Entries from early 2020 in a now-exposed personal diary kept by Dr. Anthony Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic show that he privately estimated the death rate from the illness was significantly lower than what he told Congress under oath only weeks later.
Fauci, 85, has come under intense scrutiny for years regarding his approach leading the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, and his alleged links to the Chinese lab where the virus originated. He will return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to speak about his newly publicized personal records.
"The stated mortality over all of this when you look at all the data including China is about three percent. It first started off as two and three," Fauci said in testimony before the House Oversight Committee on March 11, 2020, according to a transcript of the hearing.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci prepares to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee about the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on November 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Senators questioned Fauci and other witnesses about the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children between 5 and 11 years old this week.
Legacy Media Ignores Massive Anthony Fauci Document Release Alleging He Misled Congress On Covid Origins

#senate #capitol

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Sunday said President Trump likes the daily strikes on Iran, which paused going into the weekend after nearly two straight weeks of attacks on Iranian infrastructure.
"I think we ought to continue the blockade and starve them out. I think we ought to bomb Pickaxe Mountain and try to reach what's underneath it, " Kennedy told CBS News's Margaret Brennan during his appearance on "Face the Nation."
"The president likes the daily attacks," Kennedy added. "He believes that sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys."
Kennedy compared Iran's leaders to American serial killer Son of Sam and cult leader Charles Manson, calling them "more than mildly insane." But he added that the U.S. should not "just cut and run."
"If we can stand the pain of the rising cost of energy, we need to stay the course," he said. "At least for a few more months. I also don't think we need to send in troops. That's my opinion, for what it's worth."

#think

A woman wanted in a murder case has spent weeks slipping through law enforcement's grasp, with investigators alleging a string of suspected accomplices helped keep her hidden while she remains on the run.
Isabelle Rose Johnson, 38, is wanted on charges in the killing of Jason Christopher Coulthart. A warrant for her arrest was issued on June 26, and she has been dodging detectives ever since.
The Walton County Sheriff's Office said Johnson, who is a "cunning master manipulator," has been relying on the help of others to stay incognito. Five people have been arrested in connection to the murder investigation.
Florida Woman Charged With Murder Evading Police After Body Found In Shallow Grave: Sheriff
Five people have been arrested in connection to the murder of Jason Coulthart. Isabelle Johnson, 38, is wanted for murder and has allegedly been relying on these individuals to evade arrest.

#isabelle

Jensen Huang is urging Washington to stop worrying about China's open-source AI just as an all-out panic has broken out over the highly capable, low-cost models that can increasingly compete with the most advanced products by OpenAI and Anthropic.
The Nvidia CEO said in an interview with Axios Tuesday the U.S. should not ban these kinds of models, which are being developed by Chinese companies like DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI—which last week raised alarms when it released its highly capable model, Kimi K3.
While U.S. companies, including AI coding startup Cursor, are increasingly turning to open-source alternatives from China to save on the high costs ***** ociated with American AI models, the White House has reportedly considered restricting their use partly based on fears that the models could be used for surveillance purposes by China or that they could threaten the viability of homegrown AI companies.
The White House reportedly considered using executive power to impose conditions on U.S. companies looking to use Chinese AI models, including forcing these companies to guarantee security and accept liability if breached, Axios reported.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune's request for comment.

#Companies #white #China

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) announced on Tuesday that Senate Republicans will "hold" any budget reconciliation framework passed by the House to use as a potential back-up plan to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September.
Thune told reporters that Senate Republicans will not act immediately on any budget resolution passed by the House in case they need to use the budget reconciliation vehicle to pass a government funding stopgap in September.
"If they give us a budget resolution as a vehicle, we will hold that subject obviously to be able to move a continuing resolution to fund the government," Thune said.
"It's a possibility that if necessary we could pull that budget resolution passed by the House and use it to fund government. I hope that's not necessary," he said.
"We've had conversations, productive conversations on both sides of the aisle, on a funding resolution that would carry us past the November election," he added.

