Half of the pandemic's unemployment money may have been stolen  —  Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, some experts say.  —  Why it matters: Unemployment fraud during the pandemic could easily reach $400 billion …

Leading biologist dampens his ‘smoking gun’ Covid lab leak theory  —  Nobel laureate David Baltimore says he overstated case, and the origins of the virus are still unknown  —  A Nobel prize-winning US biologist, who has been widely quoted describing a “smoking gun” to support the thesis …

Feds obtain another conspiracy indictment in Jan. 6 riot  —  Federal prosecutors have obtained a conspiracy indictment against six men allegedly affiliated with a “California Patriots” group for plotting to obstruct the electoral vote count on Jan. 6.  —  The indictment, returned by a grand jury …

America's Image Abroad Rebounds With Transition From Trump to Biden  —  But many raise concerns about health of U.S. political system  —  This analysis focuses on public opinion of the United States in 16 advanced economies in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

‘Time is running out’: Democrats split over Biden's relentless focus on infrastructure  —  President Biden's relentless focus on passing an infrastructure bill is increasingly dividing his party, as many Democrats fear that the drawn-out negotiations could derail the rest of Biden's agenda …

Senate Democrats confirm first Muslim American federal judge  —  Senate Democrats led the confirmation on Thursday of the first Muslim American judge to sit on a federal district court.  —  Judge Zahid Quraishi, whom President Joe Biden nominated in March for the U.S. District Court …

These businesses found a way around the worker shortage: Raising wages to $15 an hour or more  —  The owners of Klavon's Ice Cream Parlor had hit a wall.  —  For months, the 98-year-old confectionary in Pittsburgh couldn't find applicants for the open positions it needed to fill ahead of warmer weather and …

Pelosi, leaders seek to squelch Omar controversy with rare joint statement  —  With a rare joint statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her entire leadership team on Thursday sought to quell a growing controversy over Rep. Ilhan Omar's remarks equating war crimes committed by the U.S …

Jeffrey Toobin is back at CNN eight months after exposing himself on Zoom  —  New York (CNN Business)Jeffrey Toobin returned to CNN as the network's chief legal analyst on Thursday, eight months after he exposed himself during a Zoom call with colleagues at The New Yorker.

Election Denial and $16 Spritzers: Welcome to Florida's Trump Coast  —  Since he left Washington in turmoil in January, Donald Trump has spent the bulk of his brief, contentious post-presidency holed up in what Karl Rove calls his “Fortress of Solitude”—Mar‑a‑ Lago, his private club in Palm Beach.

On the Sliming of Susan Hennessey  —  I have made a point of staying quiet as the Trumpist right has gone after Lawfare's former executive editor, Susan Hennessey, following her appointment to a position in the Justice Department's National Security Division.

U.S. Inflation Is Highest in 13 Years as Prices Surge 5%  —  The rapid rise in consumer prices in May reflected a surge in demand and shortages of labor and materials  —  The U.S. economy's rebound from the pandemic is driving the biggest surge in inflation in nearly 13 years, with consumer prices rising in May by 5% from a year ago.

Don't Cry for H.R. 1  —  Amend the Electoral Count Act instead.  —  When Sen. Joe Manchin announced that he would oppose the For the People Act, Steve Benen of MSNBC spoke for many Democrats when he declared that “Joe Manchin is prepared to be remembered by history as the senator who did little …

Shelby sides against Trump in Alabama Senate race  —  Republican Richard Shelby is backing his former chief of staff Katie Boyd Britt in the race to succeed him in the Senate, siding against former President Donald Trump's favored candidate, Rep. Mo Brooks.  —  “She's like family.

A New Giuliani Tape Shows a Key Witness Didn't Testify Accurately in the First Trump Impeachment  —  Kurt Volker said he didn't know Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden.  New audio indicates he did.  —  Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise …

S.F. supervisor Aaron Peskin says he's entering ‘alcohol treatment’ after complaints  —  San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin said Thursday he is entering treatment for alcohol use, a day after The Chronicle asked Peskin about his berating of a department head in a public meeting this week and other complaints about his behavior.

Where Voters Are Losing Patience With Lauren Boebert  —  Charles Perko gestured past a vine-covered chain link fence toward a hulking steel facility with massive mills and squat brick office buildings.  The 140-year-old complex had forged the iron that built the West, and once was Colorado's largest employer, with some 10,000 workers.

Was Trump right about hydroxychloroquine all along?  New study shows drug touted by former president can increase COVID survival rates by 200%  — A study on 255 patients was done by St Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey  — The resulting report, out May 31, found hydroxychloroquine to be effective

Norfolk Elects Prosecutor Who Says Crime Is a “Symptom of Structural Racism”  —  Virginia's primaries on Tuesday saw Ramin Fatehi clinch the Democratic nomination for Commonwealth Attorney in Norfolk, the site of a major showdown over reform in 2019.  He is unchallenged in November.

Kyrsten Sinema gets her make-or-break moment with Republicans  —  Throughout Joe Biden's weeks of infrastructure talks with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito about infrastructure, he was also hearing from another bipartisan broker holding her own quiet talks with Republicans: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

The “Lab-leak” inquiry at the State Department:  —  An Open Letter by former Assistant Secretary Christopher Ford  —  In both journalism and policymaking — if not always in politics, or in the sordid world of score-settling by unemployed, second-rate apparatchiks — facts matter, and intellectual integrity matters.

Only in our anti-truth hellscape could Anthony Fauci become a supervillain  —  Right-wing commentators are pretending that thousands of newly released emails from Anthony S. Fauci represent some kind of smoking gun against the government's top infectious-disease expert, whom they have recently decided to try to destroy.

The lingering questions about the clearing of Lafayette Square  —  The most important question asked about the clearing of Lafayette Square on June 1 of last year came that day from then-Attorney General William P. Barr.  —  Barr had come out of the White House shortly after President Donald Trump's staff …

CDC says heart inflammation cases were higher than expected in 16- to 24-year-olds after second Covid vaccine shot, but still rare  — The number of cases of a heart inflammation condition in 16- to 24-year-olds was higher than expected after they received their second dose of Pfizer's or Moderna's Covid-19 vaccines, the CDC said.

Man sentenced to prison for threatening Trump whistleblower's lawyer  —  A Michigan man was sentenced to one year in prison Thursday for sending an email threatening to hunt down and bleed out like a “pig” an attorney for the whistleblower who set in motion President Donald Trump's first impeachment.

The Far-Right Paramilitary Wannabes Feeding Mike Flynn's Conspiracy Machine  —  ROMAN SUPPLEMENTS  —  The ‘1st Amendment Praetorian’ group has become an on-call security and intelligence team for the most extreme and esoteric of Trumpists.  —  When QAnon conspiracy theorists descended …

Google Seeks to Break Vicious Cycle of Online Slander  —  In response to Times articles, the search giant is changing its algorithm, part of a major shift in how Google polices harmful content.  —  For many years, the vicious cycle has spun: Websites solicit lurid, unverified complaints …