Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief medical advisor to the president, appears to have misled Congress about the coronavirus fatality rate in the early days of the pandemic, making statements in private that contradicted his public testimony.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) released a <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf#&amp;_intcmp=fnc_politics_article_main-content_article-body_6_1">trove of previously private Fauci diaries</a> ahead of his expected testimony this Wednesday before a key oversight committee. 
A February 8, 2020, journal entry shows Fauci recounting a phone call with former CDC Director Tom Frieden in which he compared the novel coronavirus to a &#8220;bad influenza&#8221; and predicted a lower-than-expected fatality rate.
The Daily Wire is publishing excerpts from Fauci’s journal without any edits or spelling corrections.
“Tom Frieden called me this AM and we discussed various aspects of the outbreak. He and I are on the same page in thinking tht this is acting like a bad influenza in its transmissibility and that the denominator is much greater than 34,867 (above) making the case fatality rate (CFR) more like 0.2-0.3 % rather than 2.0%,” he wrote. 
At that moment, Fauci estimated more than 34,000 infections and 724 deaths.  
About a month later, however, the physician — who privately blushed about his rising public profile — presented Congress with a markedly different assessment of the disease. <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20200312/110713/HHRG-116-GO00-Transcript-20200312.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Testifying under oath</a> at a March 11 hearing, Fauci responded to a question from Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) about the similarities between COVID-19 and influenza.
“The seasonal flu that we deal with every year has a mortality of 0.1 percent. The stated mortality overall of this when you look at all the data including China is about three percent. It first started off as two and now three,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp717hJVI5Y&amp;t=2810s">Fauci told the panel.</a> &#8220;I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, that probably brings the mortality rate down to somewhere around one percent, which means it is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu. I think that is something that people can get their arms around and understand.&#8221;
During the hearing, Cloud questioned Fauci about whether COVID-19 was more lethal than previous diseases, including H1N1, commonly known as swine flu.
“No, absolutely not,” Fauci said. “The 2009 pandemic of H1N1 was even less lethal than the regular seasonal flu.” 
“I&#8217;m trying to help the American people know where to appropriately set their gauge,” Cloud fired back. 
Fauci doubled down on the alarm bells, despite privately downplaying the virus&#8217;s lethality.
“I think to set the gauge is that this is a really serious problem that we have to take seriously. I mean, people always say, &#8216;Well, the flu, you know, the flu does this, the flu does that.&#8217; The flu has a mortality of 0.1 percent,” Fauci said. “This has a mortality of 10 times that, and that&#8217;s the reason why I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.” 
The newly revealed contradictions come after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-fauci-diaries-reveal-celebrity-obsession-at-height-of-covid-crisis?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=New+Fauci+Diaries+Reveal+Celebrity+Obsession+At+Height+Of+COVID+Crisis">The Daily Wire reported</a> Fauci’s obsession with media attention as the coronavirus pandemic claimed lives and overwhelmed hospitals around the globe.
“Press still hot and heavy about me,” Fauci wrote on April 7, 2020. “Multiple stories per day directly or indirectly involving me.”
Weeks later, hundreds of thousands of infections spread worldwide, and nearly 10,000 had died from the virus when Fauci penned the following journal entry on May 21, 2020. 
“Big front page article abut me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyoperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson in the world,” Fauci wrote.

Dr. Fauci Testifies To Senate Health Committee On Country’s COVID-19 Response

Fauci’s Personal Diary Highlights Shocking Contradiction On COVID Fatality Rate

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former Chief Medical Advisor to the President, appeared consumed with media attention and his growing public image as the coronavirus pandemic claimed lives and overwhelmed hospitals around the globe.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf#&amp;_intcmp=fnc_politics_article_main-content_article-body_6_1">released an avalanche of private Fauci diaries</a> ahead of his expected testimony this Wednesday before a key oversight committee.  
The documents shed light on the COVID adviser&#8217;s obsession with his public profile at the height of the years-long pandemic. Inside the near-daily journal entries chronicled Fauci&#8217;s nonstop media appearances on local and national outlets, reaching a level of publicity that Fauci himself couldn’t help but blush about. 
The Daily Wire is publishing excerpts from Fauci&#8217;s journal without any edits or spelling corrections.
“Press still hot and heavy about me,” Fauci wrote on April 7, 2020. “Multiple stories per day directly or indirectly involving me.”
Weeks later, hundreds of thousands of infections spread worldwide, and nearly 10,000 had died from the virus when Fauci penned the following journal entry on May 21, 2020. 
“Big front page article abut me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyoperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson in the world,” Fauci wrote. 
“Countless profiles on me in multiple media. I cannot even read all the things that are written abuyt me since I am so busy … seriously. POTUS seems to be enamored of me even though I am taking the spotlight away from him. We are developing a very unique and interesting relationship,” he added. 
Fauci also recounted how U.S. Secret Service agents routinely waved him through the White House gates without asking to see his badge, often striking up casual conversations.
“Everyone is worried about my health and welfare, probably because it is all over the place that I am almost 80 years old,” he wrote at the time. 
About a month later, Fauci admitted to telling his counterpart, Dr. Deborah Birx, that the administration’s infamous contact tracing and isolation strategy to combat the virus was a “f*cking disaster and an abject failure.”
In the same journal entry, however, Fauci quipped about being invited to appear on &#8220;Dancing With The Stars.&#8221; 
The infatuation with television hits did not stop as the virus abated in parts of the country and red-state governors started reopening measures. In a June 29 meeting with then-Vice President Mike Pence, Fauci pleaded to get back on the big screens. 
“I told him that I am being blocked from TV and I needed to get on TV to give the ‘risk reduction” message and that I would avoid being pitted against him or the POTUS merely by not playing that game,” he wrote. “He did promise that he would get me out there on TV since he really liked my message. First time anyone ever spoke that way to VP. He truly likes me a lot (and vice versa).” 
“Now we have to get the POTUS press people to agree. Interesting intrigue in the White House. POTUS people versus VP people,” he added, suggesting internal divisions at the time over public relations strategy. 
In June, Sen. Paul announced that he issued a subpoena after Fauci allegedly backed out of an agreement to voluntarily appear. 
“Last week, Anthony Fauci notified us he will NOT voluntarily testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, even though he had previously agreed to do so,” Paul <a href="https://x.com/RandPaul/status/2069168695398588521">wrote on X</a>. “Therefore, today I have issued a subpoena requiring him to testify before the Committee, in public, next month.”
The subpoena is the first issued by Paul since taking over as chairman of the committee, which granted its chairman unilateral subpoena authority last year, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rand-paul-issues-first-subpoena-of-long-senate-career-for-tony-fauci?author=Drew+Berkemeyer&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Rand+Paul+Issues+First+Subpoena+Of+Long+Senate+Career+%E2%80%94+For+Tony+Fauci">The Daily Wire reported</a>.
Speaking to <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/06/23/2026/why-rand-paul-subpoenaed-fauci">Semafor</a>, Paul said months of negotiations with Fauci ultimately broke down after the former public health official agreed to appear and then reversed course.
“He’s been slow-walking information to us for six months or more,” Paul told the outlet. “We’ve been negotiating over the date for several months. He agreed, then he said he wouldn’t. So, I think it’s time that we bring him in.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
1/9 — My investigation uncovered that Anthony Fauci kept a diary. 
What he wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.
Today I&#8217;m releasing his entries from December 2019 through December 2022. 🧵 <a href="https://t.co/58LvmeYkCN">pic.twitter.com/58LvmeYkCN</a>
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) <a href="https://x.com/SenRandPaul/status/2081093786185171131?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 25, 2026</a></blockquote>

