"Lie," from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi, saying.
A capital hill hearing where lawmakers' question Anthony Fauci has just ended, a GOP-like
“committee asked the veteran public health experts about his role in the government's response”
of the coronavirus pandemic, a number of Republican lawmakers, including Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, the committee chair. Question Dr. Fauci about whether he covered up any evidence indicating COVID might have originated in a lab which remains an unproven claim. Publicly, Anthony Fauci promoted the theory that the virus arose naturally.
While privately, News well aware of a mountain of evidence suggesting the virus originated in the lab. The American people deserve answers. The American people deserve to know why dangerous research was funded by NIAID in its hotelitarian country, in a lab that lacked acceptable safety standards.
Today Dr. Fauci opted to invoke the fifth. Although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress under the advice
“of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the fifth amendment of the Constitution”
to refrain from answering your questions. Thank you. Before leaving office, former President Joe Biden preemptively granted Fauci a full pardon, but some Republicans had warned Fauci could still be prosecuted for perjury if he lied under oath.
President Trump and the Department of Justice are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to toss
an $83 million defamation verdict columnist E. Jean Carroll won.
Carroll accuses Trump of sexually assaulting her years ago in a department store fitting room. Trump later accused her of fabricating the allegation for publicity. A jury awarded Carroll damages, but government attorneys say Trump cannot be sued for comments he made during his first term as president. The United States and Saudi Arabia launched a wave of airstrikes targeting Iranian back militias
in Iraq today, and piers Janner Raaf reports the armed group said, at least 20 of their fighters were killed.
“The U.S. and Saudi Arabia blamed the Iran-backed militias in Iraq for drone attacks”
on Saudi oil facilities this week. Iraq's Prime Minister, who met President Trump last week in Washington, convened an emergency security meeting in Baghdad after the Airstrikes. The U.S. has been pressing Prime Minister Ali Azadi to rein in Iranian affiliated militias that are part of Iraq's official defense forces.
Jordan's military also said it's shot down five Iranian missiles early Wednesday. Iran has been targeting U.S. bases in the kingdom. Rainer Raaf and Pyrenees, among. At last, check on Wall Street, the Dow is down 864 points. This is NPR News.
The Surgeon General's Office is urging Americans to donate blood because of a worsening shortage in the U.S., your ZNPR is will stone. The Surgeon General says the blood supply is significantly lower than it should be after weeks of declining donations. The country is currently in yellow status, meaning there is less than a two-day supply
for opositive blood. The Red Cross is declaring it a crisis and attributes the shortfall to extreme heat, poor air quality and widespread food borne illnesses. Will stone NPR News. More than 11 hundred workers at AI companies, including top researchers, have signed a petition
calling on the government to back a global effort to pace the development of artificial intelligence. This also comes about a week after open AI announced one of its systems was able to autonomously hack into another AI company. NPR's John Ruich reports a petitioner say AI developers develop faster than humans can
understand or control. The petition says it's not guaranteed that AI will help create a better future and to realize AI's potential, we may need the option to, quote, "by time to address emerging risks, develop security measures, and strengthen oversight." Leading AI companies believe they're close to automating AI research and the petition says
it's unclear how much this could accelerate AI progress, with a risk that it accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems. Among the signatories are some of the top scientists and researchers in the field, working at companies including Open AI and Thropic, Meta, and Google. That's John Ruich, it's NPR News.
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