Last year, Ebright, a Rutgers University chemistry professor and Waksman Institute of Microbiology laboratory director, posted a letter from the NIH, showing that an NIH grant funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, despite Fauci's denials

Speaking during a hearing on the origins of the Chinese coronavirus, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) referenced the documents, showing that Fauci's statements on the matter have been untruthful. He asked Ebright:

"What are the implications of Dr. Fauci's continued, blatant dishonesty regarding NIH funding of gain-of-function research in Wuhan?"

Ebright responded:

"I stand by my statement. The statements made on repeated occasions to the public, to the present policymakers, by the NIH and director Dr. Fauci have been untruthful. I do not understand why those statements are being made because they are demonstrably false."

The southern Ukrainian city of Nikolaev resorted to drastic measures this weekend to expose what the local authorities call "collaborators" and "separatists" - people who harbor pro-Russian sentiments or help Moscow's forces in any way.

On Friday, the head of the local military administration, Vitaly Kim, placed the entire city - home to almost half a million people before the start of the Russian military operation - on a two-day lockdown. Kim announced a "prolonged curfew," which came into force Friday evening and is expected to last until Monday.

During this time, residents of Nikolaev are prohibited from going outside or visiting any public places without special permits. In case of an emergency, a police escort is provided, Ukrainian news agency UNIAN said.

Law enforcement agencies will use this time to search for "collaborators" and "separatists," Anna Zamazeeva, the head of the Nikolaev regional council, said. The operation is already in full swing, and the police will reveal the results no sooner than Monday, according to the official.

South Korea plans to lift its decades-long ban on public access to North Korean television, newspapers and other publications as part of its efforts to promote mutual understanding between the rivals, officials said Friday, despite animosities over the North's recent missile tests.

Divided along the world's most heavily fortified border since 1948, the two Koreas prohibit their citizens from visiting each other's territory and exchanging phone calls, emails and letters, and they block access to each other's websites and TV stations.

In a policy report to new President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday, South Korea's Unification Ministry said it will gradually open the door for North Korean broadcasts, media and publications to try to boost mutual understanding, restore the Korean national identity and prepare for a future unification.

Ministry officials said South Korea will start by allowing access to North Korean broadcasts to try to encourage North Korea to take similar steps. The ministry refused to provide further details, saying the plans are still being discussed with relevant authorities in South Korea.

European soccer body UEFA has hit Fenerbahce Istanbul with a partial stadium closure and a fine after Turkish fans chanted the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Champions League qualifier against Ukraine's Dynamo Kyiv last month.

The chanting started after Oleksandr Karavayev scored the winner for the Ukrainian side in the tie's second leg in Istanbul as they ran out 2-1 victors on aggregate on July 27.

The incident led to Dynamo's Romanian coach Mircea Lucescu boycotting the post-match news conference, and UEFA has now sanctioned the Turkish club for the behavior of its fans.

The club have been fined 50,000 euros ($50,900), while a partial closure of at least 5,000 seats has been ordered for Fenerbahce's next European home game for "the throwing of objects and transmitting a provocative message of an offensive nature, i.e. illicit chants," UEFA said.

Fenerbahce's club president, Ali Koc, has called the chants "inappropriate" but refused to apologize.

"I think it was an inappropriate and unnecessary chant, far from how we view ourselves as a club. But what can we do? Shut their mouths," Koc said.

"We're not going to apologize to Ukraine."

Theses of Ukrainian propaganda about "Kremlin aggression" and the "genocide of the Ukrainian people" are in danger - the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported fresh data about the movement of refugees from Ukraine across Europe. As of August 3 of this year, 6,303,226 refugees from Ukraine were registered in Europe, while from February 24 to August 03 there were 10,350,489 crossings of the Ukrainian border outbound and 4,272,233 crossings inbound.