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki Holds News Briefing At White House

New Fauci Diaries Reveal Celebrity Obsession At Height Of COVID Crisis

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President Donald Trump ordered a probe over the weekend as he said federal judges have been unduly influenced by a taxpayer-funded science organization pushing “discredited” climate activism. 
Trump lambasted the National Academy of Sciences on Sunday as he said guidebooks produced by the organization had been used to hand massive legal wins to climate activists and created “huge losses” for the country. The academy, which has received tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, has a history of publishing research closely linked to <a href="https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/the-climate-science-controversy/">climate activists</a>. 
“The National Academy of Sciences has historically published analytical Scientific Manuals expressly for our Federal Judiciary,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Of course, the Academy has been run by Radical Left Dumocrats who, it turns out, published fraudulent, biased, and misleading Manuals on Climate Change. These bogus Manuals were used by Judges to decide massive ‘Climate Change’ Cases, and have created huge losses across our Country.”
Trump added that he asked federal officials to review the details around what role manuals published by the academy had on the judiciary.  
“These Manuals have been totally DISCREDITED. Our Nation’s Federal Judges deserve Facts and Science, not Political Fraud and False Science on Climate. With this TRUTH, I hereby order Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials to review this conduct,” Trump said. “Our Taxpayers should not be funding Climate Fraud, and Judges should never have relied upon it.”
The National Academy of Sciences did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump&#8217;s post comes as the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this year in a case that will <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/25-00170qp.pdf">focus</a> on whether federal law preempts state-level claims for supposed injuries caused  by “the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate.” The case centers on a lawsuit by the city of Boulder, Colorado, that alleges multiple oil companies have knowingly caused harm.
In recent months, the National Academy of Sciences has frequently faced criticism from Republican officials who argue it is pushing biased science. The claims stem from a report <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/28590/chapter/3#13">released</a> earlier this month on “attribution science,” or the argument that human activity can directly impact frequency and severity of extreme weather. Additionally, its recent “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Fourth Edition” contains a chapter on climate science authored in part by two leftist activists who have advocated ending the use of fossil fuels. 
The Federal Judicial Center, which co-produced the manual, removed the climate-focused chapter from its version earlier this year after scrutiny from Republican officials. 
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/1010506858/AG-Letter-To-DOT-DOW-And-DOE?utm_source=chatgpt.com">argued</a> that the manual “was designed to influence judges in multi-billion-dollar climate cases, was funded by climate litigation funders, was written by academics with little relevant scientific expertise and documented financial and institutional ties to climate litigation advocacy.”
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-officials-demand-trump-admin-suspend-funding-of-science-org-over-climate-activism">reported</a> in March that over a dozen Republican attorneys general asked the Departments of Energy, War, and Transportation to cut funding to the National Academies.
In 2024, the National Academies received $84 million in contracts or grants from the Department of Transportation, $7 million from the Department of Energy, and $33 million from the Department of War.

Spain v Argentina: Final – FIFA World Cup 2026

Trump Puts Taxpayer-Funded Org On Watch Over ‘Climate Fraud’

