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One of the most influential U.S. officials during the COVID-19 pandemic is testified to Congress on June 3, days after one of his former advisers admitted deleting emails. Dr. Anthony Fauci, 83, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to late 2022, sat down in front of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in Washington to answer questions. Lawmakers asked Fauci about the growing scandal at his former agency, which centers on attempts to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a law that establishes the right of the public to obtain government information such as emails.

Jury selection is set to begin this week in first son Hunter Biden’s federal gun crime case. The first round of the jury selection process began at the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware. Hunter Biden has been at the center of a series of controversies since the campaign era of the 2020 election cycle for a series of alleged personal, business, and legal failures. The trial will focus on allegedly untruthful statements that Mr. Biden made on a form to receive a firearm in 2018.

Two New York City police officers were shot by a man identified by authorities as an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. Nineteen-year-old Bernardo Raul Castro-Mata was allegedly driving a scooter the wrong way when the officers tried to pull him over. While fleeing on foot, he reportedly opened fire at the officers, who returned fire. Castro-Mata is also a suspect in a series of robberies involving motorized scooters. Both officers are in stable condition and expected to recover.

Former President Donald Trump on May 31 responded to his felony conviction for falsifying business records in New York, saying the trial was “very unfair” and said his team will appeal the case. “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” he said.

The Trump campaign reported a “record-shattering, small-dollar fundraising haul” of nearly $35 million by the morning after the former president was convicted on felony charges in New York City. That’s “nearly double the biggest day ever recorded for the Trump campaign on the WinRed platform,” the campaign’s statement said.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced that he has left the Democratic Party and become an independent. “My commitment to do everything I can to bring our country together has led me to register as an independent with no party affiliation,” Manchin wrote in a post on the social media platform X, showing a picture of himself with what appeared to be a voter registration form.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the National Rifle Association plausibly alleged that a former New York state official violated the First Amendment by pressuring insurance companies to cut ties with the gun rights organization. “A government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs, and she can do so forcefully in the hopes of persuading others to follow her lead,” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the majority opinion on May 30.

Jurors entered the second day of deliberations in the trial of former President Donald Trump. Justice Juan Merchan read back portions of his instructions and some witness testimony, as requested by the jury. The jury has no set timeline to deliver their verdict, but any decision they make will need to be unanimous.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has requested access to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal email and phone records, with the panel’s chairman saying the record request relates to new evidence suggesting that Dr. Fauci used a “secret back channel” to communicate about official COVID-19 information, including possibly using his personal email account to communicate about official government business during the pandemic.

1. No Trump Verdict After Hours Of Jury Deliberations
2. Deliberations Begin In Historic Trial Against Trump
3. Idf Claims Control Of Gaza-egypt Border
4. Blinken: Israel Has No Plan For Day After War In Gaza
5. Gaza Residents Flee For Safety As War Rages On

Jury deliberations began on May 29 in former President Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial, after Judge Juan Merchan gave jurors his instructions. The jury must evaluate 34 counts of falsifying business records, and there’s no time limit for the deliberations. President Trump told reporters that the charges were rigged and again accused the judge of being conflicted while saying that “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges.”

President Joe Biden plans to launch a nationwide effort to mobilize black voters during a campaign rally in Philadelphia, aiming to win back support from a slice of the electorate that polls show wavering in support. Joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and a slate of black elected officials, President Biden is expected to boost his achievements while also targeting his rival, President Trump.

The Biden administration on May 28 said it was closely monitoring the probe into a deadly Israeli airstrike it called beyond tragic, but that the recent deaths in Rafah didn't constitute a major operation there that crosses red lines. Asked if he was saying the recent ground operations in Rafah would not prompt a U.S. withdrawal of more military aid, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, "I believe that's what I've been saying here."

Closing arguments began on May 28 in former President Donald Trump’s New York criminal case, with each side expected to take hours. The Manhattan district attorney has charged President Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records to the first degree, to which he has pleaded not guilty. After the day-long summations, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan will give jurors instructions on the law, which should last an hour.

President Joe Biden's campaign showed up outside the courthouse with actor Robert De Niro and a pair of former police officers in an effort to refocus the presidential race on the former president’s role in the Capitol breach. It was a sharp about-face for President Biden's team, which had largely ignored the trial since it began six weeks ago and is now looking to capitalize on its drama-filled closing moments.

Powerful storms are delivering yet another round of violent weather to Texas. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport recorded a wind gust of 77 mph early Tuesday as power outages in the region started to skyrocket. More than 750,000 customers in Texas were without power and that number continued to climb, according to PowerOutage.us. More than half of the outages were in Dallas County.

