I have flown to Washington, D.C., more times than I can count over the last 1,000 days, almost always for the same reason: to press for the return of the American hostages held in Gaza, including my son. This week I flew there for a different reason: to stand among the people saying goodbye to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. I am not a head of state or a former colleague from the Senate floor. I am the father of Itay, an American who was nineteen when Hamas murdered him on Oct. 7, 2023, and held his remains in Gaza for more than two years. In the worst stretch of my life, Graham was one of the very few people in Washington willing to tell me the truth about my son’s case, even on the days I did not want to hear it. That is not a small thing to offer a stranger, and I will never forget it. Many tributes call Graham one of Israel’s great friends, and he was. But it was never a sentimental friendship. Graham’s conviction, stated to me directly more than once, was that Israel’s security would ultimately be secured not by firepower alone but by weaving Israel into the economic life of its region, by bringing Saudi Arabia to the table, widening the Abraham Accords, and boxing in Iran. That was the map he was still drawing when he died. Most of it is still just lines on paper. The uncomfortable question is what happens to that map now. Graham was not merely a reliable vote; he was the person who kept making the calls after everyone else had moved on to the next news cycle. There are serious people left in the Senate who care: James Risch, R-Idaho; Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; Ted Budd, R-N.C.; and James Lankford, R-Okla., among them. As it happens, Washington does not have to wait for a congressional champion to appear. President Donald Trump has been the driving force on the Accords, and his historic dealmaking has produced another example of creating mutual interest in a more stable region. President Trump recently announced a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear deal, under which American firms would help build out Saudi Arabia’s nuclear power program with the goal of moving toward normalization with Israel. That agreement heads to Congress for review in the coming weeks. It is exactly the kind of mutual-interest dealmaking the world needs: something concrete on both sides of the ledger, not a favor extended in one direction. It is worth being specific about what the Accords can enable for the U.S. and the troubled Middle East. In August 2025, Israeli gas producers announced a $35 billion deal to supply Egypt through 2040, the largest export agreement in Israel’s history. Emirati and Israeli defense firms are now negotiating joint production of surveillance drones, and trade between Israel and its Middle Eastern partners is up more than 100% since 2021. Researchers at RAND estimate that a fully expanded Accords, anchored by Saudi Arabia, could generate more than $1 trillion in economic activity and 4 million jobs—likely including American ones—within a decade. Much of the economic activity would likely run through the proposed India-Middle East-Europe corridor as an answer to China’s Belt and Road ambitions for the region. None of that is sentiment. It is the scaffolding Graham believed would eventually make war more expensive than peace for everyone involved. Members of Congress who consider themselves friends of Israel, it is time to ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—along with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East who were friends of Graham’s—to commit to normalization and expansion of the Abraham Accords. Soon there will be an actual vote coming—not a eulogy to deliver, but an agreement to review. That is a better use of this moment than another round of tributes. I make one last request that has nothing to do with trade figures. Forty-six Americans were murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, one of the deadliest single days for American civilians at the hands of terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001. My son was the youngest of them. A country shows what it values by what it chooses to remember, and mine has not yet chosen to remember this. I am asking our government to establish a National Day of Remembrance for the Americans killed by terrorism on Oct. 7, 2023. Then we will all remember them and give a face and name to what happens when we do not have peace. Lindsey Graham never let their names go quiet, and through Trump’s vision of the Accords, Americans have been presented with a vision of how to bring peace to the Middle East. It is falling to the rest of us now. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as early as January 2020 did not believe that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese wet market. He later publicly insisted that a wet market was the likely origin of the virus while dismissing a theory that the virus had a man-made origin. That was among the many revelations uncovered by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who on Saturday released portions of Fauci’s diary from the pandemic. The diary posts occurred between December 2019 and December 2022. 1/9 — My investigation uncovered that Anthony Fauci kept a diary.What he wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.Today I'm releasing his entries from December 2019 through December 2022. pic.twitter.com/58LvmeYkCN— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) July 25, 2026 In his diary entries, Fauci also took credit for lockdowns, blasted his critics, fixated on COVID-19 death tallies, and reveled in his sudden fame. Early in the outbreak, Fauci wrote that “we know” the wet market—which was widely claimed as the origin of the outbreak of the virus—was not the original source.  “Remember, early on the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and all the original 27 cases were from the market,” Fauci wrote on Jan. 26, 2020. “Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.” Publicly, Fauci later dismissed a man-made origin of COVID-19 and insisted that animal-to-human transmission at a Wuhan wet market was the likely origin of the virus. Shortly after writing that the wet market was likely not the source of the pandemic Fauci wrote about a meeting he had with twelve prominent scientists about the origin of COVID-19 and noted that only two thought it was natural. He added that “the rest felt that deliberate insertion was possible.” Despite the testimony of the majority of those sceintists, Fauci later pushed the natural or so-called Proximal Origin theory of the virus and dismissed the lab leak theory. “If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” he said in an interview with National Geographic in May 2020. Several social media platforms admitted they suppressed the idea that COVID-19 had “man-made” origins well into 2021. Fauci, who has insisted that he didn’t personally initiate the pandemic lockdowns, wrote in his diary that he convinced California and New York City officials to close schools and restaurants. “I spoke with Bill de Blasio (Mayor – NYC) and convinced him based on what I was saying publicly and my conversation tonight to close the NYC schools (he had already decided based on what I was saying on TV),” Fauci wrote on March 15, 2020. “I went on to tell him he should close the bars and restaurants in NYC. He said that he would base this on my recommendation.” Fauci wrote that he had a similar call with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff Ann O’Leary. “Ann said that based on my TV appearances today and yesterday, the Governor has decided to close the schools in California as well as the bars and restaurants,” he wrote. In many diary entries, Fauci noted and celebrated the media attention he was getting. “Amazing profile of me today on Nightline,” he wrote on April 15, 2020. “Multiple editorials (print news Washington Post, etc.) and opinion pieces (Newsweek) written about me. Cannot keep up or even read all of them. Country needs someone to look up to in the face of Trump presidency. Interesting psychodynamics.” He noted in the diary the media profiles and their interest in his relationship with President Donald Trump. “Press is going wild with me,” he wrote on March 22, 2020. “Front page in Washintgton [sic] Post yesterday and Op Ed by Maureen Dowd in NY Times today about me and my relationship with the POTUS. Profile by Peter Nicholas on me in The Atlantic.” Fauci called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a “disgrace” on August 7, 2021 for, among other things “blocking the local authorities from mandating masks in various locations including schools.” He concluded that the criticism he received from conservatives in the media and some Republicans, including Paul, was a “calculated plan of disparaging me and any other scientists (but focusing heavily on me).” DeSantis commented on the diary document release on X and concluded that Fauci’s “increasingly hysterical approach to Covid fueled this adulatory coverage — which in turn fueled his vanity.  Vicious cycle.” Fauci was lionized by the legacy media, which made him the de facto covid oracle. The more Fauci advocated for restrictions/lockdowns and the more he criticized states like FL and GA that spurned his edicts, the more the media would treat him as a saint.Fauci’s increasingly… https://t.co/NrJKClIKn9— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) July 27, 2026 Fauci is set to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Paul is the chairman of the committee.

Several prominent Senate Republicans have joined President Donald Trump in pressuring Senate Majority Leader John Thune to cancel the Senate’s August recess to pass the SAVE America Act, the voter-integrity legislation championed by the president. The legislation aims to prevent noncitizens from voting. As of Monday morning, Sens. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Jim Banks, R-Ind., John Kennedy, R-La., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., have come out in favor of passing the legislation before recess. Banks stated that after New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced that more than 6,600 noncitizens had been accidentally registered to vote, there has been a new push among Republicans to enact the legislation. Last week, Sherrill blamed a “software error” in her state’s Motor Vehicle Commission computer system for noncitizens being added to the voter rolls. However, the company that handles the software denied the error, claiming the state government was responsible for voter registration. Banks’ colleagues echoed his remarks, calling on Thune to cancel the August recess. “I hereby object to any effort to put the Senate into recess in August—at least until such time as the Senate has passed the SAVE America Act—and hereby request a roll call vote,” Lee wrote on Sunday. “Do not assume you have my consent,” Lee added, referring to a possible effort to adjourn the Senate for the month of August. “You do not.” “The Senate doesn’t need a summer vacation as much as the country needs the SAVE America Act,” Lee wrote on X on Sunday. “Let’s cancel recess.” Scott responded to his colleague’s remarks and wrote that “the American people expect us to deliver. They deserve secure elections.” Over the weekend, Kennedy also took aim at Thune during an appearance on CBS, calling on the majority leader to delay the August recess. “Take a few extra days [before recess]! I mean no disrespect to John Thune… but I think he’s just being too cautious! He wants to spend the rest of our time talking with [Chuck] Schumer about shutting down the government,” Kennedy said. “The Graham Platner wing of his party is not going to let Schumer agree with us.” On Monday, President Donald Trump demanded on Truth Social that Thune not allow the Senate to go on break until the legislation is passed. “John Thune should not allow the Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes the SAVE America Act, or, far better, TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can quickly pass everything they’ve ever dreamed of, including a full and deep-throated SAVE America Act, the budget, the ever-looming debt-ceiling disaster 1929!,” the president wrote. In the lower chamber, conservative members of Congress are furious over the leader’s inability to pass the voter-integrity legislation. Over the weekend, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., put out a poll on social media that asked if Thune should resign as majority leader if he doesn’t pass the legislation before the August recess. Ninety-seven-point-six percent of respondents voted yes. His fellow Freedom Caucus colleague, Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., blamed Senate leadership for “not even trying” to pass the bill. “We’ve now passed the SAVE America Act five times,” Fine wrote on X on Friday. “The Senate has passed it zero times. If they were fighting for it, fine. But they’re not even trying.” “That’s the problem,” he concluded. As of now, the Senate will begin its recess after Aug. 7 and return in September.