#resolution #senate #passed #republicans

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ordered Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery to halt their $81 billion merger for at least two weeks, allowing states that are challenging the deal more time to see their case through in court.
Twelve states, led by California, sued to block Paramount's pending buyout of Warner last week — alleging that such a combination would "extinguish competition" in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers across the U.S.
The states' top prosecutors called on Warner and Paramount to not close the transaction until after a court had time to fully evaluate their claims. And when the companies refused, they filed for a temporary restraining order — which is what District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted on Monday. That opens the door to a potential preliminary injunction that the states are also seeking to effectively block the deal.
"This is a critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Monday. "History tells the tale of what happens when a few people have great power over markets that are central to Americans' lives: fewer opportunities for more people, worse products and services for all people."
A Warner-Paramount tie-up would bring together two of the five last legacy studios in Hollywood — as well as a host of TV networks, ****** les filling streaming libraries and news operations. Warner's HBO Max, fan favorites like "Harry Potter" and even CNN would come under the same roof of Paramount-owned CBS, movies like "Top Gun" and the Paramount+ streaming service.

The U.S. military hit bridges and energy sites in Iran in its latest round of strikes against the Middle Eastern country early Friday morning.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responded with attacks on U.S. bases in the Gulf region, including in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.
The IRGC also said it attacked a U.S. special operations command center at the al-Tanf garrison military base in Syria — an ***** ertion that U.S. Central Command disputed on Friday morning.
"CLAIM: Iranian forces claim they attacked al-Tanf Garrison in Syria and captured or killed American troops in the process. FALSE," the military command wrote on social media. "FACT: No U.S. troops in the region have recently been killed or captured."
In an interview earlier this week, President Trump telegraphed expanding the U.S. strikes to Iranian infrastructure, which critics have noted could constitute war crimes if the targets were not being used for military purposes.

COLORADO CITY, Colo. (AP) — The families of two men who discovered through DNA tests that they were switched at birth 38 years ago are accusing a North Dakota hospital of robbing them of the lives they were supposed to lead.
Kyle Bylin discovered his birth family after taking an at-home test he chose randomly during a Christmas gift-exchange. That led to his biological aunt on a genealogy platform. Her nephew, Jeremy Morrison, then had his DNA tested. The results were irrefutable.
"That's when my mind was just completely blown," Bylin said. "We could have never imagined that it was an actual birth switch that occurred."
Morrison said he was convinced as soon as he saw a photo of Bylin's brother and realized they looked very much alike.
Bylin and Morrison were the only babies born on Jan. 26, 1988, at Unity Medical Center in Grafton, North Dakota, according to their lawsuit filed in state court last week. Somehow, they went home with the wrong parents.

Vice President JD Vance spoke to podcaster Joe Rogan Wednesday about how California has declined under Gov. Gavin Newsom to the point it gave him flashbacks to visiting a "Third World country."
Vance recalled driving through a rough neighborhood in Los Angeles on his way to an elite Christmas party and was struck by the contrast between the two settings.
"And I realized when I was there, you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of going to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti," he said, as Rogan chuckled. "Like super security, crazy wealth and privilege and status on the inside and squalor and misery on the outside.
"It's the first time I'd ever thought America, like this part of America, is actually more like a Third World country than anything that I thought we'd ever become."
Joe Rogan Mocks Gavin Newsom For Dismissing Growing State Problems As La Film Production Craters

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jodi Lynn Karpes, a 52-year-old public relations professional who lives in West Palm Beach, Florida. It's been edited for length and clarity.
I'm 52, and I've been working in public relations for the last 25 years.
I immigrated to the US from South Africa five years ago, at age 47. When I moved to Florida, I left a country where I'd had my own business, GreenQueen PR, for about 17 years. After moving, I paused the business to look for full-time work.
The first job I found in Florida in 2021 had terrible pay, and I couldn't live on it long-term — I had to dip into savings each month. The next took about three months to find. It was a director-level role for a PR agency based in New York, and I worked remotely. That agency was a terrible fit, and I hated the job — so much so that I was having terrible nightmares. So I resigned in December 2025.
In Still in the Game, Business Insider is chronicling the realities of job hunting in your 50s — from overcoming age bias and navigating career transitions to rebuilding confidence, updating skills, and finding new opportunities in a competitive job market. Read more stories here, and share your own experience here.

A less invasive therapy for prostate cancer is just as effective as surgery or radiotherapy but with a lower risk of side effects, a major study suggests.
The treatment, named focal therapy, uses high-intensity ultrasound or freezing cryotherapy to destroy cancerous tissue.
A 10-year NHS study led by Imperial College London followed nearly 3,500 men who received the therapy, providing long-term data that medical regulators had previously said was missing.
Researchers say the results are "excellent" and they are likely to add to pressure for focal therapy to be made more widely available.
Nearly all the men had intermediate or high-risk prostate cancer - but 10 years after treatment only two had died from the disease.