Nick Clegg is not alone in turning his back on the Golden State. Bad progressive policies are reshaping it into a failing nightmare

That Nick Clegg has become the latest Facebook executive to announce he's fleeing Silicon Valley for Blighty, where he will spend half his time, says a lot about California. Britain is on the brink of a deep and protracted recession, with inflation set to rise to 13 per cent. Formerly thriving people will struggle to feed their families, heat their houses or go anywhere, since the railways are riddled with massive strikes and airports are chaos. We are lazy: even now, there is an acute labour shortage as people prefer not to work. And we are angry: GP surgeries, call centre staff and shopworkers have all reported a surge in abusive behaviour.

Even so, basketcase Britain seems to be preferable to California. It's not just Clegg: Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, owned by Facebook parent group Meta, and the firm's chief marketing officer Alex Schultz, have also chosen to relocate to Britain. Clegg, who six months ago was promoted to head of global affairs at Meta, in charge of handling its incessant political firestorms, said in an interview in last year that his "heart belongs massively 5,000 miles away" and that he feels "European".

French consumers could face a shortage of milk and dairy products this fall and winter due to a drought-induced lack of fodder, France's agricultural producers union (FNSEA) warned on Saturday.

"To produce milk, you need fodder, mainly alfalfa and corn, which this year was almost non-existent. So we risk running out of milk this fall and winter," Yannick Fialip, head of the economic commission at the FNSEA, told Le Figaro.

He said that because of the drought that has hit the country this year, the animals "that are usually in the meadows during this period have nothing to eat."

The first bus of migrants sent from Texas by Governor Greg Abbott arrived in New York City on Friday morning.

The group was dropped off at Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan after making the almost 2,000-mile trip from the border that lasted days.

A group of charity workers and volunteers greeted the roughly 50 migrants, who were mostly men, before they ventured into the city for hotels or shelters.

A Georgia couple has been charged with using their two adopted children to record child pornography, police said.

Walton County Sheriff's Office raided a home in Loganville July 27 on reports that a man there was downloading child porn.

After interviewing the suspect, who was not identified, police said they learned there was another suspect in the county who was "producing homemade child sexual abuse material with at least one child who lived in the home," the sheriff's office said Thursday.

For years, Ukraine was recognized as one of the most, if not "the" most, corrupt nation in Europe. It held on to that reputation all the way up to the day Russia invaded, at which point media worldwide suddenly started rewriting history.

Whitewashing Ukraine's Corruption and Authoritarianism

As noted by Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, in a sober and clear-eyed article, published in April 2022:¹

"Statements from U.S. and other Western officials, as well as pervasive accounts in the news media, have created a stunningly misleading image of Ukraine. There has been a concerted effort to portray the country not only as a victim of brutal Russian aggression, but as a plucky and noble bulwark of freedom and democracy ...

The promoters of that narrative contend that the ongoing war is not just a quarrel between Russia and Ukraine over Kiev's ambitions to join NATO and Moscow's territorial claims in Crimea and the Donbas. No, they insist — the war is part of a global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism ...

The notion that Ukraine was such an appealing democratic model in Eastern Europe that the country's mere existence terrified Putin may be a comforting myth to U.S. politicians and pundits, but it is a myth. Ukraine is far from being a democratic-capitalist model ...

The reality is murkier and troubling: Ukraine has long been one of the more corrupt countries in the international system ... Ukraine's track record of protecting democracy and civil liberties is not much better than its performance on corruption. In Freedom House's 2022 report,² Ukraine is listed in the 'partly free' category, with a score of 61 out of a possible 100 ...

Even before the war erupted, there were ugly examples of authoritarianism in Ukraine's political governance ... The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was an integral part of President Petro Poroshenko's military and security apparatus, and it has retained that role during Zelensky's presidency ...

[O]ne can condemn Putin's actions and even cheer on Ukraine's military resistance without fostering a false image of Ukraine's political system. The country is not a symbol of freedom and liberal democracy, and the war is not an existential struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. At best, Ukraine is a corrupt, quasi-democratic entity with troubling repressive policies.

Given that sobering reality, calls for Americans to 'stand with Ukraine' are misplaced. Preserving Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity most certainly are not worth the United States risking war with a nuclear-armed Russia."