A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked an executive order from President Donald Trump that would cancel collective bargaining rights for most federal workers.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman blocked the Trump administration from implementing the order following a lawsuit from the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents about 160,000 federal employees.
The union claims in the lawsuit that the order would violate federal workers’ labor rights and is unconstitutional, adding that it would lose two-thirds of its membership and half of its dues if they order is allowed to go through.
The order exempted more than a dozen agencies from the requirement to bargain with unions, including the departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services departments.
It affects around 75% of the nearly one million federal workers represented by unions and expands an existing rule that exempts national security agencies like the FBI and CIA from collective bargaining requirements.
The U.S. Treasury Department also filed a lawsuit against the NTEU following the order to invalidate a collective bargaining agreement involving IRS employees.
The order is part of the administration’s efforts to lessen the size of the federal government, by making it easier to discipline and fire workers and change working conditions.
The temporary injunction will remain in place pending the outcome of the NTEU lawsuit.
Friedman said he would issue an opinion explaining his ruling in the next few days.
He also gave attorneys on both sides a week to propose how the lawsuit should move forward.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Virginia Giuffre, who alleged Britain’s Prince Andrew abused her when she was a teenager, has died by suicide, her family said. She was 41.
Police confirmed that emergency services found a woman unresponsive in her home near Perth, Western Australia, on Friday night. She was pronounced dead at the scene after first aid was unsuccessful.
Her death is not being treated as suspicious, police said.
Giuffre, a mother of three, was one of the most prominent accusers of the wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In 2019, she publicly alleged Epstein trafficked her and forced her to have sex with his friends, including Prince Andrew, when she was 17 years old.
She also claimed the prince was aware she was underage in the US at the time.
Prince Andrew repeatedly denied the claims.
“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,” read a statement from the family.
“She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.”
“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors.”
“In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”
Help is available if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters. In the US, call or text 988, for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Globally, the International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide have contact information for crisis centers around the world.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo on Friday calling for a review of Military Equal Opportunity and DoD civilian Equal Employment Opportunity programs. The secretaries of each military department are required under the memo to assess the programs in place within their own departments.
In a video posted on X announcing the memo, Hegseth said that while it’s ‘a good thing’ that the military has multiple avenues for both service members and civilians to complain about harassment and discrimination, the systems have been ‘weaponized’ and used ‘in bad faith to retaliate against superiors or peers.’
The memo’s official title is ‘Restoring Good Order and Discipline Through Balanced Accountability,’ but Hegseth says he calls it the ‘No More Walking on Eggshells’ policy.
‘So, here’s the goal: empower leaders to make tough decisions, enforce standards, and restore good order and discipline,’ Hegseth said in the video.
The memo directs the secretaries to ensure that complaints that ‘are unsubstantiated by actionable, credible evidence are timely dismissed.’ Additionally, ‘favorable actions,’ such as awards and promotions, involving the alleged offender are to be considered until the complaint is substantiated. Finally, the memo states that those who ‘knowingly submit false complaints’ may face discipline.
The secretaries have 45 days to complete their reviews.
Hegseth is no stranger to controversy and has faced several allegations since being tapped to lead DoD. It is not a stretch to imagine that he might have empathy for those facing false or unsubstantiated allegations.
Prior to his confirmation, Hegseth faced allegations of sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse and mismanagement of veterans’ organizations. This included an affidavit by his former sister-in-law in which she alleged that Hegseth was physically abusive to his ex-wife, Samantha ‘Sam’ Hegseth. However, Sam denied the allegations, saying she did not experience physical abuse during her marriage to Hegseth.
Hegseth told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing that he is not a ‘perfect person,’ but asserted that he was the subject of a ‘coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media.’
Additionally, since becoming secretary of defense, Hegseth has been involved in two scandals regarding the encrypted messaging app Signal.
The first scandal occurred when The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a Signal chat in which there were discussions about plans for the U.S. to strike Yemen. While National Security Advisor Mike Waltz took a lot of heat for the situation, Hegseth was not spared from criticism. In the end, the Trump administration insisted that the discussions in the group did not actually involve ‘war plans.’
On Sunday, Hegseth was accused of sharing military information in a Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal attorney. The New York Times reported that people with knowledge of the situation said the information ‘included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen.’
Hegseth told ‘FOX & Friends’ that the allegations were meant to ‘sabotage’ President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Despite an op-ed suggesting that Hegseth could be on the way out, the White House has stood behind him.
‘He is bringing monumental change to the Pentagon, and there’s a lot of people in the city who reject monumental change, and I think, frankly, that’s why we’ve seen a smear campaign against the Secretary of Defense since the moment that President Trump announced his nomination before the United States Senate,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.
