Steve Hilton unveils new evidence linking COVID-19 origins to US-funded research in China

'The Next Revolution' host breaks down the evidence linking COVID-19 to U.S. funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

Latest Stories

  • Ex-GOP congresswoman says party is on the way to being ‘fringe’ within ‘three or four years’

    ‘It's not just Marjorie Taylor Greene, it's a disease flowing through the Republican Party’ says Susan Molinari

  • Biden tempers expectations for high-dollar donors who hoped to get plum diplomatic posts

    President Biden is tempering the ambassadorial expectations of his big-dollar donors, signaling he won't hand out plum posts for months and hinting he'll nominate fewer of them than his predecessors. The big picture: The president embraced the Democratic Party's push for diversity when choosing his Cabinet. Now lawmakers are pressuring him to extend it to his ambassador picks, meaning white male donors — the core of his fundraiser base — will be in serious competition for fewer spots.Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.What we are hearing: Biden is most likely to reward loyal politicians and former aides, with talk about former senators like Claire McCaskill headed for a gilded post in Europe. * On the policy-makers front, Julianne Smith, a former Biden aide, could be nominated as ambassador to NATO. * In the donor class, Denise Bauer, Obama's ambassador to Belgium, was a top fundraiser. She could return to Europe, possibly Paris, among the most coveted positions. * Doug Hickey, another big Biden donor, also is interested in a foreign posting. * James Costos, a former HBO executive who served as Obama’s ambassador to Spain, has expressed interest in the United Kingdom, but many others are interested, including David Cohen, a Comcast executive. * Louis Frillman, a real estate investor, and Nathalie Rayes, president of the Latino Victory Project, have told associates they're interested in Madrid or another European post.The big question: The ambassadorship to China has recently gone to former politicians, giving Beijing the prestige of a big-branded name and the White House the comfort that its envoy will have a political antenna to detect any potential problems. * If Biden names Disney executive chairman Robert Iger, who has told Biden officials he’s interested, it would break that mold.Biden is scheduled, weather permitting, to visit the State Department on Monday, a symbolic showing as he seeks to re-invigorate diplomacy and underscore America’s commitment to allies and partners. He's also expected to deliver remarks about his foreign policy initiatives. * While the president certainly will name some donors to top posts, others are getting nervous they’ll be passed over and are feverishly pressing their cases. * While more than 800 individuals and couples raised more than $100,000 for Biden's presidential bid, the more elite group of "bundlers" raised well above that amount and also gave the maximum of $620,000 to the Biden Victory Fund.By the numbers: Biden will likely make non-career nominations for about 30% of the roughly 190 total ambassadorships, leaving 70% for the career Foreign Service, according to people familiar with the matter. * That 70:30 ratio would be in line with the traditional breakdown, according to the American Foreign Service Association. * President Trump deviated by nominating political ambassadors for about 44% of his appointments. * Trump's nominees also skewed heavily non-diverse, with more than 90% of his openings going to those who are white, Foreign Policy reported in 2018.Go deeper: The political category has always been divided, broadly, into three buckets: policy experts, politicians and donors. * Biden is expected to draw more heavily from the first two categories, leaving fewer positions for donors looking to cap a successful business career with a foreign posting. * Biden has a sprawling network of Beltway friends and allies but was never that successful — or reliant — on the money and celebrity classes in New York and California.Support safe, smart, sane journalism. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.

  • Gunmen rob partygoers, then open fire, killing 7 in Mexico

    Gunmen on two motorcycles burst into a weekend party and robbed those at the house, then returned a few minutes later and opened fire, killing six men and one woman, authorities in north-central Mexico reported Sunday. Jalisco state prosecutors said the attack occurred late Saturday. Jalisco has long been home to the cartel of the same name, but the attack occurred close to the border with Zacatecas state, where several drug gangs have been fighting for territory.

  • Lincoln Project co-founder accused of 'exploiting his power' with sexually provocative online messages

    John Weaver, a longtime Republican strategist who helped run presidential campaigns for the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2000 and 2008 and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) in 2016, has been accused of online harassment by 21 men, The New York Times reports. In interviews, the men said that over the course of several years Weaver — who is also a co-founder of, but not longer involved with, the Lincoln Project, a prominent anti-Trump group formed by Republican — sent unsolicited and sexually provocative over the internet. The exchanges reportedly did not lead to physical encounters except in one consensual case, and the men did not accuse Weaver of unlawful conduct, the Times notes, but they did describe being "preyed upon by an influential older man in the field in which they wanted to work." Weaver even sent messages to a 14-year-old boy, eventually inviting him to come to Las Vegas with him after he turned 18. One of the men who received messages from Weaver last year when he was a recent college graduate looking for a job in politics said "it just seemed like he was exploiting his power." The Times' provided new, specific details about the situation, but allegations of Weaver's solicitations were first reported earlier this month by The American Conservative. In response to that story, Weaver acknowledged sending the inappropriate messages and apologized. Read more at The New York Times. More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about the GOP's Trump problemTrump's impeachment defense is out. Bannon is reportedly encouraging him to go to the Senate himself.Biden will host 10 GOP senators to discuss COVID-19 relief proposal

