Crime Is Plummeting In Many Major Cities. Why?

How can we help make stronger communities happen? Well, at J.P. Morgan Chase, we invest in what's working, in businesses that create more jobs, in hospitals, delivering care where it's needed the most, in workers building new buildings, bridges, and roads, connecting what we need to where we live. Make the greengrass go all around, all around, make the greengrass go all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at JPMorganchase.com slash impact. I'm Stuart Vaughney. I'm Martha McCallum. I'm Jason Chaffetz. And this is the Fox News Rundown. Friday, February 13th, 2026. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. Crime is down in many major cities by a lot. When you see these National Guardsmen and women on the streets and their uniforms, the train stations, and other places, there's definitely a feeling of a bit of a cleanup there. I'm Chris Foster. A study suggests proper sleep might work as well as medication for some kids with ADHD. We're not doing our kids and our teens of service. by jumping to the use of medications prematurely. And the overdiagnosis of ADHD is a symptom for what's wrong with our approach to our children and our society. And I'm Dr. Ben Carson. I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown.

In a busy week of congressional hearings and negotiations on Capitol Hill, Trump administration officials were when they could highlighting the latest crime statistics. They are down, by a lot, across the board and across the country. The latest data comes from the major cities chiefs association, which gathered up data from about 67 cities that responded to their survey. Some of the data was highlighted by Attorney General Pam Bondi this week at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. If you compare 25 to 24, here's what you'll find. The murder rate is down 21%. Robbery down 23%. Carjacking down 43%. Gun assault down 22%. Ag assault, burglary could go on and on. Crime is declining. And the early stats for 2026 show continuing crime drops in places like New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt attributed the results to the president. The murder rate, again, not a single question about this, has plunged to a 125-year low as crime falls across the board thanks to President Trump's crime crackdown. But Democratic mayors are taking credit, insisting that various local programs put in place after crimes surged in the first year of the pandemic are working. Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott. said last month. This year, we will release a new five-year conference advance prevention plan that will help us build on the work that we have started. We will maintain our focus on reducing homicides by at least 15% each year. We will keep investing in the strategies that are working as we work to build a better, safe for Baltimore. But Leavitt wrote in a recent post that securing the border is what's led to a continuing reduction in crime. The White House will point to that to the presence of more law enforcement on the streets of major cities and say, you know, yes, the border, specifically when you're taking people out of this country who have convictions in their home countries or here on criminal offenses. But also the broader posture of law enforcement. They'll say this is a return to law and order. Fox News Sunday, Akers-Shannon-Bream is also the host of the Live in the Breem podcast and author of the upcoming book, Nothing is Impossible with God. I can speak to what I've seen in D.C. living and working there. And would you see these National Guardsmen and women on the streets in their uniforms, the train stations and other places? There's definitely a feeling of a bit of a clean-up there. And I wonder if it's translating the same way in other cities. Meanwhile, Democrats and folks on the left will say there are a lot of new initiatives that they're enacting in some of these big cities that blue state leaders, blue city leaders, have enacted intervention programs with young people trying to redirect juvenile offenders and make sure they don't go down the path of crime. So they say a lot of that of what they're pouring into young people and into their communities is also working as well. So everyone taking a little bit of credit on this one. Borders are Tom Homan said Thursday. He thinks the Twin Cities in Minnesota are safer. He spoke from there saying they've arrested 4,000 people, but that he would now end that surge portion of their operation. And he even thanked Governor Wals and Mayor Fry for the way they're now talking differently, like talking about maintaining peace and even encouraging the dismantling of these like protester roadblocks. This does seem to be quite a shift.