Ruma was having lunch on a summer day in 2021 when her phone began blowing up with notifications.
When she opened the messages, they were devastating. Photos of her face had been taken from social media and edited onto naked bodies, shared with dozens of users in a chat room on the messaging app Telegram.
The comments in screen shots of the chat room were demeaning and vulgar – as were the texts from the anonymous messenger who had sent her the images. “Isn’t it funny? … Watching your own sex video,” they wrote. “Tell me you honestly enjoy this.”
The harassment escalated into threats to share the images more widely and taunts that police wouldn’t be able to find the perpetrators. The sender seemed to know her personal details, but she had no way to identify them.
In the summer of 2021, photos of Ruma’s face were taken from social media and edited onto naked bodies. The animated video includes some of the messages she received from the perpetrator.CNN
While revenge porn – the nonconsensual sharing of sexual images – has been around for nearly as long as the internet, the proliferation of AI tools means that anyone can be targeted by explicit deepfakes, even if they’ve never taken or sent a nude photo.
South Korea has had a particularly fraught recent history of digital sex crimes, from hidden cameras in public facilities to Telegram chat rooms where women and girls were coerced and blackmailed into posting demeaning sexual content.
But deepfake technology is now posing a new threat, and the crisis is particularly acute in schools. Between January and early November last year, more than 900 students, teachers and staff in schools reported that they fell victim to deepfake sex crimes, according to data from the country’s education ministry. Those figures do not include universities, which have also seen a spate of deepfake porn attacks.
In response, the ministry established an emergency task force. And in September, legislators passed an amendment that made possessing and viewing deepfake porn punishable by up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won (over $20,000).
Creating and distributing non-consensual deepfake explicit images now has a maximum prison sentence of seven years, up from five.
South Korea’s National Police Agency has urged its officers to “take the lead in completely eradicating deepfake sex crimes.”
But of 964 deepfake-related sex crime cases reported from January to October last year, police made 23 arrests, according to a Seoul National Police statement.
Victims taking action
Ruma was a 27-year-old university student when her nightmare first began. When she went to the police, they told her they would request user information from Telegram, but warned the platform was notorious for not sharing such data, she said.
Once an outgoing student who enjoyed school and an active social life, Ruma said the incident had completely changed her life.
“It broke my whole belief system about the world,” she said. “The fact that they could use such vulgar, rough images to humiliate and violate you to that extreme extent really damages you almost irrevocably.”
She decided to act after learning that investigations into reports by other students had ended after a few months, with police citing difficulty in identifying suspects.
Ruma and fellow students sought help from Won Eun-ji, an activist who gained national fame for exposing South Korea’s largest digital sex crime group on Telegram in 2020.
Won agreed to help, creating a fake Telegram account and posing as a man in his 30s to infiltrate the chat room where the deepfake images had circulated. She spent nearly two years carefully gathering information and engaging other users in conversation, before coordinating with police to help carry out a sting operation.
When police confronted the suspect, Won sent him a Telegram message. His phone pinged – he had been caught.
Two former students from the prestigious Seoul National University (SNU) were arrested last May. The main perpetrator was ultimately sentenced to 9 years in prison for producing and distributing sexually exploitative materials, while an accomplice was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.
Excerpts of the ruling shared by Ruma’s lawyers state, “The fake explicit materials produced by the perpetrator are repugnant, and the conversations surrounding them are shocking … They targeted victims as if they were hunting prey, sexually insulted the victims and destroyed their dignity by using photos from graduations, weddings, and family gatherings.”
Ruma’s case is just one of thousands across South Korea – and some victims had less help from police.
Public often unsympathetic
“My hands started to shake,” she recalled. “When could this photo have been taken, and who would upload such a thing?”
But she said the situation worsened two days later. Her hair was made messy, and her body was altered to make it look like she was looking back. The manipulated picture of her face was added onto nude photos. The sophisticated technology made the images unnervingly realistic.
Police told her that their only option to identify the poster was to request user information from Twitter, the social media platform bought by Elon Musk in 2022 and rebranded as X in 2023, with an emphasis on free speech and privacy.
Kim and a colleague, also a victim of a secret filming, feared that using official channels to identify the user would take too long andlaunched their own investigation.
They identified the person: a quiet, introverted student “someone you’d never imagine doing such a thing,” Kim said.
The person was charged but regardless of what happens in court, she said life will never be the same.
She said a lack of public empathy has frustrated her too. “I read a lot of articles and comments about deepfakes saying, ‘Why is it a serious crime when it’s not even your real body?’” Kim said.
