Lil Nas X says he felt a little embarrassed by his big hit — but these days, he's got a different perspective. Continue reading…

While the slow hoisting of President Joe Biden on his own malfunctioning petard has consumed most of the news in the election cycle lately, there are two looming matters on the agenda that don't involve the president's slow self-immolation tour: the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week and the...

Barron Trump, the youngest son of former President Donald Trump, was greeted with cheers and applause Tuesday when he made his debut on the campaign trail at a rally in Doral, Florida. From the podium, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee beamed with pride as he introduced his 18-year-old son, who...

After Chicago Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson blamed former President Richard Nixon following 19 murders being committed in Chicago over the July 4 weekend, the Richard Nixon Foundation harshly criticized him. One hundred nine people were reportedly injured in the shootings. “The spree spanned 74 separate incidents, including a horrific family slaying that saw an 8-year-old boy killed along with two relatives, while two other boys, aged 5 and 7, were injured in the same shooting,” The Daily Mail noted. “Black death has been, unfortunately, accepted in this country for a very long time,” Johnson declared at a news conference. “We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes, and people mocked President [Lyndon] Johnson. And we ended up with Richard Nixon.” “Mayor Johnson’s reference to President Nixon is gratuitous and the facts are not on his side in his characterization of Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration’s civil rights record,” the Nixon Foundation stated on X, adding a litany of Nixon’s decisions to help the black community: In 1971, the Nixon administration developed a plan to carry out the 1954 SCOTUS decision in Brown v. Board of Education to desegregate all schools in the South. In 1969, 64% of Southern Schools were segregated. By 1974, 8% were segregated. Done effectively and peacefully. From 1969 to 1972, federal funding for civil rights programs grew from $75 million to more than $600 million, the equivalent of more than $3.4 billion today. Nixon initiated the Emergency School Aid Act with $1.5 million to help end school segregation and pay for the promotion of interracial experiences among children where racial isolation existed. Nixon issued an executive order calling on federal government agencies to apply equal-opportunity policies to every aspect of federal personnel policies and practices. Nixon allocated $12 million for research on sickle-cell anemia, a blood disorder that afflicts one out of every 500 black children, with the hope of decreasing that number. From 1969 to 1971, the government’s federal purchases from black-owned businesses increased more than 900 percent, from $13 million to $142 million. In 1969, Nixon issued an executive order creating an Office of Minority Business Enterprise in the Commerce Department. Nixon mandated that federal contractors had to comply with equal employment-opportunity laws. This “Philadelphia Plan,” led to the dismantling of institutionalized racism in labor unions. The Nixon administration was the first to institute plans to increase jobs for minorities in the construction industry. From 1969 to 1973, federal aid to predominantly black colleges and universities more than doubled. Mayor Johnson’s reference to President Nixon is gratuitous and the facts are not on his side in his characterization of Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration’s civil rights record. Here are the facts: ? https://t.co/bWBx5v7DJd — Richard Nixon Foundation (@nixonfoundation) July 9, 2024   “Richard Nixon was a champion of civil rights as Vice President and as President,” Jim Byron, the president and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, fired back in a statement to Fox News. “The record is clear. Unfortunately there are many misconceptions about Richard Nixon, but perceptions of years ago are now being reconsidered as we see renewed interest in studying and understanding his life and legacy in full. As of now, our correction of the record is racing toward one million views on X alone.” “What is happening in Chicago is heartbreaking, and I imagine the people of Chicago want leaders who take responsibility and work together to solve problems rather than try and pass the blame, in this case ridiculously and gratuitously,” he continued.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines revealed on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been involved in stirring up protests on U.S. soil over Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists who carried out the October 7 massacre. Haines previously warned during congressional testimony earlier this year that Iran was becoming “increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts, seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions, as we have seen them do in the past, including in prior election cycles.” The world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism uses cyber and influence campaigns to carry out their malign activities, she said. “In recent weeks, Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza, using a playbook we’ve seen other actors use over the years,” she said this week. “We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.” She said that Americans who participate in the protests “are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza” — even though some law enforcement agencies have said that professional agitators stirred up campus protests earlier this year. “Moreover, the freedom to express diverse views, when done peacefully, is essential to our democracy, but it is also important to warn of foreign actors who seek to exploit our debate for their own purposes,” she added. “Furthermore, Americans who are being targeted by this Iranian campaign may not be aware that they are interacting with or receiving support from a foreign government. We urge all Americans to remain vigilant as they engage online with accounts and actors they do not personally know.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that a Parkinson’s disease doctor who visited the White House in January did, in fact, meet with President Joe Biden, correcting a false claim she had made the day before. Jean-Pierre had been asked whether a meeting on January 17 between White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor and neurologist Dr. Kevin Cannard, revealed by White House visitor logs, was related to Biden. The AP reported that it was the only visit the two had, at least on paper, between July 2023 and March 2024. That period came into focus because Cannard had visited the White House eight times during that span. Jean-Pierre responded to further inquiry by issuing a statement to the AP on Tuesday saying that she had previously relayed the misinformation to the media because “the date was not mentioned in the question.” “I want to be clear that the Jan. 17 meeting between Dr. O’Connor and Dr. Cannard was for the president’s physical,” she admitted. “It was one of the three times the president has seen Dr. Cannard, each time for his physical. The findings from each exam have been released to the public.” O’Connor said in a letter on Monday night that all of Biden’s neurological evaluations, which have taken place as part of his yearly physical, have been with the Parkinson’s expert. Dr. Tom Pitts, a quadruple board-certified neurologist based in New York City, said during an interview with NBC News this week that Biden “definitely” has Parkinson’s disease and degeneration of the brain. Last week, Jean-Pierre claimed that Biden “did not get checked out by the doctor” for a cold that he said he had during his disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump late last month. However, Biden told Democrat governors in a private call that he did receive a check-up from the doctor after the debate.

A newly released study by scientists, mostly from Penn State University, outlines their technique of penetrating cancer cells and editing them to make them more vulnerable to cancer therapies. The proof-of-concept study was published July 4 in Nature Biotechnology. The scientists “devised an approach to edit cancer cells, delivering two new ‘switches’ into them. The first switch enables modified cells to outgrow the rest of the cancer cell population. Then, the second switch allows these cells to unleash a toxic drug onto the remaining tumor,” Kristel Tiandra wrote in LiveScience. Tiandra explained that the scientists inserted two “suicide genes” into non-small cell lung cancer cells (NSCLC); one gene, aided by the cancer drug erlotinib — which usually stops a protein called EGFR from being activated — allowed the cancer cells to become resistant to erlotinib, thus permitting the team to control whether the cancer cells proliferated. The modified cancer cells grew faster than the unmodified cells that resisted the drug. Once more of the modified cells were added, the scientists stopped using erlotinib, and the growing cells stopped. “Once their trap was set, the scientists activated the second suicide gene using a harmless molecule called 5-FC. Cleverly, the second gene codes for an enzyme that helps cells transform 5-FC into a toxin, called 5-FU, that kills cancer. The 5-FU ultimately kills both the modified cancer cells and the cells surrounding them,” Tiandra explained. The team found that after 20 days of treatment, the modified cancer cells had outgrown the unmodified cells; by roughly 14 weeks after the initial treatment, the tumor’s volume had dwindled to zero. “We see this as something beyond the treatment of lung cancer,” lead study author Scott Leighow said. “We see this as a generalizable platform for delivering therapeutic genes in cancer and using those to create therapeutic opportunities that might lead to cures in the future.” Aaron Goldman, a cancer pharmacologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told LiveScience, “I’ve not seen anything like this.”