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It was 30 years ago this month that a couple of college students in Kennewick, Wash., stumbled upon a rare archaeological discovery — one that would help trigger a war between science and racial identity politics, or what we now call “DEI.” Three decades later, it’s clear that if we don’t act quickly, it’s a fight science will probably lose.
What the students found was a 9,000-year-old skeleton that was soon nicknamed Kennewick Man. It was certainly one of the most precious anthropological finds ever. At the time, it was the oldest human skeleton ever found in North America, and it had signs of an injury from an arrow or a spear. More intriguingly, it seemed to have less in common with the skeletons of Native Americans than with those of ancient Japanese peoples, thus potentially changing our understanding of how humans first arrived in the New World.
But that’s when the federal government stepped in. Under a law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, skeletons found on federally owned land (as Kennewick Man was) must be turned over, or “repatriated,” to the Native American tribes they’re related to. NAGPRA was written in response to the actions of 19th- and early 20th-century archaeologists who sometimes engaged in practices that would be unacceptable today to acquire specimens, and it requires not only the “repatriation” of human remains, but also of “funerary objects” — that is, things buried alongside bodies.
Kennewick Man was far older than any existing tribe and not related to any of them. Nevertheless, tribal officials insisted that the bones be kept away from scientific study and turned over for reburial, which would destroy their usefulness for scientific research. In compliance with those demands, federal officials confiscated the skeleton and buried the Kennewick Man site under 600 tons of rock and fill to prevent any further discoveries.
Scientists sued, arguing that NAGPRA simply doesn’t apply to objects that old. After years of litigation, federal courts ruled in their favor. Indeed, the courts found that government officials had acted in bad faith and awarded the scientists $2 million in attorney fees. A year later, even though DNA research revealed that Kennewick Man was closest to South American indigenous peoples, an executive order by then-President Barack Obama forced the scientists to turn Kennewick Man over to a group of Northwest Coast Native American tribes who destroyed the bones forever.
That was bad enough, but in the years since, tribal activists and sympathetic politicians have taken increasingly aggressive positions in demanding the “repatriation” of specimens — many of which have no true connection to tribes, and others that aren’t even particularly old. Some museums have even “repatriated” artworks made in the 1980s and purchased from gift shops — as if these were sacred remnants of someone’s ancestors.
Today, in museums across the country, it has become common to see empty display cases, featuring signs like the one spotted recently at the San Diego Museum of Us: “As part of our decolonization process, these items have been moved to a sanctuary space.”
Equally absurd are cases in which scientists are forced to relinquish animal bones — literally the trash our ancestors threw away — on the theory that they’re somehow “funerary objects” that should be off-limits out of racial or religious sensitivities.
What’s more, some museums have adopted rules based on tribal practices to govern how scientists handle objects in their collections. These sometimes bar female scientists from handling specimens, since that’s sometimes prohibited by Native religious taboos. Museums are also required by federal regulation to have “advisory” committees that include practitioners of tribal religions. Christians, Jews, and Hindus aren’t given the same preferential treatment.
It’s hard to imagine a starker example of the collision between racial identity politics and the scientific rationality that our social and technological progress depends on. Out of deference to politically correct race politics and irrationally romanticized conceptions about “stolen land,” the institutions where science should reign supreme are being suborned into erasing the accumulated knowledge of centuries. In effect, an entire field of scientific inquiry has been placed at risk by an overzealous activist movement using the regulatory power of the state.
The study of human remains and artifacts isn’t just some antiquarian hobby. It provides critical insights about present-day issues like climate change and provides insights that can help police officers solve crimes. But entire areas of anthropological research may now be shutting down, thanks to the aggressive use and misuse of NAGPRA.
The science of anthropology can still be saved if we act now. Museum officials and state governments can push back. For one thing, many “repatriation” efforts aren’t actually required by NAGPRA. Museum leaders should refuse to be cowed by activist demands that fall outside the law. And states should adopt legislation prohibiting the return of specimens that are too old to be associated with a tribe or too young to be a “funerary object.” They should also forbid any museum from following rules that discriminate on the basis of sex or religion.
Science is too precious to be sacrificed to the political demands of DEI and the wishful thinking of angry activists who prioritize race over research, discovery, and progress.
***
Timothy Sandefur is the vice president for legal affairs at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.
Elizabeth Weiss is a professor emeritus of anthropology at San José State University and author of the Goldwater Institute report, “<a href="https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/policy-report/the-reburial-of-the-southwest/">The Reburial of the Southwest: Closing Off Native History and Archaeology</a>”

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A new drug in development has shown promising results in restricting cancer cells&#8217; ability to hide from the immune system and reduced tumors in some patients by at least 30%. 
<a href="https://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyle/health-and-well-being/new-experimental-cancer-drug-removes-tumours-invisibility-cloak-early-trial-shows-1960776">Immunotherapy treatments</a> for cancer have improved survival rates, but due to cancer’s ability to play “hide-and-seek,” many drugs become ineffective. However, <a href="https://www.greywolftherapeutics.com/news/greywolf-therapeutics-reports-durable-clinical-responses-with-first-in-class-oral-erap1-inhibitor-grwd5769-across-six-solid-tumor-types">Greywolf Therapeutics</a>, an Oxford-based biotech company that focuses on treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases, developed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jun/01/cancer-smart-drug-cells-invisibility-cloak-shrink-tumours-trial?utm_source=chatgpt.com">drug</a> designed to &#8220;stop cancer cells concealing themselves from the immune system, allowing immunotherapy treatments to identify and destroy them.” 
A trial, led by the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, England, tested 83 patients with cervical, bladder, liver, bowel, lung, or head and neck cancers. The patients were given the drug and immunotherapy treatment, cemiplimab. In the trial across the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Australia, the research found tumors shrank in 26 patients, and 15 of those patients had tumor reductions by at least 30%. 
WATCH FROM TODAY&#8217;S EPISODE OF MORNING WIRE:
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The drug, called GRWD5769, shrank tumors in all six cancer types and halted the progression of the disease for at least six months in 18% of the cervical cancer patients, 32% of liver cancer patients, 36% of bladder cancer patients, 38% of head and neck cancer patients, 51% of bowel cancer patients, and 55% of lung cancer patients. 
The results of the trial were presented at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago by <a href="https://www.greywolftherapeutics.com/news/greywolf-therapeutics-reports-durable-clinical-responses-with-first-in-class-oral-erap1-inhibitor-grwd5769-across-six-solid-tumor-types">Professor Fiona Thistlethwaite,</a> the medical director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Manchester Clinical Research Facility at The Christie. She said that she is excited about the trial because it shows “strong signals of efficacy across six tumor types that have shown great resistance to immunotherapy, with very few side effects. That&#8217;s unusual at such an early stage.” 
Thistlethwaite told The Guardian, “For a drug that is given as a tablet, this is very impressive. It’s early days, and we need further studies, but this is a new drug with a new mechanism that clearly helps immunotherapy perform more effectively.”
The drug works by addressing <a href="https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2020/08/22/cancer-invisibility-cloak/">an issue that has plagued</a> scientists for decades: cancer’s ability to play hide-and-seek. The way the body fights foreign cells — bacteria and viruses — is by antigen-presenting cells (APCs) showing T-cells the external invaders, which then fight the disease. The problem with cancer cells is that they are not external invaders, but the body’s own cells, which become mutated. They coat themselves with PD-L1, a protein normal cells produce that works to hide their identity to T-cells, effectively playing hide-and-seek.
The new drug can “reveal hidden tumors through T-cell diversification and priming,” <a href="https://www.greywolftherapeutics.com/grwd5769#:~:text=What%20stage%20of%20development%20is">according to the Greywolf website,</a> which means that through the drug inhibiting ERAP1, it removes cancer’s &#8220;invisibility cloak” and allows T-cells to detect tumor cells originally invisible.
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jun/01/cancer-smart-drug-cells-invisibility-cloak-shrink-tumours-trial?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Dr. Samuel Godfrey,</a> Cancer Research UK&#8217;s research information lead, said that while immunotherapy has “transformed treatment for some cancers,” it doesn’t work for everyone. “This trial seems to show how this new drug could make immunotherapy more effective, including in some cases where immunotherapy had previously failed.”