According to X’s current policy, obtaining user information involves obtaining a subpoena, court order, or other valid legal document and submitting a request on law enforcement letterhead via its website.
X says it’s company policy to inform users that a request has been made.
Its rules on authenticity state that users “may not share inauthentic content on X that may deceive people or lead to harm.”
Pressure on social platforms to act
Won, the activist, said that for a long time, sharing and viewing sexual content of women was not considered a serious offense in South Korea.
Though pornography is banned, authorities have long failed to enforce the law or punish offenders, Won said.
Societal apathy makes it easier for perpetrators to commit digital sex crimes, Won said, including what she called “acquaintance humiliation.”
“Acquaintance humiliation” often begins with perpetrators sharing photos and personal information of women they know on Telegram, offering to create deepfake content or asking others to do so. Victims live in fear as attackers often know their personal information – where they live, work, and even details about their families – posing real threats to their safety and allowing anonymous users to harass women directly.
Since South Korea’s largest digital sex exploitation case on Telegramin 2020, Won said the sexual exploitation ecosystem had fluctuated, shrinking during large-scale police investigations but expanding again once authorities ease off.
Online platforms are also under pressure to act.
Telegram, which has become a fertile space for various digital crimes, announced it would begin sharing user data with authorities as part of a broader crackdown on illegal activities.
The move came after the company’s CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in August in France on a warrant relating to Telegram’s lack of moderation, marking a turning point for a platform long recognized for its commitment to privacy and encrypted messaging. Durov is under formal investigation but has been allowed to leave France, he said in a post on Telegram.
Last September, South Korea’s media regulator said Telegram had agreed to establish a hotline to help wipe illegal content from the app, and that the company had removed 148 digital sex crime videos as requested by the regulator.
Won welcomed this move, but with some skepticism – saying governments should remove the app from app stores, to prevent new users from signing up, if Telegram doesn’t show substantial progress soon. “This is something that has been delayed for far too long,” she said.
A meaningful breakthrough occurred this January, marking the first time Korean authorities successfully obtained crime-related data from Telegram, according to Seoul police.
Fourteen people were arrested, including six minors, for allegedly sexually exploiting over 200 victims through Telegram. The criminal ring’s mastermind had allegedly targeted men and women of various ages since 2020, and more than 70 others were under investigation for allegedly creating and sharing deepfake exploitation materials, Seoul police said.
“No matter how much punishments are strengthened, there are still far more victims who suffer because their perpetrators have not been caught, and that’s why it feels like the verdict is still far from being a true realization of change or justice,” Ruma said. “There’s a long way to go.”
Gunmen have killed at least 20 people in an attack in a gold mining village in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara state, residents and Amnesty International said.
Details on a possible motive for the attack were not immediately known but Zamfara state has grappled with kidnappings for ransom by armed gangs, who also target security forces.
Zamfara police’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Ismail Hassan, a resident, told Reuters that gunmen in their hundreds opened fire on miners on Thursday afternoon and a firefight ensued with over 20 people dead in the mining village of Gobirawa Chali in the Maru local government area of Zamfara state.
Another resident, Isah Ibrahim, said they had recovered 21 bodies following the attack and that several were injured.
Amnesty International said in a statement the gunmen went house-to-house in Gobirawa Chali, killing over 20 people.
Armed gangs of men have killed and kidnapped hundreds across northwest Nigeria over the past two years, typically operating from remote forests. The country’s thinly stretched armed forces have struggled to secure the large, remote regions.
Nigeria’s military is stretched by insecurity across the country, including an Islamist insurgency in the northeast, deadly farmer-herder clashes in the central belt and clashes with separatist movements in the south.
President Donald Trump’s patience is being tested by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched a barrage of airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv, killing 12 people and injuring nearly 100 more this week, one day ahead of Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s fourth visit to Moscow.
Trump told reporters Friday he believes it is ‘possible’ and even ‘very probable’ his administration will negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
‘I think, in the end, we’re going to end up with a lot of good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals. We’re going to make our country rich,’ Trump said ahead of his departure for Rome. ‘We’re going to try and get out of war so that we can save 5,000 people a week. That’s what my aim is.’
Trump repeated that he has no deadline for a deal, only that one must be ironed out ‘as fast as possible.’
He made his comments one week after the U.S. threatened to abandon talks if Russia and Ukraine didn’t soon reach a deal and one day after Trump issued a direct message to Putin on social media to ‘stop’ bombing Ukraine.
‘I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5,000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s get the peace deal DONE,’ he wrote.
Trump also conceded that his repeated claims from the campaign trail that he would have the war in Ukraine stopped within 24 hours of taking office were not based on realistic goals but were ‘figurative.’