It does. And I think him going in with an entire tone shift. He's somebody who's been in uniform and has worked across multiple administrations from Reagan on forward all the way through Trump 2.0, second term. And you'll note that he said through all these press conferences, we're not going to stop enforcement. If you are in this country and you're not here legally, you are subject to deportation at any time. But he said, we're going to work smarter. We're going to be targeted. We're going to work with local authorities where we can. get people on ICE detainers straight from jail so it's safer for the agents, it's safer for the suspect, and really wanted to turn down the temperature there. So I think that he made some of us with local officials, you know, having these conversations about where they can work together. A lot of local officials say absolutely not. We will never cooperate with ice on anything. But I think everybody had an interest in making sure that the peace was returned to Minneapolis. I mean, after losing two, you know, Americans in these very volatile, you know, incursions between the two sides, I think everybody knew he had to find places they could work together. We had a lot of feisty congressional hearings this week. And at one of them, it was related to immigration and the border because the acting director of ICE, CBP commissioner, they testified one congresswoman likened them to the KKK and slave patrols. Another asked the director of ICE, how do you think judgment day will work for you with so much blood on your hands? And another told the CBP commissioner, you better hope you get pardoned because you're going to be held accountable. So for all of the kumbaya now out of Minnesota, it sounds like between this congressional hearing and watching New York and New Jersey's governors. push for new limitations on ice, that this is not going to be across the board the way cities and states handle ice now just because of what's happening out of Minnesota. Do Democrats feel they have this issue now? I think they do in a lot of respects because the polling shows that people are very uncomfortable. I mean, our most recent Fox polling showed that a majority of people, a strong majority, felt like ICE. They've been too aggressive. They do like the border being cleaned up and they love that idea. And they're unified in the idea of deporting people who are here who have committed criminal actions above and beyond just being here illegally, but actually convicted of other violent crimes and those kinds of things. There's agreement on that. But the optics, five-year-old Liam, I mean, all of these things have been really tough for Republicans and Democrats do think they've got the messaging upper hand on this issue. And in the midterm cycle, every advantage you can get politically, you're going to take. But the president has said, listen, I feel good about this. I want it to be done more smartly, more wisely. I think that's why Tom Homan probably went to Minneapolis was to deal with the actual function of getting this thing done and in a way that most Americans could agree with. But they know what's a difficult issue for them. And Democrats feel very confident. And they're, you know, signaling to ICE agents and officials, this isn't going to be over. We will come after you. I mean, you heard the district attorney in Philly just a week or two ago. Yeah. We're going to hunt you down. So the message is there to people who are wearing these uniforms. And enforcing the laws that sits on the books. If you don't like it, then you're going to have to change the law. I'll go back to some testy congressional hearings in a moment. But I want to get your take on the economy because we got some.

positive numbers right a positive jobs report this week um better than anticipated including an increase in manufacturing jobs and we haven't seen that since the fall of 2024 core inflation is that 2.6 percent want to get it closer to two but still much better than it was we thought we'd be seeing the president doing these weekly trips to highlight the economy but after the iowa one we haven't seen them are they on hold We're wondering the same thing because Susie Wiles had said the president was going to be in campaign mode. We would see him a lot more that they would be talking about this idea of affordability. And you'll know, I mean, the president has so much access. The media has so much access to him that he and members of his administration keep saying you'll see that, you know, obviously with the press briefings with Karoline Leavitt, you know, the Dow has broken 50,000 and GDP came in, unexpected for better. in its numbers, the jobs number is better than expected. But we all know it takes time for people to feel that in their wallets. So we expected this president to be out doing more messaging. And you'll note that he's really kind of turned down the dial on foreign policy. I think he's still doing everything he was doing before. And obviously you still have Iran and Israel and Ukraine and so many other issues going on with Russia. But when these leaders are coming to town in D.C., you don't see these big, open, lengthy joint press things like you could have had with Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu. It seems like the president wants to telegraph that he is focused domestically. So I'd expect we'd see him more out there on the quote-unquote campaign drill. This is related to the economy, I think. We saw pushback this week from many in the House on tariffs. They even took a vote against tariffs, in particular on these Canadian tariffs. The president's not going to sign something that would undo his tariffs. So is this about politics and messaging to specific congressional constituents? Or is this about these particular members of Congress trying to message about the economy and pricing? Well, you know, Congress has taken so much criticism that it is advocating a lot of its legislative authority to the president. And you'll see members on both sides of the aisle gets, you know, flustered about that and say, you know, we have our own branch. We're independent. We need to stand up for ourselves. I think you saw that with some of these Republicans who voted to give Congress access to strike down some of the tariffs or at least attempt to, to kind of flex their muscles to say, yeah, we are a separate branch here. We handle things like this. And we're going to push back on the president. Now, some of them, you know, you think about Thomas Massie, the president has already mounted a massive primary run against him and supporting that. Others, I think, you know, they're not running for reelection or they just may feel they've had enough and they want to assert their congressional privilege. But you're right. These things will get to a desk and they're not two-thirds veto proof, you know, to head back into the senator of the House. Yeah, we're still waiting on that. Back to the feisty week out of Congress, Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted for her role in the sex trafficking of minors, pled the fifth at her house oversight deposition repeatedly. But apparently out of this, we learned that she would talk more if she had clemency. Is this a direct appeal to the president?