Tumour infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, illustration

New Drug Can Put An End To Cancer’s Hide-And-Seek Game

Cancer

Google is seeking federal approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to release 32 million “good” mosquitoes across California and Florida.
The public health program, titled “Debug Project,” was created by Google’s parent company Alphabet a decade ago. It plans to release male mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia into the two states to mate with wild females without producing offspring, hindering the spread of the numerous deadly diseases the insect can carry and transmit to humans.
Wolbachia is a parasitic bacterium that disrupts reproduction: males carrying it mate with wild females, leaving them unable to produce viable offspring. It is completely harmless to humans as well, as it is already naturally occurring in many other insects. 
“This technique uses a naturally occurring bacteria and uses no chemicals, no toxins and doesn’t involve genetic modification,” Google stated on the <a href="https://debug.com/">website</a> dedicated to the project. “Similar approaches have been used to safely combat other pests for decades.”
The surplus of mosquitoes will not cause any more bug bites, as only females bite humans, possibly infecting them with West Nile, Zika, and yellow fever every year. The “good bugs,” as Google refers to them, would prevent the world’s deadliest disease vector from infecting millions and killing between 500,000 and 1 million individuals every year — by preventing the “bad bugs” from being born altogether.
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&nbsp;
If passed, the Debug Project would unfold in two parts. The first year of the plan aims to release 16 million “good bugs” into Florida, with the remaining mosquitoes released in California the following year, in what is described as the Sterile Insect Technique. This avoids spraying pesticides statewide or altering the insect&#8217;s DNA, both of which have proven unsuccessful in stopping the spread of disease.
“Attacking mosquitoes with pesticides is unsustainable because they&#8217;re becoming less effective over time and can be toxic,” Google explains on the Debug Project <a href="https://debug.com/">homepage</a>. “We need a new approach.”
A decision on this project will not be made by the EPA until after the public comment period ends on June 5, 2026.

Aedes aegypti biting human skin

Tech Giant Lobbies To Unleash 32 Million Mosquitos Into America

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Technology

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Most people who have heard of the fine-tuning argument think they know what it says: the universe is wildly improbable, so God must have designed it.
The basic idea is simple. The laws of physics contain fixed numbers, called the constants of nature, that determine things like the strength of gravity, the mass of the electron, and the expansion of the universe. If some of these numbers were even slightly different, the universe would not have formed atoms, planets, stars, galaxies, or life. That surprising discovery is called fine tuning.
From there, the argument is usually presented in one of two familiar ways. One version tries to eliminate every alternative to design. The other compares the probability of fine tuning with and without an intelligent cause.
These two familiar versions are important. But they can also get bogged down in technical debates about probability and alternate universes and even drift into the problem of evil.
There is a third version of the <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/fine-tuning-argument-for-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.physicstogod.com/fine-tuning-argument-for-god&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1779393446910000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0i2RUtUSf5zF4Wzq2mcUaM">fine-tuning argument</a> that is simpler, clearer, and stronger. Most people have never heard it.
Before we get to that, we need to look briefly at the two familiar versions.
The first, associated with philosopher William Lane Craig, is the argument by elimination. Fine-tuning must be due to necessity, chance, or design. The constants either had to be what they are, happened by chance to be what they are, or were set that way by an intelligent cause. Since necessity and chance fail as satisfactory explanations, design is what remains.
It is a clean formulation. But it has a vulnerability: an argument by elimination depends on the list being complete and the alternatives being truly eliminated. A critic can always ask whether some unknown explanation has been left out, or whether necessity and chance have really been ruled out.
The second version is the probability argument, featured in Stephen Meyer’s recent documentary film, &#8220;The Story of Everything.&#8221; Fine-tuning is far more likely if there is an intelligent cause than if there isn’t one. If a purposeful creator wanted a universe with stars, planets, chemistry, and life, then it is no surprise that the constants would have values that allow for exactly that. Without intelligence behind the universe, those constants landing in precisely the right range look extraordinarily improbable.
This version is powerful, but it can get complicated quickly. Critics challenge the probability assumptions. What does “improbable” mean when we have only observed one universe? The argument can also drift into theological debates about the problem of evil and what God would or would not choose to create.
Both versions are valuable. Neither should be dismissed. But there is a third version that avoids many of these complications and cuts closer to the heart of the matter.
It begins with a mystery that physicists already had.
Physicists can measure the constants of nature with extraordinary precision. What they cannot do is explain them. Their values are measured, not derived. No deeper theory tells us why they have the values they do.
Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, pointed directly at this puzzle. Discussing a number related to the strength of electromagnetism, roughly 1/137, Feynman noted that physicists knew its value with remarkable precision but had no idea where it came from. He called it one of the greatest mysteries of physics.
That is where the strongest version of the fine-tuning argument begins, not with probability or eliminating alternatives. It begins with a mystery already sitting at the heart of physics.
Only then does fine-tuning enter the picture.
Fine-tuning reveals something remarkable. The constants that first looked like arbitrary values sitting unexplained at the foundation of physics are not arbitrary in their effects. Their values are suited to a specific result: the emergence of a rich, ordered universe with atoms, stars, planets, galaxies, and life.
That is the crucial shift: fine-tuning is not the problem. Fine-tuning is the clue.
It tells us how to think about the mystery of the constants. They are not merely unexplained numbers. Their effects line up with the emergence of a rich, ordered universe. And that points to intelligence.
Intelligence, at its most basic level, is the ability to select one possibility from among many for the sake of achieving a goal. An author chooses precise words to express an idea. An engineer chooses the right materials and dimensions to build a structure. Intelligence selects the right means for an intended end.
The constants show that same pattern. From among the many values they could have had, they have the values needed for structure, order, and complexity to emerge. That indicates purposeful selection.
This is why the argument is not a “God of the gaps” claim. It is not based on what science has failed to explain. It is based on what science has discovered. Fine-tuning is positive knowledge about the constants. Their values appear to be coordinated toward the emergence of a structured universe.
The mystery of the constants was already sitting at the heart of physics. Fine-tuning did not create a new puzzle. It illuminated the one physicists already had.
The constants of nature appear to be set for a purpose. A cause that selects the right means to achieve a purpose is, by definition, intelligent. That is why the fine-tuning argument, properly understood, remains one of the strongest <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/does-god-exist" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.physicstogod.com/does-god-exist&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1779393446910000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2fzoHkXcdcCy3ZFFeVq8vI">science-based arguments for God</a>.
***
Rabbi Elie Feder, Ph.D., and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer host the “Physics to God” podcast.