‘I said that as an exaggeration,’ he told reporters, again blaming the war on his predecessor, President Biden.
But it appears Trump’s verbal warnings to Putin have fallen on deaf ears, similar to the results of Biden’s verbal warnings. Trump has repeatedly accused Biden of being partly at fault for the war, though he has not explained why.
Former Moscow CIA Station Chief Dan Hoffman said he and other security experts repeatedly warned that, under the Biden administration, Ukraine was not sufficiently armed to adequately take on Russia.
‘After failing to deter Putin’s invasion, the Biden administration just kept Ukraine in the fight but didn’t give Ukraine a chance to punch back fast enough or hard enough,’ he said.
‘There are three options,’ Hoffman added, explaining how the U.S. can use its position as leverage over Moscow. ‘One, entice Russia. That’s what Trump is trying to do with trade deals and eliminating sanctions. And Putin has kind of plowed through that by rejecting confidence-building ceasefire deals.
‘The second option is to make Putin pay on the battlefield so that he feels so much pain he has to stop the invasion,’ he added. ‘We convince Putin that we’re going to rearm Ukraine by saying, ‘We’ve offered you a great deal. You don’t want the deal, we’re going to arm the Ukrainians.
‘The third option is to just walk away and let Europe fend for themselves and support Ukraine as much as they can. We would run the risk that Russia would take more territory from Ukraine. That would be a victory for Russia and its allies – China, North Korea and Iran.
‘Let them do it, and then you’ll pay the price everywhere else in the world,’ Hoffman warned, referring to China’s threats against Taiwan. ‘Americans don’t like to fight wars. OK, we don’t like to lose wars either.’
An official with knowledge of the talks told Fox News Digital Friday that ‘Ambassador Witkoff is in Russia to meet with President Putin as part of President Trump’s efforts to make peace.
‘It’s long past time for the death and destruction to stop, to move past the failed strategies of the past and for an end to this devastating conflict,’ the official added without commenting on the ‘substance of negotiations.’
A report by Axios this week suggested the White House had extended a ‘final offer’ to Ukraine and Russia that called on Kyiv to recognize Russia’s occupation of nearly all the Luhansk region and the occupied areas of the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
It also said the U.S. would agree to recognize Crimea, which Putin illegally seized from Ukraine in 2014, as now legally a part of Russia, and that Washington would lift sanctions.
Neither the White House nor the National Security Council responded to Fox News Digital’s repeated questions about whether there will be consequences for Putin should he fail to enter into an agreement with Ukraine.
The administration also did not comment on why it believes Putin wants to enter into an agreement with the U.S. when security officials have repeatedly warned otherwise.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already said he will not acknowledge Crimea as a part of Russia but rather as Ukrainian land illegally occupied by Russia.
Zelenskyy also on Thursday posted a 2018 ‘Crimea declaration’ by Trump’s first-term Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, which said, ‘No country can change the borders of another by force’ in a move to signify Trump’s apparent position change that now favors Russia.
Pope Francis’ wooden coffin is to be sealed on Friday night, in a private rite that officially ends three days of his body lying in state at the Vatican.
About 250,000 people filed through St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their final respects to Francis, who was the first pope from Latin America and the first from the Jesuit order.
The liturgical rite of sealing his coffin is being led by the Cardinal Camerlengo Kevin Farrell, the acting head of the church, who is tasked with making arrangements for the pope’s funeral. Farrell, a Dublin-born cleric who became a naturalized American citizen, was formerly the Bishop of Dallas, in Texas.
Other church officials will assist, including the Venezuelan archbishop, the Brazilian prelate and the late pope’s secretaries. A US cardinal accused of mismanaging clerical sexual abuse – the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony – has also been listed as playing an official role.
The ceremony, which will take place behind closed doors, includes several short songs, spoken prayers and a moment for silent prayer.
Farrell will spread a white silk veil over the late pope’s face and sprinkle the body with holy water, according to an order of service released by the Vatican press office earlier this week.
In keeping with tradition, the camerlengo will place several possessions inside the coffin before sealing it, including the pope’s pallium – the long white robe he wore – coins minted during his pontificate and a deed summarizing the highlights of his tenure.
The rite will conclude with a hymn to Mary.
As part of Francis’ push to simplify the papal funeral rites, his body is in a single wooden coffin, rather than having three nested coffins of cypress, lead and oak as was tradition.
Outside the basilica, the streets leading to the Vatican were much busier on Friday afternoon than they were earlier in the week, with thousands joining the line to file past the coffin before the church closed to the public at 7 p.m. local time (1 p.m. ET).