Sen. Lindsey Graham's sudden death has thrown new attention on a rare but often deadly cardiovascular emergency known as aortic dissection.
The cause of death was identified as an aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to a statement released by Graham's office on Sunday, citing preliminary findings from the District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
"It occurs when the layers of the aorta (the body's largest artery) come apart and the inner one tears," Fox News senior medical **** yst Dr. Marc Siegel, who did not treat Graham, told Fox News Digital.
Heart Condition Tied To Lindsey Graham's Death Can Strike Without Warning — What To Know
"It can come on in minutes or days and may be hard to recognize," added the doctor, noting that while dissections can evolve over time, symptoms often appear suddenly.

The aortic tear that likely caused the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham is a medical emergency that can rapidly kill.
The aorta is our largest artery, like a highway that arches up from the heart and then curves back down through the abdomen — carrying oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body as other arteries branch off from it.
What doctors call an aortic dissection happens when a tear in its inner lining lets blood rapidly leak between its other layers, according to the American Heart ******* ociation. That reduces blood flow to vital organs, and sometimes can lead to a rupture that pours blood into surrounding tissues. It often can be caused by an aortic aneurysm, a weakened spot on the artery that can bulge like a balloon.
Risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol that in turn stiffens arteries — called atherosclerosis — and smoking. It's more common in older people but also can be caused by certain genetic conditions in younger people.
A preliminary medical examiner's report shared by Graham's office said the aortic dissection was related to artery hardening.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has "concrete evidence" linking leaders of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to recent war crimes in the Sudanese region of Darfur, the ICC's deputy chief prosecutor says.
Nazhat Shameem Khan told the BBC the ICC had reached a "breakthrough" in its investigation into the massacres of civilians in the cities of el-Fasher and el-Geneina.
"It may take time for justice to develop, to be brought to the court, but we will get there," Khan said, adding that RSF leaders have also been linked to crimes against humanity.
The siege and takeover of el-Fasher marked one of the bloodiest episodes in the ongoing war between the RSF and Sudan's army.
More than 6,000 people were killed in el-Fasher as the RSF seized the city in October last year, the United Nations says, while the paramilitary group is accused of carrying out a similar massacre in el-Geneina.

Businesses and governments managed to keep energy prices from skyrocketing as much as feared during the Iran war by leaning into a "just-in-time" delivery system that harnesses innovations in digital and satellite technology and that reduces the need to stockpile barrels of oil.
Call it the "Amazon of oil," said Jim Wicklund, a veteran oil ****** yst and managing director at the PPHB energy investment firm, comparing energy industry dynamics to the ecommerce giant's famous mastery of inventory and logistics.
Even with President Trump declaring the Iran ceasefire "over" on Wednesday amid a fresh exchange of military strikes, the U.S. benchmark for crude prices still only spiked about 5% to $74 per barrel—way below the mid-May high of $112.
While energy traders may see the latest attacks and verbal barbs as dips along the negotiation rollercoaster, they've also been encouraged by the adaptability of global energy logistics, even amid the greatest global energy shock of the modern age when the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz temporarily cut off almost 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
"When you go back to the 1970s when we had the oil shocks, you had no way of knowing what oil was where and what it was doing," Wicklund told Fortune. "Today, I can hit my terminal and find every tanker full of oil on the ocean, who owns it, what's in it, and who to call to get it diverted to me. So, inventories have not meant nearly as much to oil prices here in the last few years as they used to.

DHS said an officer fired in self-defense after the suspect of a targeted operation tried to run the officer over. NBC News' Priscilla Thompson reports.

In North Charleston, South Carolina, authorities say a brawl led to an officer being tackled and pummeled repeatedly during a July Fourth gathering. People say the 400-person crowd grew out of control. In Raleigh, North Carolina, officials say thousands of teens began fighting early Sunday morning. NBC News' George Solis reports.

Canada has chosen a German defence company to build its navy's new submarine fleet, in the largest military procurement deal in Canadian history.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Monday that the government had chosen the company TKMS for the multi-billion dollar, 12-vessel contract.
The announcement comes just before Carney leaves for a Nato summit in Turkey, where members are expect to face pressure to show they are boosting defence investment. Since taking office, Carney has **** ped Canada's defence spending to 2% of gross domestic product (GDP), and has committed to reaching 5% by 2035.
According to the government, only one in four of Canada's submarines is currently seaworthy.
The country - which has the longest coastline in the world - is growing increasingly concerned about climate change warming Arctic waters and opening up new fronts for adversaries to attack.