I mean, it sure sounds like it, but it's interesting you have focused on both sides of the aisle saying this woman was convicted of being involved in vile, abusive, horrific crimes. And the allegations from the victims are even worse than she was eventually convicted on. And so it doesn't seem like there is an appetite for offering her some type of clemency. And you're hearing that from both sides of the aisle people saying, you know, this person's a monster. She was involved in these horrible things with these innocent young women. She should have been protecting them. And instead, you know, the accusation is that she was trafficking them and was involved in all of this. So, you know, I think no matter what this administration does, even if they flirted with the idea of clemency, I mean, the president's critics are going to say, this is someone who is going to give President Trump a pass. And that's why there's going to be this clemency issue. No matter what they do, you know, Todd Blanche going to see her in jail and her moving to a different facility was seen as something that was. trying to curry favor to get a pass for the president. But she said all along that she never saw anything involving him that was illegal or criminal. Of course, she says she never saw any of that anyway. Right. But it'll be interesting to see where we go with this because it's something that has got growing bipartisan frustration. It's not just Dems. It's not just Republicans. I mean, there's a lot of angst for people who think that this has just not been handled properly by the DOJ. Attorney General Pam Bondi testified this week before a House committee. It devolved into a shouting match at several points. But underneath this, Democrats were saying, why did you redact so much when you released these Epstein files, including the names of men? And if there are no ongoing prosecutions, why did you fail to redact the names of many victims? I did not hear the attorney general say, look, we were going to pursue prosecutions here. She said they're open to that. But where does this go now? It's one thing when people don't have full access, now that members of Congress can go to DOJ, I don't think they can record anything, but they can take notes and look through all of these documents. They're going to have a lot of questions. And I think that drip, drip, drip is not good for this administration because to say, hey, we've given you everything, we're never holding anything back, that's one thing. But to have numbers go and say, okay, you did give us this redacted stuff, but why when we go look at what's behind the redactions, do we have way more questions? then we do have, you know, answers and solutions to what's happened. Even if DOJ feels like they're being transparent, and yes, you do have to protect the victim identities and those kinds of things, there are plenty of critics from both sides of the aisle who say, no, this has not been transparent. Just let's be done with it. And, you know, a lot of us have questions as to why Ghislaine Maxwell is the only one sitting in jail with respect to all of these allegations. Fox News Sunday, Ingers, Shannon Bream. Thank you so much for joining us. Yes, thank you.