Friday marks the fourth day of national mourning in Italy and a public holiday – Liberation Day – meaning many locals had more time to join the line. Others traveled from much farther away following news of the pope’s death.
“It was wonderful to see him,” said Joana Veiga, from Porto, Portugal, who arrived with her sister in the morning. “It was very peaceful – calm.” Her sister missed a chance to see Francis last year in Portugal, and was thankful that they made it in time for his lying in state.
Pope Francis’ funeral will take place on Saturday on the steps outside of St. Peter’s Basilica at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET). That will mark the beginning of the ancient tradition of the Novemdiales, nine days of mourning for the deceased pope during which funeral Masses are held each day inside the basilica.
His final resting place, in Rome’s Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, will also be simple in style. It will be made of marble from Liguria, northern Italy, where his great-grandfather was from. He asked that the tomb not have ornate decoration, instead only including an image of the cross he wore as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and the Latin inscription of his papal name: Franciscus.
Two Mexican activists who publicized a grisly “extermination camp” linked to organized crime were killed on Thursday in Jalisco, according to Mexican authorities.
The victims are María del Carmen Morales and her son Jaime Daniel Ramírez Morales, both activists for the rights of missing people in Mexico.
Morales is part of the Warrior Searchers of Jalisco, a group dedicated to finding missing people. Morales’s son, Ernesto Julián Ramírez Morales, disappeared on February 24, 2024, in Las Villas de Tlajomulco, Jalisco according to the Warrior Searchers.
In March, her group announced the discovery of the Izaguirre ranch – a site with secret crematoriums and buried human remains, believed to have been a criminal group’s center of operations. The group labeled it an “extermination camp,” where criminals lured prospective recruits and held them against their will, though Mexican authorities have not used that term when discussing the property.
“But that does not mean that it is not being investigated, all avenues must be exhausted”, said Denis Rodríguez, spokesperson for the Jalisco Attorney’s Office.
At her morning briefing on Friday, President Claudia Sheinbaum said that the Mexican Undersecretary for Human Rights would reach out to the Morales family to offer them assistance and called for further investigation.
“This must be thoroughly investigated,” Sheinbaum said. “There can be no conclusion like ‘it had nothing to do with [Morales’s] work.’ It must be thoroughly investigated.”
This is the second case in less than a month of people seeking justice for the disappearance of family members being killed in Jalisco.
Teresa González died on April 2nd after six days in a hospital following a gun attack. According to the group Luz de Esperanza Desaparecidos Jalisco, which participated in the investigations at the Izaguirre ranch, González was attacked with a firearm during an attempted kidnapping.
González was searching for her brother, who disappeared in February 2024 in Guadalajara, the second-largest city in Mexico and one of the areas where most people have disappeared in recent years in the country.
Equity Insider News Commentary Despite the hyperactivity in the markets and with gold prices, analysts at JP Morgan are still predicting $4,000 oz gold prices by Q2 2026 . And the optimism for gold bugs doesn’t end there, as a new report from Morningstar Equity Research is highlighting how these high gold prices support gold miner stocks. Now analysts from Jefferies are raising their price targets for gold mining stocks ahead of upcoming earnings reports. Several gold stocks are providing reason for their recent market attention, including developments from Rua Gold Inc. (TSXV: RUA) (OTCQB: NZAUF), Contango Ore Inc. (NYSE-American: CTGO), Prime Mining Corp. (TSX: PRYM) (OTCQX: PRMNF), Troilus Gold Corp. (TSX: TLG) (OTCQX: CHXMF), and Goliath Resources Limited (TSXV: GOT) (OTCQB: GOTRF).
Seen as a safe haven, demand for the precious metal is on the rise along with prices themselves. As far as miners go, one can look to the ETFs to see that both the VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) and Sprott Junior Gold Miners ETF (SGDJ) have had a stellar 2025 so far, with +44.80% and +39.58% year-to-date performance respectively (as of April 24, 2025 ).
New Zealand -focused gold exploration company, Rua Gold Inc. (TSXV: RUA) (OTCQB: NZAUF) , recently reported encouraging new drill results from its Auld Creek project in the historic Reefton Goldfield, with assays pointing to improved gold grades at depth along the Fraternal ore shoot. Standout intercepts include 9.0 meters at 5.9 g/t gold equivalent (5.2 g/t Au and 0.16% Sb) from hole ACDDH027, and 1.25 meters at 48.3 g/t AuEq (13.3 g/t Au and 8.1% Sb) from ACDDH028. Importantly, these results—returned from 80 to 100 meters beneath the current resource envelope—appear to confirm that gold-antimony mineralization intensifies with depth, supporting the company’s model of a high-grade, south-plunging zone that remains open.