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The Mystery Physicists Can’t Explain Keeps Pointing To God

Faith

Upstream

Are you fighting with your spouse? Did you screw over a coworker? Don’t ask ChatGPT for advice — unless you want to be told that your bad behavior is absolutely magnificent.
A <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352">bombshell study</a> published in Science, one of the most prestigious academic journals on the planet, delivered a chilling wake-up call to millions of tech-obsessed Americans. Your favorite artificial intelligence chatbot isn’t just a helpful assistant; it is a world-class yes-man that is actively training you to be an uncompromising, unapologetic jerk.
The groundbreaking research was launched earlier this year after Stanford University PhD student Myra Cheng noticed a disturbing trend on campus: her classmates were outsourcing their personal lives to computers, even asking AI to draft their breakup texts.
“We were inspired to study this problem as we began noticing that more and more people around us were using AI for relationship advice and sometimes being misled by how it tends to take your side, no matter what,” Cheng <a href="https://www.ksat.com/business/2026/03/26/ai-is-giving-bad-advice-to-flatter-its-users-says-new-study-on-dangers-of-overly-agreeable-chatbots/">said</a>.
Cheng teamed up with her advisor, Dan Jurafsky, to test 11 of the world&#8217;s most dominant AI models — including OpenAI&#8217;s ChatGPT, Anthropic&#8217;s Claude, Google&#8217;s Gemini, and DeepSeek. They threw nearly 12,000 real-world social situations at the machines to measure &#8220;social sycophancy&#8221; — the scientific term for sucking up to the user.
The results were terrifying.
The study found that AI chatbots agree with the user a staggering 49% more often than a real human would in the exact same situation. Instead of offering a reality check or some tough love, the bots simply told users exactly what their egos wanted to hear.
It gets worse. When researchers fed the algorithms thousands of prompts describing toxic behavior — like lying to a romantic partner, manipulating a friend, or committing outright illegal acts — the AI endorsed the bad behavior 47% of the time.
Even when tested against Reddit’s famous &#8220;Am I The A**hole?&#8221; forum on posts where human commentators mostly agreed the poster was the a**hole, the AI coddled the wrongdoers, validating them in 51% of the cases.
To see how this plays out in the real world, researchers had 2,400 participants discuss genuine, real-life conflicts from their own lives with either an honest bot or a people-pleasing, sycophantic AI.
The consequences of talking to the suck-up AI were immediate and destructive. After just a single session, users became:
<ul style="font-weight: 400;">
<li>More convinced they were right.</li>
<li>Less willing to apologize or take responsibility.</li>
<li>Measurably less interested in making things right with the person they hurt.</li>
</ul>
In an analysis of letters written to the other person in the conflict, those who spoke to an honest bot apologized 75% of the time. Those who spoke to the sycophantic AI apologized just 50% of the time.
“Users are aware that models behave in sycophantic and flattering ways,” Jurafsky <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/03/ai-advice-sycophantic-models-research">said</a>. “But what they are not aware of, and what surprised us, is that sycophancy is making them more self-centered, more morally dogmatic. &#8230; Sycophancy is a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight. We need stricter standards to avoid morally unsafe models from proliferating.”
Here is the sinister twist: users absolutely love being lied to.
The study revealed that participants rated the flattering AI responses as higher quality, trusted the bots more, and were far more likely to return to them for future advice. Shockingly, users frequently described the sycophantic models as &#8220;objective&#8221; and &#8220;honest&#8221; — even when the computer was just echoing their own toxic biases.
With <a href="https://myfox8.com/news/self-affirmations-from-ai-chatbots-harm-human-relationships-study/">nearly half</a> of young adults under 30 admitting they turn to AI for relationship advice, experts fear we are heading toward a social crisis.
Cheng&#8217;s advice for anyone looking to navigate their messy love lives or workplace drama? Step away from the smartphone.
“I think that you should not use AI as a substitute for people for these kinds of things,” Cheng said.
Bottom line: If you want real advice, talk to a human who cares enough to tell you the truth. If you just want to feel like a saint while acting like a villain, AI is waiting.

Concept of AI technology scam or cyber security warning concept, Man hand showing warning about using AI technology to access personal data or internet threats with virtual infographic