  • Major storm barreling toward New York City, 20 inches could fall on midtown

    Snow is expected to begin late Sunday night across a wide swath of the northeast, with "in excess of 20 inches of snow in parts of eastern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, southern New York, and into southern New England," the NWS said in bulletin. The storm could paralyze New York City, which as of Sunday night was forecast to be at the center of the Nor'easter's bluster, said meteorologist Brian Hurley, of the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.

  • McConnell adviser says GOP should cut ties with Marjorie Taylor Greene to make her ‘most useless congressperson’

    Georgia congresswoman says she has the ‘full support’ of Donald Trump

  • The president of Ukraine doesn't consider China a major geopolitical threat

    KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told "Axios on HBO" that he doesn't consider China to be a major geopolitical threat — a stance that may cause him friction with the Biden administration and Congress — even as he vowed to limit Chinese control of critical technology sectors.Why it matters: Zelensky's comments represent a break with U.S. national security leaders from both major political parties who are trying to rally allies to confront the threat of the Chinese Communist Party.Be smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.Driving the news: Asked about emerging consensus in Washington that China is the No. 1 geopolitical threat, Zelensky said, "I cannot agree with that because in Ukraine we do not feel this." * "There really is this a sort of cold war between China and the United States," he said. * "We know United States business is represented in Ukraine, but at the same time, it's true that Chinese business is also represented." * "I believe that regardless of the nation, the nationality, if people, if business, if a certain country, treats you with respect, respecting your people and borders, they can be present in your country."Between the lines: There's only so much leverage the U.S. has to push Zelensky away from China. Beijing has crushed Washington at vaccine diplomacy — a painful reality that Zelensky discussed in the "Axios on HBO" interview. * Zelensky has tried to obtain for his country the higher-quality American vaccines. And he’s pushed the Europeans for their help. But given the difficulty he’s faced to secure doses, he said he is willing to work with Beijing to get large quantities of a safe COVID vaccine for the Ukrainian people.   * Worth noting: The U.S. did not offer its superior vaccines to Ukraine and in fact took steps to make it harder for Zelensky to obtain them.Behind the scenes: How to handle China is a growing sore point in U.S.-Ukraine relations. Trump administration officials privately expressed concerns that China — which became Ukraine's top trading partner in 2019 — was flooding Ukraine with easy cash and in return embedding itself in Ukraine's critical sectors including defense and telecom. * U.S. officials are worried about China stealing intelligence secrets and wielding nefarious influence over allies who are increasingly beholden to Beijing.Yes, but: Senior U.S. government officials have been trying for years to persuade Ukraine to stop China from buying Motor Sich, an aero engine manufacturer that is the crown jewel of Ukraine's defense sector. * In the interview, Zelensky said for the first time definitively that he will not allow China, or any other country, to buy a controlling stake in Motor Sich. * "Never," he said. "Not under me. I am not here for life... [But] in my time [in office], definitely not.The bottom line: Russia is a far more imminent concern for Ukraine. But when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, China never condemned Russia's action. So while Zelensky may not call out China as a threat, he knows that China can't be relied upon in a Russia-Ukraine crisis.Support safe, smart, sane journalism. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.

  • Military power grab deals killer blow to Myanmar's fledgling democracy

    Myanmar woke up on Monday to what may be the end of its short fling with democracy, after Aung San Suu Kyi, its civilian leader, and other senior figures from her ruling party were detained as the military seized power, declaring a state of emergency for a year. Parliament had been due to start sitting on Monday after the National League of Democracy won a landslide in a November election. Instead, Myanmar now faces a fresh coup that will strain regional ties and prove to be an early foreign policy test for the new Biden administration. The mass arrest in a dawn raid has stoked fears of a permanent return to the military rule that the Southeast Asian nation endured for five decades before a landmark democratic election in 2015 propelled Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former political prisoner, to power. Thant Myint-U, a renowned Myanmar historian and former special adviser for the troubled country’s peace process, summed up the sudden development in an ominous prediction. “The doors just opened to a very different future. I have a sinking feeling that no one will really be able to control what comes next. And remember Myanmar's a country awash in weapons, with deep divisions across ethnic & religious lines, where millions can barely feed themselves,” he tweeted.