2026 marks 250 years of America. And throughout the year, Bill Hammer takes listeners on a journey through the 250 most impactful moments in American history. Listen and follow now at Fox News Podcasts.com. This is Dr. Ben Carson with your Fox News Commentary coming up. Part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda promoted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. is less medication, take better care of yourself. There's clearly a major problem with over-prescription. Millions of American kids take medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The National Institutes of Health is putting a spotlight on a study about those prescription stimulants led by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. It finds they don't actually affect brain networks that control attention, is that they affect the brain similarly as getting more sleep. That suggests getting more sleep could help with managing ADHD. The NIH says about one in nine kids in the U.S. have been diagnosed with it at some point. It's actually a clinical observational diagnosis that basically says that a person has a problem with both attention and hyperactivity. Fox News Senior Medical Analyst, Dr. Mark Siegel. Something is causing you not to be able to have a sustained attention for a period of time. And that, what is that? variable? What causes somebody to be unable to sustain their attention? And you might imagine if there's a task at hand and you can't sustain your attention, you might get anxious or hyperactive because you're unable to perform the task. Or conversely, being hyperactive or anxious may interfere with your cognitive abilities to perform the task. Got it. So ADHD and anxiety, how are they distinct? They're really not distinct. Attention, deficit, hyperactivity disorder, and anxiety goes hand in hand. That's why one of the reasons the diagnosis is so difficult to make. Because if you're anxious, you're not going to be able to perform a sustained task. It's going to interfere with that ability. So it takes a really skilled clinician to be able to tell which is which, which is the horse and which is the cart. Right. So what even is the test? Is it just how do you feel one to four here, one to five, one to ten, or whatever, and then you add up the scores and figure out what you think this is? Well, that's using a strict test. criteria. Another way that this is looked at is, what are you doing over time in order to be able to complete your task? A clinician can make this diagnosis. The test can be contributory. But it's not like you take a test and you have a diagnosis. I think that's one of the things we're getting wrong here. Because the reason for having the symptoms of ADHD is multifactorial. Let's call it pseudo-ADHD. Maybe it's not really ADHD, but something that's interfering with your ability to perform your tasks. The other problem is that if you intervene and you start a therapeutic and it works, you think you have the right diagnosis, but it may not be correct. So it's both over and underdiagnosed. Who's doing the diagnosing? What's bringing something to their attention? Does the treatment work? Does that mean you had the diagnosis? All of that is in play here.

Yeah, okay. Well, let's talk about this specific study. The researchers found that prescription stem be ones for ADHD act on brain networks that control wakefulness, but not attention. Now, why is that surprising compared to past assumption? And does it matter what brain networks that affects as long as it helps? This is a hugely important study at the Washington University because we assumed. that the part of the brain that's responsible for attention is the same part of the brain that if there's a problem with that, it leads to attention deficit. It would seem that those things go together. Attention part of the brain, problem with that it's part, attention deficit occurs. It turns out, and this is something we really needed to look at, that if kids looked at this study over a couple of years of over 5,000 participants, If kids didn't sleep properly, then the part of the brain that was affected by lack of sleep. is the same part of the brain that's affected by what we're calling attention deficit. And furthermore, that if you give a stimulant to kids, that the stimulant actually acts on the part of the brain that you get from sleeplessness to counter it. So if you sleep, you do just as well as if you had one of these stimulants at performing tasks. I believe strongly in that, because I don't think you can even begin to assess. the issue of attention deficit or anxiety for that matter, which is a distinct entity. I don't think you can actually assess these things until somebody is well rested. So you have to start with the sleep and then go for, I mean, is it a chicken and egg thing too? I mean, ADHD can affect sleep quality, which can then affect ADHD. And some people say, look, these meds help me sleep. It's a chicken and egg thing. because it actually doesn't matter what your diagnosis is. It matters whether you have a problem and if we can treat it. And if the same thing is causing you to not be able to be attentive from lack of sleep and we correct the lack of sleep and you become more attentive as a result, nobody's going to argue, let's keep you sleepless and use a stimulant instead. That's not the way we should be treating people, especially children who are developing. Let's get to the heart of the problem and use the least invasive. treatment. That's good medicine. So if the part of the brain that involves sleeplessness is the same part of the brain that involves these stimulants, let's hold these stimulants for Plan B or C. Let's correct the behavioral issues first. It's one of the reasons that some really good clinicians believe in... cognitive behavioral therapy before they believe in medications. That's another way of correcting the problem. If the problem with attentiveness is societal, due to too many cell phones, due to distractibility that can be corrected with therapy, that may be an approach that precedes the use of stimulants in many cases, and yet it's being overlooked. If getting a good night's sleep and having less caffeine is a first step,