The Auld Creek project represents just one component of RUA’s broader 2025 exploration push across the Reefton district, where the company now holds 95% control over the historic goldfield.
RUA Gold is taking a fresh approach to one of New Zealand’s most storied gold districts—becoming the first modern explorer to deploy advanced geological modeling and AI-driven targeting across the Reefton Goldfield.
And it’s working.
At Auld Creek, the company’s flagship project, early drill campaigns have already delivered hits like 12 meters at 12.2 g/t gold equivalent, including a standout 2 meters at 54.8 g/t gold, while surface sampling has uncovered antimony grades topping 40%. Four mineralized shoots have been confirmed so far, but only two are factored into the current inferred resource: 700,000 tonnes grading 3.1 g/t gold and 1.1% antimony—suggesting considerable room to grow.
Meanwhile, the 2025 drill season is expanding across the district.
Active programs are now underway at Murray Creek and the Gallant prospect within the Cumberland camp. As a target prioritized by modern AI technology, Gallant sits just 3 kilometers from the historic Globe Progress mine, where OceanaGold pulled more than 610,000 ounces of gold between 2007 and 2016, on top of the 424,000 ounces produced before 1950. Taken together, the Reefton belt has historically yielded over 2 million ounces, with grades that once reached 50 g/t.
Gallant is being tested for potential extensions of a previously reported 20.7-meter vein grading 62.2 g/t gold, including a 1-meter blast of 1,911 g/t. At Murray Creek, visible gold has now been noted in the majority of holes—an encouraging sign for a system still in its early innings.
But RUA’s ambitions don’t end in Reefton.
On the North Island, the company is advancing its Glamorgan Project , located near OceanaGold’s Wharekirauponga (WKP) deposit. There, two large gold-arsenic anomalies—spanning more than 4 kilometers—have been mapped, and rock samples have returned assays as high as 43 g/t gold. With drill targeting already underway, Glamorgan could emerge as the company’s next high-impact play.
Although gold remains the central theme, antimony is quietly shaping up as a strategic wild card . In January 2025 , New Zealand added antimony to its official Critical Minerals List . With global supplies tightening and prices rising above US$50,000 per tonne , intercepts like 0.3 meters at 27.2 g/t gold and 1.35% Sb are starting to draw meaningful investor attention.
With a team behind $11 billion in mining exits , and $5.75 million in fresh capital, Rua Gold is not just exploring—it’s executing on a clear plan to unlock overlooked, high-grade potential across one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most underexplored gold belts.
CONTINUED… Read this and more news for Rua Gold at: https://equity-insider.com/2025/04/24/others-found-1911-g-t-here-before-now-a-proven-11b-mining-team-is-back-to-finish-the-job/
In other industry developments and happenings in the market include:
Contango Ore Inc. (NYSE-American: CTGO) recently announced a $9 million cash distribution from the Peak Gold JV , bringing total proceeds from Manh Choh gold sales in 2025 to $33 million .
‘Operations remain on track at Manh Choh with Contango’s share of gold production for 2025 expected to be 60,000 ounces at the previously guided all-in-sustaining costs (‘AISC’) of $1,625 per ounce of gold sold for 2025,’ Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse , President and CEO of Contango Ore . ‘We plan to release financial results from the Q1-2025 on May 14, 2025 .’
The first of four production campaigns has now been completed, with 20,000 ounces delivered to Contango’s account. A second campaign is scheduled to begin mid-May, with full-year production guidance holding at 60,000 ounces.
‘On our Johnson Tract, we are in final stages of completing the previously announced preliminary economic assessment(‘ PEA’) and expect to have it released by the end of April,’ added Van Nieuwenhuyse .
Prime Mining Corp. (TSX: PRYM) (OTCQX: PRMNF) continues to advance its Los Reyes Project in Sinaloa, Mexico , with high-grade gold-silver intercepts from multiple zones, including Z-T, Central, Guadalupe East, Las Primas, and Fresnillo . Recent drilling highlights included 42.07 g/t AuEq over 1.0 m at Guadalupe East and 9.39 g/t AuEq over 10.5 m at Z-T, while new results from the Fresnillo generative target show near-surface mineralization extended by 120 metres .
‘2024 proved to be another transformational year for Prime: we drilled over 50,000 metres, expanded the Los Reyes resource, advanced technical de-risking and worked closely with our communities to earn our social license to operate,’ said Scott Hicks , CEO of Prime . ‘In 2025, we are looking forward to continuing our track record of exploration success while demonstrating our deep commitment to our local communities and the environment. We additionally plan to advance our understanding of Los Reyes toward a Preliminary Economic Assessment.’