Many of those who underwent experimental medical “treatments” to make their bodies resemble those of the opposite sex later reject their transgender identities, and some of these detransitioners are now suing for medical malpractice. Josh Payne, founding partner of the law firm Campbell Miller Payne, which exists to represent these detransitioners, briefed the Daily Signal on the current status of the lawsuits. “Our clients are truly inspiring,” he said. “They are pursuing justice not only for themselves, but also to protect others from being misled into harmful procedures as they were.” “Removing healthy body parts isn’t a proven cure for underlying trauma or the mental health problems our clients faced—autism, depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, psychosis,” Payne added. “Doctors and therapists deceive and mistreat their patients when they oversell the benefits and undersell the risks of such procedures.” What Are Detransitioners Claiming? Detransitioners claim that doctors engaged in malpractice by subjecting them to medical procedures to address psychological problems. A Department of Health and Human Services study found little evidence for positive impacts from sex-rejecting procedures, while studies show they can cause harm, from increased cancer risks to a higher risk of suicidal thoughts. A jury awarded a detransitioner $2 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit in February, and psychiatrists reportedly agreed to settle an Oregon detransitioner’s medical malpractice claim in January. Campbell Miller Payne represented the detransitioner in Oregon. Payne’s firm is tracking dozens of detransitioner lawsuits nationwide. Statute of Limitations Issues Many of the detransitioner cases run into problems with statutes of limitations. According to many state laws, patients can only sue for medical malpractice within a certain time frame after the medical intervention takes place, but detransitioners often experience regret years after the first hormone injections or surgery. While lower courts had ruled that Soren Aldaco, who underwent a double mastectomy at age 19, had not filed her lawsuit quickly enough under the statute of limitations, the Supreme Court of Texas reversed, ruling that the clock started ticking once the injury occurred, not once her therapist recommended the procedure. Payne called this a “landmark victory,” and suggested it will impact other cases. Upcoming Trials Payne identified six cases where courts have either scheduled a trial or where he expects a trial will be scheduled. He said an Oregon woman who received testosterone as a young adult will have her trial in the fall. He mentioned Chloe Cole, who sued Kaiser Permanente and doctors, alleging that they failed to treat her mental health conditions, put her on a medical transition pathway, and subjected her to harmful transgender interventions without obtaining informed consent. Her trial has been scheduled for April 5, 2027. Payne’s firm is not formally involved in the case. Payne mentioned a woman in Washington whose case has been scheduled for 2027. He also mentioned Luka Hein, a detransitioner who is suing the University of Nebraska Medical Center after physicians removed her breasts at age 16. He said her trial has been scheduled for next year, and that his firm is not formally involved. The medical center declined to comment on pending litigation. Payne said he anticipates the court in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, will schedule a trial next year for Amanda Stewart, who is suing Dartmouth Health. He also estimated a trial next year for a woman he is representing in New York. The Daily Signal reached out to Kaiser Permanente and Dartmouth Health for comment, but did not receive responses by publication time. 'I HAVE NO BRE*STS'Watch @ChloeCole's eye-opening testimony to @GOPHELP."I hadn't even had my first kiss," she said. "How could they take away part of my womanhood before I was old enough to call myself one?""I have no bre*sts, because they were replaced with scars." pic.twitter.com/TInZUwY2xg— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) June 3, 2026 Detransitioner Cases on Appeal Payne’s firm has appealed many of the detransitioner cases. While Soren Aldaco’s case has survived the statute of limitations issue, the lawyer noted that a separate appeal remains pending in the Texas Court of Appeals on an expert disclosure issue. Payne also represents Prisha Mosley. While the trial court allowed her case to proceed to discovery, the court granted summary judgment for the defendants, despite a North Carolina law (HB 805) that extends the statute of limitations for detransition cases. “We are hopeful the North Carolina Court of Appeals will follow the Texas Supreme Court’s lead and rule for Prisha in her appeal,” Payne told the Daily Signal. Payne also represents Clementine Breen, and he appealed