Margaret Thomas, the groundbreaking news photographer who documented a half-century of American history, has died at 84. Thomas was the first woman ever to be a news photographer at The Washington Post and captured presidents, a visiting pope, professional athletes and regular people in local communities. Sunday TODAY's Willie Geist remembers a life well lived.

Record-breaking heat is having an impact on one of the biggest celebrations for the United States' 250th birthday, with organizers of the Freedom 250 Salute to America are delaying the event's start time from 1pm to 5pm because of the expect triple-digit heat in Washington. It comes as President Donald Trump prepares to visit Mount Rushmore ahead of July 4 celebrations. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports for TODAY.

By Akriti Shah and Rashika Singh
July 2 (Reuters) - The bigger drag on European Union growth is losing market share to China rather than ‌a widening trade deficit with the Asian country, Goldman Sachs said ‌on Thursday, but added any response from the bloc would stop short of U.S.-style blanket tariffs.
Faced with weak domestic demand and excess capacity, Chinese manufacturers have flocked to international markets, increasing competition for the European Union (EU) in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Eastern European markets, Goldman said.
The European Central Bank recently trimmed its growth outlook for the rest ‌of the year.
"We estimate that ⁠this third-market competition, rather than the bilateral deficit itself, accounts for most of the European growth drag from China's export-led model," ⁠the Wall Street brokerage said.

A deepening rift within the Democratic Party is coming into sharper focus as the establishment grows frustrated with the rising influence of the party's socialist wing.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called out her Democratic colleagues for their "disrespectful" welcome of socialists into the "big tent" party.
"I think that there are a lot of very disrespectful comments that are coming from some parts of the Democratic Party that are dismissing the voters who elected these individuals," Jayapal told CNN.
She made the comments as socialism gains ground within the Democratic Party, with socialist candidates securing major primary victories and unseating established Democrats.
Rahm Emanuel Warns New Generation Of Dem Socialists Don't Like America

SEOUL, July 1 (Reuters) - South Korea's Oceans Ministry said on Wednesday the cargo vessel Namu, operated by HMM, would exit ‌the Strait of Hormuz in mid-July at the earliest once ‌the damage sustained in an attack in May was repaired.
The bulk carrier's hull was hit near the stern in the attack, which Seoul said on May 27 probably involved an Iranian anti-ship missile, summoning the Iranian ambassador to share the results of its investigation and lodge a protest.
Saeed Koozechi, Iran's ‌ambassador to South Korea, ⁠denied Tehran's involvement, the Yonhap news agency reported, and South Korea later said it could not conclusively determine ⁠who was responsible or whether the attack was intentional.
There are currently two vessels stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, including Namu, with 35 crew members on board, Nam Jae-heon, vice oceans minister, told a press briefing on ‌Wednesday. Nam added that 21 South Korean-operated vessels had passed safely through the strait since Washington and Tehran signed a ceasefire two weeks ago.
HMM is paying for the repairs, a ministry official said at the briefing.

A packed JetBlue plane landing at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport collided with a drone just moments before touching down. The flight landed without incident but minutes later, according to air traffic control audio, another JetBlue flight reported seeing a drone flying quite close. NBC's Erin McLaughlin reports for TODAY.

HONG KONG (AP) — In the race between the U.S. and China to develop artificial intelligence, the battle over hardware and computing power is heating up as Chinese companies like Huawei overtake global industry leaders like Nvidia in their home market.
Jensen Huang, the CEO of computer chip giant Nvidia, was mobbed by onlookers as he hit the streets for the "zhajiangmian" noodles while visiting Beijing during U.S. President Donald Trump's May summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. But his celebrity status has not translated into success in selling Nvidia's advanced chips in China.
Controls imposed by Washington on exports of advanced technology due to national security concerns initially stalled sales of Nvidia's advanced H200 AI chips there. By the time Huang won a reprieve, with Trump agreeing to their sale, Beijing had switched to encouraging use of domestically designed chips made by local rivals led by Huawei.
Huang has acknowledged that the U.S. has lost its edge in China's advanced AI chips market as Chinese competitors have become "giants."
"Well, we were in China for 30 years, and before the export control banned Nvidia out of China we had about 95% market share, and so we were competing just fine," he said in a recent interview with The ****** ociated Press.