Troilus Gold Corp. (TSX: TLG) (OTCQX: CHXMF) recently signed a mandate letter with a syndicate of global financial institutions, including Societe Generale , KfW IPEX-Bank , and Export Development Canada , to arrange up to US$700 million in structured project debt financing. This follows US$1.3 billion in previously announced LOIs from export credit agencies and marks a major step toward a fully funded construction package.
‘Securing this mandate with three globally recognized financial institutions that have expertise in structuring financing solutions for large-scale mining development is a pivotal step in delivering a fully funded construction package for the Troilus project,’ said Justin Reid , CEO of Troilus . ‘These institutions bring world-class mining finance expertise, and their participation further validates the project’s strong fundamentals and strategic importance. Project due diligence is underway in parallel with continued permitting and detailed engineering; our development schedule is on track as we advance Troilus towards construction.’
Goliath Resources Limited (TSXV: GOT) (OTCQB: GOTRF) recently definitively confirmed its Surebet discovery as part of a large-scale, high-grade Reduced Intrusion Related Gold (RIRG) system, following a detailed geological study by the Colorado School of Mines . The study confirms two distinct but related mineralization styles tied to a single magmatic source, with visible gold increasing in grade and coarseness at depth.
Drilling has intercepted gold in 100% of 243 holes across a 1.8 km² area, including intercepts of 34.52 g/t AuEq over 39.0 meters. With the system still open in all directions, Surebet presents a compelling case for a major gold discovery in the heart of British Columbia’s Golden Triangle.
‘When you consider how widespread the high-grade gold mineralization is in the veins and RIRG zones, the source is potentially extremely large,’ said Roger Rosmus , Founder and CEO of Goliath Resources . ‘The more drilling and scientific studies we do at the Surebet discovery, the better it gets, and we are still high in the system that is open in all directions, and we are delighted with the prospect with what can be found as we continue to laterally and drill deeper for the source of the high-grade gold system.’
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Vancouver, British Columbia TheNewswire – April 25 th, 2025 Juggernaut Exploration Ltd. (TSX-V: JUGR) (OTCQB: JUGRF) (FSE: 4JE) (the ‘Company’ or ‘Juggernaut’), further to its April 14 th and April 23 rd 2025, news releases, the Company is pleased to announce a further increase in its non-brokered financing of up to $9,557,000. Juggernaut welcomes this strategic investment from Crescat Capital Funds LLC (‘Crescat’) and technical support from Dr Quinton Hennigh. Juggernaut’s Big One Project is garnering strong interest and support from leading institutions and miners globally, confirming the quality of the newly discovered 11 km Highway of Gold surrounding the Eldorado porphyry system on the Big One property. The exciting discovery is in an area of glacial and snowpack abatement next door to the gold-rich porphyry systems at Newmont Mining’s Galore Creek. The Big One Property is a discovery previously announced Jan 20 th (Click Link) with assays up to 79.01 gt gold (2.54 ozt gold) and 3157.89 gt silver (101.5 ozt silver) from over 200 gold-silver-copper rich polymetallic veins up to 8 m wide and striking for up to 500 m that all remain open at surface. The Big One Project covers 33,693 hectares in a world-class geologic terrane with tremendous additional discovery potential in the heart of the Golden Triangle, British Columbia.
Dr. Quinton Hennigh has taken on the role of special technical advisor to the Company. He is the technical consultant for all Crescat’s gold and silver mining investments. Dr. Hennigh is a world-renowned exploration geologist with over 40 years of experience with major gold mining firms, Homestake Mining, Newcrest Mining, Newmont Mining, and Kirkland Lake/Fosterville. In just the last five years, Dr. Hennigh was instrumental in several material discoveries, including Goliath / Surebet, Newfound / Queensway, SCM / Isidorito, Eloro / Iska Iska, Snowline / Valley, Sitka / RC Gold Project, and Tectonic / Flat.
Dr. Hennigh stated , ‘The Big One gold-silver project has a very similar feel to Goliath’s Surebet gold discovery. To date, reconnaissance prospecting and sampling conducted by Juggernaut’s exploration team have identified a multitude of multi-meter thick quartz-sulfide veins, many of which have yielded +oz per tonne Au and multi-oz per tonne Ag assays. Early indications suggest there is a genetic association of veins with late-stage magmatism in the area, an association seen at Surebet. This season, Juggernaut has a clear mandate to follow up on these results with detailed mapping and channel sampling, much like Goliath did during the early days of the Surebet discovery. The Company’s mission is to get as many targets as possible ready for drill testing either late season or for 2026. I am very eager to see if a new ‘Surebet’ type discovery is in hand.