her case to the California Court of Appeals on a statute of limitations issue. Breen is suing Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a pro-transgender advocate doctor who reportedly delayed publishing the results of a taxpayer-funded study after it failed to show mental health improvements among minors receiving “puberty blockers.” The Daily Signal reached out to Dr. Olson-Kennedy and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for comment, but did not receive responses by publication time. A Federal Detransitioner Case Katie Anderson Coblentz sued Fenway Health in Boston, represented by Campbell Miller Payne. Because the Fenway Health is a federally qualified health center, she brought the suit against the United States government. The Massachusetts District Court dismissed Coblentz’s case on a statute of limitations issue, but Payne has appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The Daily Signal reached out to Fenway Health for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time. Detransitioner Cases in the Discovery Phase In addition to the federal case, Coblentz has sued Tufts Medical Center in Massachusetts state court, along with the surgeons who performed her hysterectomy and oophorectomy. Tufts Medicine declined to comment on litigation, but told the Daily Signal it is “committed to providing high-quality, compassionate care to all of our patients.” Payne also mentioned a Pennsylvania woman who is suing in state court. The lawyer also represents Hannah/Layton Ulery, a woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder, in which one of her personalities is 6 years old. She underwent testosterone treatment. While a judge dismissed Ulery’s federal case, her case in Rhode Island state court against therapist Julie Lyons is proceeding. “Ms. Lyons denies any allegations of malpractice,” the therapist’s attorney, Robert Landau, wrote in a statement to the Daily Signal on Friday. “The complaint contains numerous factual errors and distortions. Plaintiff identified as a trans male at the time he sought treatment from Ms. Lyons. The entire premise of the complaint involves alleged harm from testosterone treatment which Ms. Lyons did not recommend or prescribe.” The complaint states that Lyons failed to “properly assess and diagnose” Ulery, and that Lyons’ diagnosis of gender dysphoria started Ulery “down a course of transgender medicalization that would ultimately cause her irreversible physical harm.” The complaint does not claim that Lyons recommended or prescribed testosterone. “Most people are shocked to learn that patients with profound coexisting mental health issues could ever be considered suitable candidates for irreversible surgeries or hormone treatments,” Payne told the Daily Signal. “It’s no surprise, then, that defendants have deployed procedural challenges to avoid trial.” “The Texas Supreme Court’s recent statute-of-limitations ruling, along with the New York verdict earlier this year, is wind in the sails for all victims,” he said. “We look forward to more success as juries have the opportunity to hold clinicians to the high standard of care these vulnerable patients deserve.” Did you know Home Depot funds child sex changes through their employee health plan? I know because @HRC is proud of it…   This morning I spoke at their shareholders meeting to confront corporate America’s secret sex changes and demand they STOP pic.twitter.com/fWYyQLZphs— Chloe Cole (@ChloeCole) May 21, 2026

PARIS, July 27 (Reuters)—French police detained a man on Monday after he attacked three women with knives near Porte de Clichy in Paris, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told reporters. The man attacked the three women, who were aged 19, 24 and 36, with two kitchen knives, severely wounding two of them, Nunez said. Video aired on social platform X and verified by Reuters showed a man with long black hair, wearing a cream tracksuit and wielding one big knife in each hand stabbing and attempting to attack a young woman. It is unclear if the woman was injured. Another part of the video shows the same man lying on the ground immobilized by bystanders, while the two knives are lying nearby on a pedestrian crossing. “It is Allah who commanded me,” the man lying on the floor said. Nunez said the man had been detained by an off-duty police officer. “I pay tribute to him, it was a courageous act,” he added. The motive of the attack remains unknown, Nunez said, adding police could not verify the identity of the attacker, whose declarations were “incoherent” while he was being arrested. The French national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office said it was weighing whether to open an investigation. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Inti Landauro, additional reporting by Aaron McNicholas, Editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Gareth Jones)