The Texas State Board of Education has approved a proposal that will establish lists of required reading — including Bible verses alongside classic ****** les — for its K-12 English and literature curriculum.
The plan will impact more than 5 million public school students, as Texas emerges as a leader in a national conservative effort to infuse Christian teachings into American classrooms.
Multiple ****** les will be mandated for each grade, and each one must be read "in its entirety." The effort goes far beyond a 2023 law that requires at least one state board-approved literary work be taught in each grade level.
While it is not unusual for states to suggest book ****** les for schools, Texas may be the first to prescribe a literary canon for every public school student, two experts told The ****** ociated Press.
Many Texas students are already familiar with at least some Christian teachings: The state last year became the largest state to require classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, a law recently upheld in federal court.

For months, Kleiner Perkins partner Aditya Naganath had been mulling over his investing thesis that the next wave of AI wasn't going to be a chatbot—it was going to be software that does the work autonomously, for hours at a time, across thousands of tasks at once. The trouble was, **** ody had built the plumbing for it yet. Then he met Neil Movva.
"It felt obvious to both of us that you're going to need a different, specific inference platform built for these long-running agents," Naganath told Fortune.
Now, six months after Naganath and Movva first chatted, Movva's startup, Sail Research, has launched from stealth with $80 million in seed and Series A funding at a $450 million valuation, Fortune learned exclusively. Kleiner Perkins led the Series A. Sequoia, Redpoint, Theory Ventures, Vine Ventures, and CRV also participated.
Sail Research wants to fix one of AI's expensive problems. AI infrastructure was designed for quick, single exchanges—think a chatbot answering a question. But enterprises are increasingly deploying AI agents that run autonomously for hours, reading entire codebases, screening hundreds of job candidates, or researching complex topics without a human in the loop. At that scale, enterprise AI bills have tripled even as per-token prices have fallen, because agentic workflows consume tokens at a rate 50 to 500 times higher than simple chat. Goldman Sachs forecasts a 24-fold increase in token consumption by 2030.
Movva's solution is an end-to-end infrastructure platform built from the lowest level of the chip up. Sail writes the software that orchestrates and optimizes how AI models run on existing chips. Think of it like a highly efficient traffic system that tells the hardware exactly how to allocate its resources, squeezing far more work out of the same physical computing power.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The delayed opening of a bridge connecting Michigan and Canada is spilling into one of the country's most closely watched Senate races, as Democratic candidate Mallory McMorrow launches the first major effort to turn the controversy into a political liability for President Donald Trump and Republicans.
McMorrow's new ad, shared first with The **** ociated Press, accuses Trump of blocking the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge and suggests he is doing so to benefit a major political donor, building on an anti-corruption message she has sought to make central to her campaign.
The bridge, which spans the Detroit River and connects the Motor City with Windsor, Ontario, was slated for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 12. It was abruptly postponed after officials said the U.S. and Canada were still working to resolve "outstanding issues."
The dispute gives Democrats a rare opportunity to tie Trump directly to a project with visible economic consequences in a battleground state. For McMorrow, who is trying to gain ground in a three-person primary, it also offers a chance to distinguish herself as the first Democratic candidate to make the controversy a campaign issue. She's running against U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed.
The winner is expected to face Republican Mike Rogers, who lost to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024. Rogers has also used the bridge in political messaging, saying that if he's sent to Washington he'll make sure the bridge is opened.

By Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI, June 24 (Reuters) - Britain, France and Germany raised the alarm on Wednesday over recent Chinese activities off the east coast of Taiwan, where ‌China has mounted coast guard patrols, saying they threaten regional stability and freedom of navigation.
China, ‌which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, earlier in June sent coast guard ships into the waters off the island's east coast for what it called a "special maritime traffic law-enforcement operation", angering Taipei.
China said the operation was in response to an announcement by ******* an and the Philippines that they would begin formal talks on their maritime boundaries, which Beijing viewed as involving Chinese waters off Taiwan.
China has also been sending maritime survey ships into ‌the same waters.

By Jonathan Stempel
June 23 (Reuters) - California has been sued by 17 U.S. states, which are seeking to undo a new state law ‌designed to limit the use of single-use plastic and promote recycling.
In ‌a complaint filed on Monday in the Sacramento, California federal court, the states, each with a Republican attorney general, accused California of trying to "impose its own policy preferences on the entire nation" with its Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act.
• The law was signed by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022, and took effect ‌on May 1. It requires ⁠producers to reduce single-use plastic for packaging and food service items by 25%, and ensure that all such items are ⁠recyclable or compostable by 2032.
• States led by Nebraska said the law violates the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause by substantially burdening interstate commerce.