Scoop: Beto plans Texas comeback in governor's race  —  Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke is preparing to run for governor of Texas in 2022, with an announcement expected later this year, Texas political operatives tell Axios.  —  Why it matters: O'Rourke's entry would give Democrats a high-profile candidate …

Voters still don't like the GOP's answer to the coronavirus  —  (CNN)Republicans have been hoping to turn the political page from the coronavirus pandemic for over a year now.  —  We saw then-President Donald Trump try to do it in the lead-up to the 2020 election.  It didn't work.

Scoop - Manchin: Delay Biden plan to '22  —  Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is privately saying he thinks Congress should take a “strategic pause” until 2022 before voting on President Biden's $3.5 trillion social-spending package, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Trump Looks for Challenger to Depose Mitch McConnell as Split Widens  —  GOP's most influential figure and its top elected official are divided on policy, politics and who should lead the party in the future  —  WASHINGTON— Mitch McConnell's record-long reign as Senate Republican leader …

Bats in Laos Caves Harbor Closest Relatives to Covid-19 Virus  — Pasteur Institute scientists tested hundreds of horseshoe bats  — Finding moves researchers closer to pinpointing Covid origins  —  Bats dwelling in limestone caves in northern Laos were found to carry coronaviruses …

‘The pay is absolute crap’: Child-care workers are quitting rapidly, a red flag for the economy  —  Child care employment is still down more than 126,000 positions as workers leave for higher-paying positions as bank tellers, administrative assistants and retail clerks.

Why Wokeism Will Rule the World  —  The woke movement could be the next great U.S. cultural export — and it is going to do many other countries some real good.  —  I am decidedly un-woke.  As a professor of economics, I strongly favor a market-oriented approach.

UK-France defence summit cancelled in Aukus row  —  Paris furious at scrapping of Australian submarine contract and new three-way technology pact  —  A Franco-British defence ministers' summit due to take place this week has been cancelled as Paris steps up its protests over the loss …

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves attacks vaccine mandates, downplays state's high death toll  —  WASHINGTON — Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic in his state on Sunday, while challenging the legitimacy of vaccine mandates rolled out by the Biden administration.

The Trump Prophets Regroup  —  When you are in the business of prophecy, what do you do when prophecy fails?  —  This spring, the media mogul Stephen E. Strang made an unusual apology to readers in the pages of his glossy magazine.  —  Mr. Strang presides over a multimillion-dollar …

Taliban-run Kabul municipality to female workers: Stay home  —  KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Female employees in the Kabul city government have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Afghanistan's capital said Sunday …

How Top Accounting Firms Help Their Clients Sidestep Taxes  —  Lawyers from top accounting firms do brief stints in the Treasury Department, with the expectation of big raises when they return.  —  For six years, Audrey Ellis and Adam Feuerstein worked together at PwC, the giant accounting firm …

Did Donald Trump Make the Church Great Again?  —  How unchurched Evangelicals are helping create a God-and-country lifestyle brand.  —  From the very beginning of the white Evangelical embrace of Donald Trump, there have been a series of raging debates about how that embrace would affect the church.

Op-Ed: Are Supreme Court justices ‘partisan hacks’?  All the evidence says yes  —  If Supreme Court justices don't want to be seen as “partisan hacks,” they should not act like them.  —  In a speech last week at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville Law School …

A Chinese student in Canada had two followers on Twitter.  He still didn't escape Beijing's threats over online activity  —  In “China Unbound: A New World Disorder,” Toronto Star reporter Joanna Chiu examines China's growing influence around the world, including in western countries …

The Look of Gentrification  —  If you think of gentrification as coffee shops and bike lanes then you don't understand gentrification at all.  It's about what's inside, not outside.  —  My grandparents' house was located in a nice neighborhood in Berkeley, California filled with bungalows, Victorians and a few dingbat apartments.

Why the US should offer to buy France's submarines for Vietnam  —  The U.S. would achieve three objectives by purchasing a number of Shortfin Barracuda submarines from France and then giving them to Vietnam.  —  First, the Biden administration would repair relations with America's oldest ally.

Biden's Del Rio border crisis - admin cedes control of US security to cartels  —  For every 1,000 people the Border Patrol was able to process, another 5,000 entered  —  Officials plead with Biden for more resources as southern border worsens  —  On June 17, 2021, the Department …