That should be considered more. On the other hand, you could argue that ADHD itself causes sleeplessness, which then becomes a vicious cycle. I agree with that too. But there again, if there's a part of the brain that involves the same exact receptors, I think you try to do the least invasive first to correct it. Yeah, so it's not just as simple of... sleep nine hours a night and throw your meds away, it's let's look at all of it holistically. Well, no, no, it's as simple as let's try the least invasive first. You may, I'm not saying some people don't need the meds, but don't use the meds instead of sleep. Let's correct what we can correct most easily first, do no harm, and then consider the meds. If all of this is doable, don't assume that a sleepless person needs meds. is my conclusion. We've spoken before about, for example, autism and how much of the increase in diagnoses is about awareness, maybe new diagnostic methods. Now, look, there's always been people with autism. There have always been people with ADHD, whatever we called it in the past, if we called it anything. But, like you've also said, sometimes the new awareness can lead to, you say, overly broad. diagnosis or misdiagnosis, right? Yes, the increased awareness of conditions and diagnostic ability on conditions like ADHD and autism lead to an increase in diagnosis. But the key here is who's doing the diagnosing? Do they have special expertise in this area? Are they a school person, a teacher who may not have special ability? Is it a therapist, an occupational therapist, that suddenly leads to a treadmill where a diagnosis is made, where there's pressure to get the diagnosis made and the treatment in place? I would caution against that. I do believe there's a real increase in autism, and we don't know exactly why yet. Some of this is genetic factors. Some of this may be exposure. in the womb. Some of this may be environmental factors in the womb, speaking about autism and ADHD. Both of those things are on the increase. Both of them are on the increase, in part because of our sensitivity to these diagnoses and are diagnosing and over-diagnosing them. That's causing them to be on the increase. On the other hand, I believe also that there's something triggering this in the environment. With ADHD, that seems more than autism to really lend itself to self-diagnosis and sometimes self-misdiagnosis. You know, say you're flipping around on social media and, you know, it hits you with, do you have a hard time focusing? Well, yes, sometimes. And then you, you know, we'll take this quiz. And obviously it's going to point you to a diagnosis that's going to then sell you whatever it is they're selling as a treatment. But that's why we have an over-medicated society. That's why we have a society that's what we call a sick care system, because you're quickly on a treadmill where everybody wants to give you a quick answer, a quick solution, and get the problem solved. And it's based on performance rather than on a deep understanding about what the condition is. That's why a study that shows that sleep is a factor here would seem to be...

common sense, but has been overlooked, which is tragic. I think we need a deeper understanding of what's causing a departure from what we're calling normal behavior. We need to look at sleep. We need to look at cell phone use. We need to look at who's doing the diagnosing and what's their purpose of doing the diagnosing. It may just be to... get people to comply to a given standard of behavior. That's not the correct therapeutic approach. Yeah. And now if a parent brings in a kid and they're at their wits end because this kid is having what could be behavioral problems, whatever it is, those parents just want answers right now. And I guess a lot of doctors are just willing to try to give it to them instead of saying, well, is the kid getting enough sleep? What are you feeding the kid, et cetera? I don't know if I blame the parents for this. I think it's pressure the parents are under for the most part. It's not 100%. Sometimes it's the parent wanting to have a diagnosis. Sometimes it's the teacher. Sometimes it's the environment the kids are in. But one thing's for sure. We need to take a step back here and add just exactly what you just said. What is the child eating? There's the food have a lot of caffeine in it. Does the food increase your risk of... being unable to pay attention? Is it the lack of sleep? Is it the overuse of cell phones? Is it the bombardment of a person with external stimuli in a current society? Are those the causes, or is it an actual diagnosis of attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder that requires, first, a look at cognitive behavioral therapy, second, a possible use of stimulants? Finally, just sleep. Better sleep in general. is a good idea for most people. And it can help with a lot of things with diseases of the body. Explain why and how sleep isn't a waste of time. It's actually part of living and how our brains work and our bodies work. Well, sleep is restorative. Sleep cleanses the brain. Sleep resets a lot of things. Sleep allows the neurons to rest in the brain, which then makes them perform better. It's fascinating to find out. that the same area of the brain that's involved with sleep is also involved with stimulants that basically induce a pseudo state that you would have reached more naturally if you had slept, a pseudo state. And so we're not doing our kids and our teens as service by jumping to the use of medications prematurely. Sleep itself is restorative for anyone, and especially for people who are having an inability to perform. tasks and to do well in either school or work. And the overdiagnosis of ADHD is a symptom for what's wrong with our approach to our children and our society in terms of wanting people to be healthy is what we should want rather than trying to parse out exactly what's wrong and correct it prematurely. Dr. Mark Siegel, Fox News Senior Medical Analyst, Dr. Siegel, thank you. Thanks a lot, my friend. Thank you. Anytime.