What Happens When Your Therapist, Friend, And Ego Booster Become The Same Thing

Artificial Intelligence

study

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
When well-meaning people tell expectant moms that “motherhood changes you,” they may be more right than they know. A new study by brain scientists in the Netherlands suggests that a mother’s brain undergoes distinct changes after having a second child that seem to help her adapt to caring for her growing family.
A decade ago, a related study found that women’s brains lose gray matter after having a first child, and the changes last for years — something researcher Elseline Hoekzema referred to as “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/22/health/pregnancy-brain-changes/index.html">synaptic pruning</a>.” Second-time mothers’ brains appear to be “more strongly altered in networks involved in reacting to sensory cues and in controlling your attention,” researcher Milou Straathof <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-pregnancy-uniquely-female-brain.html">said</a> of the recent study.
The new study, detailed in an <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69370-8">article</a> published in February, found that the changes were distinct enough that “women could significantly be classified as having undergone a first or a second pregnancy based solely on their brain changes between sessions.” X user Anish Moonka <a href="https://x.com/anishmoonka/status/2049010221847310400">shared</a> a synopsis of the study ahead of Mother’s Day, causing many moms to comment that they were thankful to know their so-called mom brain moments, though frustrating, had an underlying purpose.
“It&#8217;s incredibly important to study how pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting affect the brains of women (and men, too). The majority of adults become parents at some point in their lifespan, but there are still major gaps in our understanding of how the transition to parenthood affects our neurobiology, cognition, health, and brain aging,” psychologist and professor Darby Saxbe, author of the forthcoming book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dad-Brain-Science-Fatherhood-Shapes/dp/1250387523">Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men&#8217;s Lives</a>,&#8221; told The Daily Wire in a statement. Saxbe is listed as a peer reviewer of the 2026 article.
The 2026 study involved 110 women who underwent MRI brain scans to examine data points such as gray matter volume, resting-state brain activity, and white matter tract organization. The women were divided into three groups: women pregnant with their first child, women pregnant with their second child, and a control group of women who were not pregnant.
Psychologist and licensed behavior analyst Lauren Mahoney, who teaches at the City University of New York, told The Daily Wire that the research tracks with her personal experience as a mother.
“After my first child, the shift felt internal. My attention narrowed in a way that almost felt protective,” Mahoney said. “I remember thinking how strange it was that I could pick up on the smallest cues but at the same time forget something as simple as why I walked into a room.”
“After my second child, the shift was entirely different,” she continued. “I had a very clear moment where I thought, ‘My brain doesn’t get to stay in one place anymore.’”
The concept of matrescence, the process of becoming a mother, is important for women to be aware of, experts told The Daily Wire. Many people describe it as the process of transforming from maiden to mother. 
“Another important piece of the research is that the most significant changes in first-time mothers occur in the default mode network, which is heavily involved in self-referential thinking and understanding other people’s thoughts and emotions,” Mahoney said. “That helps explain why first-time mothers often describe such a profound identity shift. They are not just caring for a child. Their brain is actively reorganizing how they understand themselves in relation to another human being. By the second pregnancy, that system has already adapted. So instead of restructuring identity again, the brain appears to refine and build capacity for managing complexity. That is where the shift toward attention and action systems becomes so important.”
The findings of the study weren’t a total surprise for researchers who have conducted similar studies with animals and had similar findings, said neuroscientist <a href="https://www.jodipawluski.com/">Jodi Pawluski</a>, author of the book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Brain-Discover-amazing-maternal/dp/1772584878">Mommy Brain</a>.&#8221; Pawluski said the new study may point out the obvious (or at least what is obvious to experts) — that a second-time mom experiences changes in neural networks related to attention, sensory, and motor pathways — but it’s still very important research to build on.
“The majority of the research we have on the maternal brain has focused on how becoming a mother for the first time is related to changes in the brain,” Pawluski told The Daily Wire in a statement. “However, the majority of mothers have more than one child, so understanding how the second (or third, or fourth) time impacts a mother&#8217;s brain is incredibly important to ensure we are doing all that we can to support mothers and families.”
The authors of the new study were also interested in how these brain changes correlate with mother-baby bonding and peripartum mood. The article states that for both groups of pregnant women, less pronounced brain changes were linked to depression.
Many people underestimate the amazing nature of the mother-baby connection, Dr. Kristin M. Collier, associate professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, told The Daily Wire, <a href="https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/a-relational-theology-of-biology/">citing research</a> that shows that a mother’s voice can affect her child’s brain structure, can influence her baby’s heart rate, and is likely a key factor in her child’s development of language.
The new study could contain meaningful information for moms going about their everyday lives, Mahoney said. Most importantly, she wants moms to give themselves grace when they feel like they no longer function the way they did before having children.
“The difficulty focusing, the constant mental switching, [and] the feeling of being cognitively stretched are often interpreted as personal shortcomings, when in reality they reflect a brain that has adapted to manage complexity and unpredictability,” she said. “When women understand this, there is often an immediate shift from self-criticism to self-compassion. They begin to work with their brain instead of against it. That might look like structuring tasks differently, allowing for more flexible attention, or recognizing that efficiency now looks like responsiveness rather than sustained focus.”
Either way, moms can be grateful for scientific proof that their &#8220;mom brain&#8221; is actually their superpower.
***
Evie Solheim is a freelance journalist, book reviewer, and author of the newsletter <a href="https://eviefordham.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Girl’s Guide</a>. Find her on X <a href="https://x.com/EvieSolheim" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@eviesolheim</a>.

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We Already Knew Moms Had Superpowers — Now There’s Scientific Proof

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NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman shared a stunning iPhone video on Sunday showing Earth slowly fading from view behind the Moon.
Wiseman used his cellphone to capture the “Earthset” on April 6 as the crew’s spacecraft moved behind the Moon, about 252,000 miles from Earth.
During an &#8216;Earthset,&#8217; the planet &#8220;appears to sink below the lunar horizon,&#8221; <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/earthset-from-the-lunar-far-side/">according to NASA</a>.
&#8220;Only one chance in this lifetime,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/astro_reid/status/2046009031613907029?s=20">Wiseman said on social media</a>. &#8220;Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset.&#8221;
&#8220;I could barely see the Moon through the docking hatch window but the iPhone was the perfect size to catch the view … this is uncropped, uncut with 8x zoom which is quite comparable to the view of the human eye,&#8221; he added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Only one chance in this lifetime…
Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset. You can hear the shutter on the Nikon as <a href="https://twitter.com/Astro_Christina?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Astro_Christina</a> is hammering away on 3-shot brackets and capturing those… <a href="https://t.co/8aWnaFJ69c">pic.twitter.com/8aWnaFJ69c</a>
— Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) <a href="https://twitter.com/astro_reid/status/2046009031613907029?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The viral video has racked up more than 10 million views on X. 
&#8220;Otherworldly … the Earth setting behind the Moon during the Artemis II mission &#8211; captured with an everyday smartphone. Makes it feel so much more ‘human’ and closer to home,&#8221; Special Communications Assistant to the NASA Administrator said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Otherworldly… the Earth setting behind the Moon during the Artemis II mission &#8211; captured with an everyday smartphone. Makes it feel so much more ‘human’ and closer to home. <a href="https://t.co/9SKhDt9TyJ">https://t.co/9SKhDt9TyJ</a>
— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) <a href="https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/2046009592816050181?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The four-member crew also photographed <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bright-spot-artemis-ii-crew-names-moon-feature-after-mission-commanders-late-wife">terrain features</a>, &#8220;including impact craters, ancient lava flows, and surface cracks and ridges formed as the Moon slowly evolved over time,&#8221; NASA said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Your close personal friends, the <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAArtemis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASAArtemis</a> astronauts (and Rise), can&#8217;t wait to get home!
In the meantime, enjoy a few new pictures from their camera roll. And watch their return with us live at <a href="https://t.co/z1RgZwQkWS">https://t.co/z1RgZwQkWS</a>. <a href="https://t.co/gJBvWTdlWM">pic.twitter.com/gJBvWTdlWM</a>
— NASA (@NASA) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA/status/2042714976767349088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
NASA’s Artemis II crew made history by traveling farther into space than humans had ever gone before.
Wiseman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-christian-symbol-that-brought-the-artemis-ii-commander-to-tears">previously described</a> the moment he called for the ship’s chaplain at the end of the historic lunar mission, saying he “broke down in tears” when he saw the cross on the officer’s collar.
“When I got back on the on the ship — I’m not really a religious person — but there was just no other avenue for me to explain anything or to experience anything,” Wiseman said of the moment they were retrieved after splashdown.
“So, I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship to just come visit us for a minute, and when that man walked in, I’d never met him before in my life. But I saw the cross on his collar, and I just broke down in tears,” he continued. “It’s very hard to fully grasp what we just went through.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
NEW: Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman reflects on being MOVED to tears by the Christian cross after returning to Earth from the historic expedition:
&#8220;When I got back on the on the ship — I&#8217;m not really a religious person — but there was just no other avenue for me to explain… <a href="https://t.co/yk2JBIkxrN">pic.twitter.com/yk2JBIkxrN</a>
— Fox News (@FoxNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/2044852432891527539?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2026</a></blockquote>
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WATCH: Artemis II Commander Shares ‘One Chance In A Lifetime’ Shot From Space