As many as 2,000 people are feared to have been buried by last week’s massive landslide in Papua New Guinea, according to the country’s National Disaster Centre. The landslide occurred in the mountainous Enga region in northern Papua New Guinea on Friday, and the latest missing figure is a sharp rise from earlier estimates. Rescuers have struggled to reach such a remote part of what is already one of Asia’s poorest nations, leaving locals with little choice but to dig through the collapsed mountainside with whatever tools they have.

At least 21 people, including four children, are dead in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kentucky after tornadoes and severe weather struck the central United States. In Texas, winds reached an estimated 135 miles per hour. At least seven people were killed in the state, about 100 people were injured, and more than 200 homes and structures were destroyed. Powerful storms will move through Tennessee and the Ohio Valley, before heading to the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New York.

President Joe Biden delivered his annual Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, honoring U.S. troops who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Before the speech, President Biden participated in a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It comes as he prepares to travel to Normandy, France, in two weeks, where he’s slated to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

Judges at the United Nations' top court ordered Israel on May 24 to immediately halt its military operation against Hamas in the Southern Gazan city of Rafah, in a landmark emergency ruling in South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide. However, the International Court of Justice did not order the IDF to completely withdraw from Gaza. Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and South Africa welcomed the order, while Israel objected to it.

Meanwhile, Israel’s army said it has recovered from Gaza the bodies of three more hostages killed on Oct. 7. The bodies of Hanan Yablonka, Michel Nisenbaum, and Orión Hernández Radoux were recovered, and their families have been notified. The IDF said the three men were killed on the day of the attack at the Mefalsim intersection, and their bodies were then taken to Gaza. The announcement comes less than a week after the IDF recovered the bodies of three other Israeli hostages.

As finance ministers from the Group of Seven nations opened a two-day meeting in Italy, the United States sought to build support for squeezing more money for Ukraine out of frozen Russian assets, and for uniting against China’s illegal trade practices. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is pushing at the meeting in Stresa for “more ambitious options” to unlock money from some $260 billion in Russian central bank reserves that were frozen in Europe and the United States after the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion.

The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority preserved a Republican-held South Carolina congressional district on May 23, rejecting a lower-court ruling that said the district discriminated against black voters. In a 6-3 decision, the court held that the state’s legislature did nothing wrong during redistricting when it moved 30,000 Democratic-leaning black residents to a different district. The case presented the court with the tricky issue of how to separate race from politics. The state argued that partisan politics, not race, and a population boom in coastal areas explain the congressional map. Moving voters based on their politics is permissible, the Supreme Court ruled.

Taiwan scrambled jets and put missile, naval, and land units on alert over Chinese military exercises being conducted around the self-governing island democracy, where a new president took office this week. China’s military said its two-day exercises around Taiwan were "punishment" for separatist forces seeking Taiwanese independence. In his inauguration address on Monday, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te called for Beijing to stop its military intimidation, and pledged to “neither yield nor provoke” in the face of aggression from China's Communist Party leadership.

The House Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment in the annual defense policy bill on May 22 that, if it passes Congress, would force the Pentagon to rehire U.S. troops who were fired for refusing to take a COVID-19 vaccine. The 2025 bill, titled the Service Member Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act, will serve as the base text for forthcoming debate as it makes its way through Congress.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump are due in court Wednesday for the first time since the judge postponed the trial earlier this month. Just a day before, a newly unsealed motion revealed that President Trump’s team had alleged prosecutorial misconduct on the part of special counsel Jack Smith and the Biden administration. Other unsealed court filings reveal that additional documents marked as “classified” were discovered in President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home by his lawyers after the FBI completed its search of his Southern Florida estate in 2022.

Norway, Spain, and Ireland have announced that they will formally recognize a Palestinian state, prompting Israel to immediately recall its ambassadors to the three nations. The formal recognition will take place on May 28, according to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store. Currently, more than 140 out of the 193 member states of the United Nations recognize Palestinian statehood. But until now, only a handful of nations in the 27-member European Union were among them.

A powerful tornado ripped through a small Iowa town on May 21, killing several people and leaving at least a dozen injured, authorities said. Images from the town of Greenfield show a path of utter destruction, with homes reduced to splinters, debris strewn far and wide, and several large wind turbines toppled. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said the state would provide its full resources to help the impacted areas recover, and reassured residents that support was in place, with crews working to provide shelter, food, and water, and to restore power to thousands of residents.