And now, some good news with Tanya J. Powers. A decades-long friendship has led Bob Walker to do something extraordinary. Travel 14,000 miles to share a final beer with a friend. Last month, Walker made the 7,000-mile trip from Indonesia to Scotland to see Peter Gould. Then he turned around and headed back home the next day. Gould, who is 82, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in December. He and Walker, who was 67, met in 1986 while working as aircraft engineers in New Guinea. Even though they've lived in different countries for most of their lives, they stayed in close contact through the years. They got to work together again in 1996 when both took jobs at Manchester Airport in the UK, where their families also became close before relocating to different cities again. Walker says as soon as he heard about Gould's health, he knew he had to visit him. Before he made the trip, Walker even managed to find a six-pack of their favorite beer, South Pacific Lager, contacting someone who had a few cans left and donated them when he heard about Walker's plan. So on January 16th, armed with his six-pack, Walker surprised Gould in his hometown, where they shared a drink and reminisced about their years. Gould said he was deeply moved by the gesture and that he's, quote, grateful for it. Walker said the trip was more than worth it for his old friend, saying, quote, there's not many opportunities where you can actually say goodbye to people, so I really wanted to make the journey. Tanya J. Powers, Fox News.

I'm Dana Perino. This week on Perino on politics, I'm joined by the host of Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy and the Trey Gowdy podcast. That would be Trey Gowdy. Available now on Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Subscribe to this podcast at foxnewspodcast.com. It's time for your Fox News Commentary. Dr. Ben Carson. What's on your mind? We all have deeply held belief. And thankfully, We live in a nation where we can freely express our ideas without fear of government oppression. That freedom is one of the nation's greatest strengths. But freedom also comes with responsibility, especially for those entrusted with the lives of others. Recently, several shocking incidents have brought to light a disturbing trend. Doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals are putting politics and ideology ahead of their duty to protect the health and safety of their patients. The examples are Legion. The nurse in Florida posted on TikTok, wishing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt a severe fourth-degree tear during childbirth. Detectives in New York City. who were injured while making an arrest, were reportedly treated rudely and disrespectfully by hospital workers because staff suspected that they were ICE agents. Even internationally, in Sydney, Australia, two health care workers threatened to kill an Israeli man and claim they had harmed Jewish patients in their care. These incidents are more than just shocking, unacceptable lapses in judgment. They are violations of trust and ethical responsibility that are central to medicine. Common sense tells us that no one should have to worry that a healthcare provider's political or religious beliefs will affect their ability to care. Yet these incidents make that concern all too real. When healthcare professionals publicly wish harm on someone, they have never met. They violate the most fundamental principles of their profession. How can patients be expected to trust a system in which those entrusted with their lives might treat them differently because of their views, religion, or background? And what happens when a patient challenges them? or is perceived to be difficult because of this fear patients may delay seeking care or choose to avoid care entirely ultimately the health care industry exists to heal people not to advance political agendas professionals who cannot meet this standard should not be entrusted with the health and lives of others protecting trust in health care is not optional It is essential to the safety and well-being of all Americans. It does us no good to have amazing ways to heal the sick if patients do not trust us to act in their best interests regardless of any other factor. The medical profession demands more than skill. It demands character, integrity, and compassion. If we allow personal beliefs to compromise care, we risk lives.

Common sense, foundational faith, and ethical responsibility must guide our health care system if we hope to maintain trust and ensure that every patient is treated with dignity, respect, and the care they deserve. This is Ben Carson. I was the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the Emeritus Professor of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine, as well as the founder and chairman of American Cornerstone Institute. You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now, stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon Music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to foxnews.com.