Artemis II

Earth

Moon

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
From “Star Wars” to Sandra Bullock, the intergalactic rescue mission has become one of Hollywood’s most overworked templates.
So I was skeptical when I settled in for “Project Hail Mary,” a new sci-fi epic adapted from Andy Weir’s novel of the same name. The film stars Ryan Gosling as a scientist on a last-ditch effort to save the world.
The plot is, admittedly, well-worn. And at its weakest moments, the film dips into the prolonged peril and aimless drift of Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity.” But ultimately, “Project Hail Mary” succeeds in offering something new. It is a heartwarming story about friendship, sacrifice, and the grace of finding something worth living and risking your life for. It blends the best of Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” with Weir’s own “The Martian,” and may be the finest performance of Gosling’s career.
The plot revolves around a mysterious intergalactic organism discovered spreading across solar systems, draining stars of their fuel, and hastening their collapse. This poses something of a problem for humanity, which relies on the sun for energy even more so than the Strait of Hormuz.
With no military solution available, the United States joins forces with the rest of the world to spearhead Project Hail Mary — a literal last-ditch attempt to save civilization. Scientists soon discover that one distant star alone appears immune in an otherwise infected galaxy, prompting a one-way mission to investigate the source of that immunity and relay the findings back to Earth.
One of the film’s strengths is its believable hero. A middle school science teacher with a PhD in molecular biology who flamed out of academia after a controversial but daring thesis sunk his reputation, Grace is a far cry from the roughnecks turned astronauts who save the world in Michael Bay’s “Armageddon.”
Upon awakening from a medically induced coma aboard the interstellar ship lightyears from home, Grace pieces together the mission through a series of flashbacks, alternating between his lonely presence in space and his memories of the events that led him there. The structure works well, gradually filling in both the mechanics of the plot and the contours of Grace’s character without sacrificing momentum.
But what gives Project Hail Mary its heart and distinguishes the film in such a saturated genre is the unlikely friendship that forms between Grace and Rocky — a bizarre extraterrestrial life-form resembling an animated boulder formation he encounters along the way. Following an extended and amusing sequence in which Grace, after mapping Rocky’s range of beeps and rhythms to English words, cycles through voice options ranging from a sprightly Irish gentleman to a seductive phone-sex operator, he settles on a charming, faintly Stephen Hawking-like rhythm redolent of Dug from Disney’s “Up.” Their relationship is the film’s emotional center and by far its most rewarding achievement.
The early moments of contact between them are suffused with genuine wonder. Grace’s first glimpse of Rocky’s alien ship — an elegant, Art Deco-like vessel the size of the Empire State Building gliding through the void — is enchanting. As are the scenes in which the two cautiously learn to communicate, discovering not only each other’s language and biology, but that their meeting is no accident. Rocky is on a parallel mission to determine why this lone star is immune and use that knowledge to save his own world. In a genre crowded with stories about intergalactic war, conquest, and sheer firepower, there is something refreshing about a science fiction film in which survival depends instead on problem-solving, ingenuity, and cooperation.
For all the film’s surface resemblance to “Interstellar” or “The Martian,” its spirit is much closer to Steven Spielberg than Nolan. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, whose backgrounds are more rooted in comedy (“21 Jump Street” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) bring a buoyancy and warmth that keep the material from being bogged down by increasingly abstract and high-concept ideas which have plagued Nolan’s more indulgent works – “Interstellar” was borderline affected but “Tenet” was firmly mired by its own conceptual weight. “Project Hail Mary,” by contrast, conveys the unvarnished and unapologetic sense of amazement seen in the iconic scenes of such Spielberg classics as “Close Encounters” or “E.T.”
That said, “Project Hail Mary” is not without its own indulgences. At a sprawling two-and-a-half hours, it occasionally drifts and feels unnecessarily languid. The lethargic slow burn of the first act is understandable; the film needs time to build its world and its central relationship. By the climactic third act, you are cheering for Grace and Rocky with enthusiasm tantamount to a live sports game. But there are moments that feel unnecessary. The film could excise multiple scenes of Ryan Gosling sleeping, or an extended karaoke sequence that lingers through several verses of a Harry Styles song without losing a beat.
The tension, however, when it arrives, is palpable. One particularly gripping sequence finds Grace and Rocky descending into the atmosphere of a nearby planet to collect samples at the risk of being torn apart by its gravitational pull. Even with the understanding that the film is closer in tone to Disney than to Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” the film still manages to generate gripping suspense.
Speaking of Disney, there are also faint echoes of Marvel in the film’s tonal register, particularly in its impulse toward humor — even amid dire circumstances. But where Marvel’s house style often feels glib or emotionally evasive, the levity here is deployed far more intelligently. With such minimalist casting — this is, for the most part, a one-man Ryan Gosling show — the humor becomes a narrative tool rather than a mechanism for undercutting emotion. Gosling plays Grace as a charismatic, endearing goofball, a man with the intellectual gifts of Oppenheimer but the whimsical comic timing of Ken in “Barbie.”  It is a delicate balance, and Gosling makes it look deceptively easy.
If the film has a weakness beyond its occasional pacing lethargy, it lies in its music. The jukebox choices, including The Beatles’ “Two of Us,” are serviceable enough, but they lack the transporting emotional force a great original score from a talent like John Williams might have provided.
Even so, “Project Hail Mary” triumphs because it understands that spectacle and CGI alone do not make a movie. Its heart and soul lie in the enduring relationship between Grace and Rocky, and in the notion that salvation may ultimately depend less on brute force than on intelligence, loyalty, and the willingness to trust an alien from another world — that he has the personality of a golden retriever certainly streamlines this. At its lowest points, the film drags. But at its highest, it shines. This is populist cinema in the best sense: earnest, crowd-pleasing, and suffused with enough wonder to make even a familiar cosmic premise feel newly alive.
***
Harry Khachatrian (<a href="https://x.com/harry1t6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@Harry1T6</a>) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at <a href="https://www.betweenbottles.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BetweenBottles.com</a>.

