 a play. But those removed from the rotation no longer receive payments from those broadcasts.WHITE HOUSE URGES SITCOM PRODUCER CHUCK LORRE TO SEEK ‘PSYCHIATRIC HELP’ AFTER HE TARGETED TRUMP, FIRST LADYAccording to Stand Up for Stand Up, the rebrand has hurt the “middle class of comedy,” which the group describes as working comedians who earn their living performing but are not household names and often live paycheck to paycheck.The decision has drawn criticism from several prominent comedians, including Patton Oswalt and Michelle Wolf, who have called on Maniscalco to help restore airplay for affected performers.”The fact that you and I still get to tour and still get to work and still get to be as funny as we are is because comedy right now is so dynamic and has so many new, young voices that are coming up. But 500 of them have been booted off of Sirius,” Oswalt said in an Instagram video addressed to Maniscalco.”I know you didn’t mean to do anything bad by doing it. You can easily reverse this decision. Get those young comedians back on the Sirius channel. Let them get those checks. Let them keep working,” he added.The new lineup features established comedians including Chris Rock, Jim Gaffigan, Jamie Foxx, Whitney Cummings and Kevin Hart, while also regularly airing recordings from late comedians like Joan Rivers and Bob Hope.CHRIS ROCK SHREDS ‘WOKE 1.0’ ERA, COMPARES MODERN OUTRAGE TO SALEM WITCH HUNTSSiriusXM said its decision to discontinue Raw Comedy was driven by the channel’s “underperformance” and was made before Maniscalco joined the lineup.”We have been listening to comedians speak out this week and want to clarify that our decision to end Raw Comedy was due to the channel’s underperformance and came prior to Sebastian joining the SiriusXM lineup,” the company said in a statement.”While the challenges facing working comedians are bigger than any one person or decision, we remain committed, as we have for more than two decades, to making SiriusXM a place where comedians at every stage of their careers can be heard,” SiriusXM added.Fox News Digital reached out to Maniscalco for comment and was directed to the above statement by SiriusXM. Vos questioned SiriusXM’s explanation for ending Raw Comedy.”I don’t know what underperformance [means]. Obviously, that means not enough people are listening to it,” Vos told Fox News Digital. “I just know funny is funny, and if that’s your channel is to play funny, then maybe your marketing strategy is wrong… But funny’s funny, and that’s basically what a comedy channel is about, being funny.”TURNING POINT USA TURNS THE TABLES ON ‘SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’ AFTER LATE-NIGHT SKETCH MOCKS CAMPUS RECRUITERSManiscalco has also faced criticism over the programming changes. In an Instagram video posted Wednesday, he asked fellow comedians for patience as he works to expand the channel’s lineup.”This goes out to all my fellow comedians – I want to let you know that I heard you, I support you, I love you. I know how hard the grind is. Believe me, I’ve been there,” he said, before adding that he had “nothing to do with removing Raw Comedy from SiriusXM.”Maniscalco said he plans to work with SiriusXM to feature a wider range of comedians, from emerging performers to established acts.”I just ask that you give me a little time, guys. I just got here and I need a little time to build out the channel. So I just want to let you know that I heard you and just give me some time and be patient and I think you’ll like the result. God bless everybody,” he added.In a statement to Fox News Digital earlier this week, SiriusXM said, “SiriusXM works together with our creative partners to program the best possible experience for our listeners.””The launch of Sebastian Maniscalco’s Comedy Radio introduced a new creative direction and a regularly evolving programming mix for the channel, and SiriusXM continues to invest in comedians more than any other audio platform to deliver a wide range of comedy offerings across our channels.”Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson contributed to this report.