View Juggernaut videos by Clicking Here .
The charity flow-through funding will now consist of up to 9,160,000 charity flow-through units (‘CFT Units’), priced at $0.825 each, for gross proceeds of up to $7,557,000. Each CFT Unit will consist of one charity flow-through common share plus one warrant to purchase one non-flow-through common share at $0.75 for a sixty-month period with a forced accelerated conversion after 10 consecutive trading days at or above $1.50, callable at management’s discretion.
Juggernaut is concurrently raising up to 4,000,000 hard dollar units priced at $0.50 each for gross proceeds of up to $2,000,000. Each hard dollar unit will consist of one common share plus one warrant at $0.75 for a sixty-month period with a forced accelerated conversion after 10 consecutive trading days at or above $1.50, callable at management’s discretion, upon completion of the charity flow-through and hard dollar financings for a combined total of $9,557,000, which is projected to close on or before May 15, 2025. The proceeds will be used to explore Juggernaut’s properties located in Northwestern B.C. and for general working capital.
‘Gold exploration is all about swinging for the fence. Persevering with a diversified portfolio of great management and technical teams with bold targets is the key. The cool thing about Juggernaut is that it has the same geologic team as the one behind Goliath Resources, where their Surebet gold discovery has already been a home run, based on personal experience. We are happy to invest in Juggernaut and this team. It’s time for Big One, which may be the best target yet for this company and team. We are eager to support them with capital for another at-bat.’ – Kevin Smith, CFA, Founder & CEO of Crescat Capital .
Directors and officers of the company may acquire securities under the placement, which participation would be a ‘related party transaction’ as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 (‘MI 61-101’). Such participation is expected to be exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101.
Mr. Dan Stuart, Director, President, and CEO of Juggernaut, states:
‘We are pleased to strengthen our relationship, both with Crescat Capital as a strategic investor and Dr. Hennigh as a Special Technical Advisor and investor. I look forward to working with our partners who bring a proven track record of both financial and technical strength. This will enable Juggernaut to unlock the full potential of its assets over the long term, building value for all shareholders. This investment and strategic partnership, coupled with the ongoing support and interest from other globally recognized Institutions and senior miners, is a strong endorsement that clearly demonstrates the significant near-term discovery potential of our 100% controlled properties. Post financing, Juggernaut will have an extremely tight capital structure of just 30,025,297 shares, no debt, and a strong cash position of ~ $9,600,000. As such, we are well-positioned to move forward with our plans of drilling The Big One Discovery. With much anticipation, we look forward to executing the inaugural exploration program and reporting results.’
The Company may pay finder’s fees of the gross proceeds from the financing in cash, and compensation options on units being sold. This non-brokered private placement is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval. All shares issued pursuant to this offering and any shares issued pursuant to the exercise of warrants will be subject to a four-month hold period from the closing date.
About Crescat Capital LLC
Crescat is a global macro asset management firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Crescat’s mission is to grow and protect wealth over the long term by deploying tactical investment themes based on proprietary value-driven equity and macro models. Crescat’s goal is industry-leading absolute and risk-adjusted returns over complete business cycles with low correlation to common benchmarks. Over the last several years, Crescat has been building activist stakes in a portfolio of precious metals explorers to express one of its primary macro themes. The company’s investment process involves a mix of asset classes and strategies to assist with each client’s unique needs and objectives, and includes Global Macro, Long/Short, Large Cap, and Precious Metals funds.
About Juggernaut Exploration Ltd.
Juggernaut Exploration Ltd. is an explorer and generator of precious metals projects in the prolific Golden Triangle of northwestern British Columbia. Its projects are in world-class geological settings and geopolitical safe jurisdictions amenable to Tier 1 mining in Canada. Juggernaut is a member and active supporter of CASERM, an organization representing a collaborative venture between the Colorado School of Mines and Virginia Tech. Juggernaut’s key strategic cornerstone shareholder is Crescat Capital.
For more information, please contact
Juggernaut Exploration Ltd.
Dan Stuart
President, Director, and Chief Executive Officer
604-559-8028
info@juggernautexploration.com
www.juggernautexploration.com
Qualified Person
Rein Turna P. Geo is the qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, for Juggernaut Exploration projects, and supervised the preparation of, and has reviewed and approved, the technical information in this release.
NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT
Certain disclosures in this release may constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties relating to Juggernaut’s operations that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by those forward-looking statements, including its ability to complete the contemplated private placement. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements.
NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO U.S. PERSONS OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES. THIS PRESS RELEASE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR AN INVITATION TO PURCHASE ANY SECURITIES DESCRIBED IN IT.
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