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Ryan Gosling Breathes New Life Into A Tired Genre With ‘Project Hail Mary’

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Over a dozen Republican attorneys general demanded Wednesday that the Trump administration suspend or yank funding for a taxpayer-funded scientific organization over politically biased climate change activism, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Wire.
Led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, the GOP officials <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/1010506858/AG-Letter-To-DOT-DOW-And-DOE">said</a> that a chapter included in the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Fourth Edition” produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine failed to disclose links to climate litigation advocacy. Knudsen demanded that the Departments of Energy, War, and Transportation cut funding to the National Academies over the chapter in question. 
Knudsen <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MTAG/2026/03/10/file_attachments/3579240/2026-03-11%20AGs'%20Ltr%20to%20Agencies%20re%20NASEM_ex%20A.pdf">wrote</a> that the chapter “was designed to influence judges in multi-billion-dollar climate cases, was funded by climate litigation funders, was written by academics with little relevant scientific expertise and documented financial and institutional ties to climate litigation advocacy, and was shaped by a climate plaintiffs’ attorney.”
The letter was addressed to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. The Pentagon declined to comment.
Knudsen said that the academies should be suspended or disbarred from “all federal contracts and grants across the executive branch.” The National Academies received tens of millions of dollars in grant money every year from the federal government. 
&#8220;Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund efforts that impartially influence judges. Given multiple opportunities, NASEM and NSF still refuse to take responsibility for publishing a biased climate science manual violating their public commitments and legal obligations,” Knudsen told The Daily Wire. “The organizations producing these manuals and pushing their climate agendas on judges must be investigated and all funding to them should stop. As Attorney General, I will continue to sound the alarm until we put an end to their deception.”
The <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/26919/chapter/1">manual</a> was produced with the Federal Judicial Center to serve as a guide for federal judges. Last month, the judicial center <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/reference-manual-on-scientific-evidence-climate-science-elena-kagan-federal-judges-f8e8604a?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqenuW1BIeQcsljVCaPocCtWHummF76Pu_cnQ0KlguiQAeIUNm7GcmAXGmI1sSg%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6997208c&amp;gaa_sig=wVTzH3siKR3DaS1OsCzap4UGuaUWOHjVYeBgLh2Y2IVt5AfO9iotN2ZjJgaB3QunvcBEg3kfNQRJ2dCjybLV0Q%3D%3D">removed</a> the climate chapter from its version of the book after more than two dozen Republican attorneys general warned it could improperly influence their decisions. They <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/taxpayer-funded-science-org-faces-demands-from-gop-officials-over-climate-activism">urged</a> the National Academy in February to do the same. 
One issue raised by Knudsen regarding the flagged chapter was that the manual was funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has <a href="https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-activist-side-third-party-litigation-support/">reportedly</a> donated to the Collective Action Fund, a group that has <a href="https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/anti-energy-lawfare-congressional-investigation-uncovers-dark-money-fueling-climate-change-lawsuits-nationwide/">contributed money</a> to climate litigation firm Sher Edling. The attorneys general argue that this creates a conflict of interest and violates the terms of an $875,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to the National Academy to develop the manual. 
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation told The Daily Wire that it donated $100,000 to the Collective Action Fund in 2017 and hasn&#8217;t provided any more funds to the group since then.
&#8220;We were not involved in either the development or review of the final guide,&#8221; the foundation said. &#8220;As you have likely seen on our website, the focus of our environmental work is not climate-driven but instead focused on conservation of landscapes and seascapes.&#8221;
The attorneys general also pointed to the ties between the chapter’s authors and reviewers and climate change advocacy. Jessica Wentz, one of the authors, is a fellow at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. She wrote in an <a href="https://climate.law.columbia.edu/sites/climate.law.columbia.edu/files/content/Willow%20amicus%20brief%20-%20FILED.pdf">amicus brief</a> opposing the development of an oil drilling project in Alaska that “the world needs to phase out fossil fuels as rapidly as possible in order to avert potentially catastrophic levels of global warming and climate change.”
The Sabin Center has <a href="https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/support-us">received support</a> from the Rockefeller Family Fund, which has, in turn, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/05/28/nx-s1-4977572/rockefellers-profited-on-fossil-fuels-these-days-theyre-taking-aim-at-the-industry">reportedly</a> funded “a wave of litigation” against the fossil fuel industry. 
Radley Horton, another co-author of the chapter in question, is a professor at Columbia University’s Climate School. Horton, who has <a href="https://www.eli.org/vibrant-environment-blog/educating-judges-climate-litigation-today-and-tomorrow">previously</a> trained judges on climate litigation, has <a href="https://therealnews.com/rhorton1127climate">said</a> that “it’s absolutely critical that there be a global effort to do everything we can to dramatically draw down emissions.”
Columbia University’s Climate School, which has a Center for Sustainable Development <a href="https://ccsi.columbia.edu/donate/">funded</a> by the Rockefeller Brothers, a group that has also donated to the Collective Action Fund. 
Those acknowledged in the chapter included Michael Burger, who is representing Honolulu in litigation against energy companies, and Michael Gerrard, who has advocated for “decarbonization” through climate-related lawsuits. Burger serves as counsel for Sher Edling, the climate activist firm. 
In the initial stages of planning for the fourth edition of the manual, it was <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/26231/chapter/1">suggested</a> by the National Academies that the new manual would be “accessible to judges who might be more skeptical of climate science’s methods and conclusions.” Scientists skeptical of climate change theories were listed off as “not credible.” 
The attorneys general also say that no reviewers of the manual represented “materially different viewpoints on climate science,” which they said was a violation of the National Science Foundation grant. 
In light of these issues, the Republican officials say that the Trump administration should cut funding for the National Academies, which in 2024 received $84 million in contracts or grants from the Department of Transportation, $7 million from the Department of Energy, and $33 million from the Department of War. 
They also called for Congress to initiate an investigation into the development of the manual.
Other states that signed on include Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The National Science Foundation declined to comment.

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