  • Mexican soldiers rescue toddler abandoned in Rio Grande

    Mexican soldiers and immigration agents rescued a 2-year-old girl from Chile after she apparently fell into the Rio Grande and the adults who were with her left her and crossed the river into the United States, officials said Sunday. The National Immigration Institute said the incident occurred Saturday as a group of migrants was crossing the river near Ciudad Acuna, across from Del Rio, Texas. The adults made gestures, pointing out the toddler to soldiers and immigration agents, who then waded into the river to rescue her, the agency said.

  • Drone video shows major damage after chunk of iconic California highway washes into ocean

    Part of Highway 1 in the Big Sur area collapsed after heavy rains and slid into the Pacific.

  • Trump appointees aggressively lobbied against giving states COVID-19 vaccine rollout funds

    As states were formulating plans to vaccinate their residents against COVID-19 last fall, top Trump administration officials pushed Congress to deny the state governments any extra funding for the vaccine rollout, Stat News reported Sunday. The officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and White House Office of Management and Budget chief Russ Vought, disregarded "frantic warnings from state officials that they didn't have the money they needed to ramp up a massive vaccination operation," focusing instead on $200 million the states had not yet spent, Stat reports. Vought was "obsessed" with the fact that states hadn't already spent the allocated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a Republican Senate aide told Stat, adding that even staunch fiscal conservatives in Congress knew states needed more than $200 million to inoculate 300 million Americans. But "much of the lobbying push came from Paul Mango, the former deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of Health and Human Services," Stat reports, citing a Democratic congressional aide and Mango himself. "A lot of them had shut down their economies and they weren't getting tax revenue," Mango told Stat. "I'm sure they could use money — that's not in dispute — what's in dispute is whether they needed money given all they hadn't used to actually administer vaccines." The National Governors Association and the Association for State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) both warned the Trump administration last fall that more funding was needed to prepare for the soon-to-be-approved vaccines, and former CDC Director Robert Redfield had asked Congress for $6 billion for the states' efforts. Mango told Stat that Redfield was "lobbying Congress for money behind our back" to "help their friends at the state public health offices." State health departments note they were not vaccinating anyone in October and said they were drawing down sources of money that were set to expire before tapping the $200 million, especially because it wasn't certain Congress would allocate anymore. Congress did approve $4.5 billion in December, but the funds didn't start arriving in states until January. Read more about the lobbying effort, what effect it may have had on the slow rollout, and the schism between the Trump political appointees and public health officials at Stat News. More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about the GOP's Trump problemTrump's impeachment defense is out. Bannon is reportedly encouraging him to go to the Senate himself.Biden will host 10 GOP senators to discuss COVID-19 relief proposal

  • Why GameStop's stock could rise much, much higher

    The meteoric rise in GameStop's stock price is being called a short squeeze by most. But that's not what's happening, says one expert, and that could mean that if and when the short squeeze does come GameStop's price could soar significantly higher than current levels.What's happening: Short sellers have piled into GameStop as a result of its meteoric stock price rise, not the other way around, Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners, told Axios.Support safe, smart, sane journalism. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here. * Over the past year the amount of shares shorted has increased by 12%, while the total dollars at risk have risen by 1,900%, S3's data show. * That's a sign that big bets are coming in from hedge funds and institutional investors, meaning that the short squeeze has not even begun.How it works: In a typical short squeeze, short sellers have sold the stock and "rented" shares with the intent to buy them after the stock's price falls. But they are "squeezed" out if the price rises too much and they are forced to exit the trade by buying the stock at a higher price. * That helps the value of the stock rise because the short sellers join the momentum pushing the price higher. * But with GameStop, every time a short seller exits the market and buys shares, new short sellers are coming in to replace them, keeping the same downward pressure on the price and, in fact, short interest is increasing.What it means: "That tells me what’s moving the market is the long buyers. This is not a short covering rally," Dusaniwsky said. * "If it was I would see shares shorted dropping precipitously. For this kind of price move, I would have to see short interest being wiped out." * "One way I can see short interest is not being wiped out is because the stock borrow rate is getting higher. * "That means shorts are not getting out on a net basis."Be smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.

  • Two million Australians in lockdown after one coronavirus case found

    About 2 million Australians begun their first full day of a strict coronavirus lockdown on Monday following the discovery of one case in the community in Perth, capital of Western Australia state, but no new cases have since been found. Authorities ordered a five-day lockdown of Perth after a security guard at a hotel used to quarantine people returning from overseas was found to have contracted the virus. The state government said 66 people have been deemed close contacts of the unidentified guard and none of those already tested were infected.

  • Wyoming governor: Keystone XL Pipeline cancellation is ‘a real problem’ for energy-producing states

    Gov. Mark Gordon discusses what President Biden’s climate plans will mean for his state on ‘America’s News HQ.’

  • Beach poles behind Florida hotel block driving in Daytona

    Driving on the seaside sand, a long-lived tradition in Daytona Beach, is now threatened along one short stretch where poles are blocking any vehicles. The Hard Rock Hotel erected the poles along a 410-foot (124-meter) section of beach to prevent driving there. The chair of the Volusia County Council, Jeff Brower, has made beach driving a priority since his election in November.

  • Trump's impeachment defense is out. Bannon is reportedly encouraging him to go to the Senate himself.

    Five attorneys who were prepared to defend former President Donald Trump in his upcoming Senate impeachment trial have departed his legal team, people familiar with the situation confirmed to CNN and The New York Times. Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, who were expected to be two of the lead attorneys, are out, as are Josh Howard, Johnny Gasser, and Greg Harris. No other attorneys have announced they were involved with the case, so it appears that, for now, Trump is defenseless. The lawyers reportedly left because of a disagreement over legal strategy. Trump reportedly wanted them to push his unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in last year's presidential election rather than focus on whether convicting a former president after he's out of office is constitutional, an argument that appears to be the consensus among Republicans and the reason he'll likely be acquitted. Bowers, a source said, lacked chemistry with Trump and the decision to leave was reportedly mutual. It's unclear where Trump will go from here — his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani reportedly wants to take the case, but he's a potential witness in the trial because he spoke at the rally preceding the deadly Capitol riot Trump is accused of inciting, and the Times notes "almost all" of Trump's advisers blame Giuliani for the impeachment in the first place. Considering GOP senators have signaled they won't vote to convict, some are wondering why Trump would even bother spending money on attorneys at all at this point. And here is a statement Trump has made to advisers almost verbatim > https://t.co/zktWOIrUD6 — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 31, 2021 Stephen Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, thinks the former president should go the Senate himself because "he's the only one who can sell it." However, aides are reportedly against the idea. Read more at The New York Times and CNN. More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about the GOP's Trump problemBiden will host 10 GOP senators to discuss COVID-19 relief proposalDon't look now, but vaccines might just end the pandemic

  • Analysis: Why the Alexei Navalny protests just might restore hope to Russian politics

    When the Russian opposition decided this time to hold a demonstration in front of the Lubyanka, headquarters of the fearsome Federal Security Service (FSB), they were raising the stakes. In response, the Kremlin opted to double down. Last week’s protests were met with sporadic police violence that, however horrific, seemed simply to result from local overreaction and indiscipline. Yesterday’s response was not just more heavy-handed, it was systematically so. All of central Moscow was turned into a fortress; teargas and tasers used in St Petersburg; detainees forced to lie down in the snow in Kazan. Overall, while perhaps fewer came out to march this time, the tally of arrests was higher: almost five thousand. The government’s strategy seems to be to ratchet up the pressure, bit by bit. The aim is to scare away all but the truly hard-core opposition by the threat of near-random arrest or beating, and to leave everyone in no doubt that the Kremlin could do even worse, and will if it has to. Putin, after all, is a post-modern dictator. His regime has to a large extent maintained itself not through fear and force, but apathy. Russians have been convinced that, however imperfect, what they have is about the best for which they could hope. They have also been sold the idea that there is no point in politics. In a stage-managed fake democracy, the ‘opposition’ parties are toothless and ugly, so why vote for them? If change is impossible, why risk persecution by working for it?

  • Japan expected to extend COVID-19 state of emergency: sources

    Japan is expected to extend a state of emergency on Tuesday to fight the spread of COVID-19 for Tokyo and other areas, three sources with knowledge of the legal procedures said on Monday. The government will decide on the extension after a meeting of its experts panel on Tuesday, with the emergency period in prefectures including the Tokyo area expected to run for another month, the sources said. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is expected to hold a news conference on Tuesday, one source told Reuters.

  • Buoyed by Keystone XL, pipeline opponents want Biden to act

    After President Joe Biden revoked Keystone XL’s presidential permit and shut down construction of the long-disputed pipeline that was to carry oil from Canada to Texas, opponents of other pipelines hoped the projects they’ve been fighting would be next. The Biden administration hasn't specified what action it might take on other pipelines, but industry experts doubt there will be swift changes like the one that stopped Keystone.

  • Asian Americans warily watch family overseas enjoy 'normal' life

    One woman with family in South Korea said she’s "jealous that they’re in a place where people care about other people and take precautions."