Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear sharply criticized Senator Mitch McConnell and the Senate at large over the Kentucky Republican’s prolonged absence from Congress due to health issues.

Beshear, a Democrat, said on Friday that he still had little information about the condition of McConnell, who was hospitalized in mid-June and released from a rehabilitation center earlier this month.

“I’ve received absolutely nothing, and that's the same that the people of Kentucky have received,” Beshear told MS Now. “This is why the Senate feels broken. These guys don’t think that they have a boss when the people of Kentucky are their boss. They don’t feel like they are accountable whatsoever.”

Beshear called on McConnell to make a video or call into a news show to update the public about his health.

Hantavirus. Ebola. West Nile. Measles. And, of course, cyclospora — that stomach parasite making people miserable across the country. Americans have plenty to worry about this summer.

But remember COVID-19? It may not be surprising that many people may have almost forgotten about COVID. Unfortunately, COVID hasn't forgotten about us.

"We're now in the midst of a growing summer surge of COVID here in the United States," says Dr. John Brooks, an infectious disease doctor at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., who used to work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "I think most of us kind of feel like it's fading away and are certainly very grateful for that. But nationally we're seeing it ticking up pretty much everywhere."

The virus is spreading the most again in the South and West, but is also on the rise in the Northeast and Midwest. The good news is the virus is still at very low levels. And so far this summer's wave seems to be continuing the trend of getting milder each year, sending fewer people to the hospital and causing fewer deaths.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has upgraded an egg recall to its highest risk classification following a Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak.

The eggs produced by Midwest Poultry Services in Texas were originally recalled in late July, as nearly 1.6 million dozen eggs were placed under potential salmonella contamination in multiple states, including Oklahoma.

The recall is now Class I, which is considered "a situation in which there is reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a violative product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death," per the FDA. At least 98 people were sick and 26 were hospitalized across 17 states between Nov. 21, 2025, and June 30.

The Pacific-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington has begun heading toward the Middle East as reports have emerged of mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln.

The Lincoln has been supporting the U.S. war against Iran, and its deployment has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days. Several Democratic lawmakers are pressing for accountability from the Pentagon over conditions aboard the carrier, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said were "completely misrepresented."

Extended deployments of carriers during the Iran conflict have raised concerns about the impact on service members who are away from home for long periods as well as the increasing strain on the ship and its equipment. While renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran have calmed in recent weeks, the Navy has reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the war.

Campaigners fear deeper diplomatic contacts are undermining demands for improvements in human rights

The Taliban in Afghanistan have launched a diplomatic effort to end their isolation as major regional and international powers show a readiness to engage more closely with the repressive regime despite its systematic human rights abuses.

Five years after the Taliban took power, an increasing number of countries are renewing ties or scaling up diplomatic contacts with the hardline Islamists, who seized power in Kabul in 2021 after 20 years of brutal insurgent warfare.

Campaigners fear that the individual contacts by different countries risk undermining “coherent, consistent” demands for an improvement in human rights in return for any diplomatic concessions.

Prolonged deployment is coupled with reports of water shortages, plumbing issues and attempts to jump overboard

US navy veterans and military health experts are expressing concerns about the strain on sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has spent nearly nine months at sea supporting US operations in the Middle East, amid reports of poor living conditions and worsening mental health among its crew.

The San Diego-based aircraft carrier left port on 21 November, originally bound for the Pacific, but was redirected to the Middle East as the US-Israel war with Iran began. It has now spent more than 250 consecutive days at sea without a significant port visit, with its deployment repeatedly extended.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US military was preparing to replace the Lincoln with the USS George Washington, as concerns mount over the conditions aboard the Lincoln.

Reports by the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes this week described shortages of supplies and water as well as plumbing problems, low morale and deteriorating mental health among the Lincoln's roughly 5,000 sailors, and further reported that there had been multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard. The reports prompted several Democratic lawmakers to demand answers from the Pentagon.

Unclear ​how seriously Trump meant the remark or whether it represented a new ​policy position

Donald Trump on Friday urged Americans to accept slightly higher gasoline prices as ‌the cost of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and said he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a U.S territory.

The comments underscore the growing ​political risk for Trump as higher fuel ​prices collide with his campaign promise to lower energy costs, with Democrats already seeking to make the economic ​fallout from the Iran war an issue heading ⁠into the November midterm ⁠elections.

In a speech in Garden ‌City, N.Y., Trump said Americans who had to "pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline" should remember that this was the cost of ensuring "a very evil country" ⁠could not have a nuclear weapon.

A federal judge says Idaho can’t prosecute doctors who perform abortions to protect a pregnant person’s health or prevent self-harm.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill made the ruling Thursday, writing that Idaho’s “Defense of Life Act” and “Fetal Heartbeat Act” — which together create a near-total ban on abortion — violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. Physicians who violate the laws can lose their license and face up to five years in prison.

Both laws include narrow exceptions, including abortions done to prevent the death of a pregnant woman or in some cases of rape or incest where the pregnant person has filed a police report.

A federal judge refused on Friday to block the Trump administration from taking steps to build 62 miles of international border wall along part of a Native American tribe’s reservation without its consent.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., denied the Tohono O’odham Nation’s request for a court-ordered halt to border wall construction on its 2.8-million-acre reservation. Leon ruled the tribe hasn’t established that a border wall will change its reservation boundaries without congressional authority.

The judge also rejected the tribe’s claim that the planned border wall would illegally trespass on its reservation.

Network wants to serve Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr after president sues over January 6 documentary

The BBC is trying to subpoena Donald Trump’s children as it builds its defense against the president’s defamation lawsuit centered on a documentary on the January 6 insurrection.

In a motion filed on Friday, the BBC sought authorization to serve Trump’s two eldest children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, with subpoenas for testimony and their records on the events of 6 January 2021.

The BBC, its lawyers wrote in court documents, is entitled to discover Trump’s “intention behind the speech and anything that bears on the impression his audience could have reasonably obtained in listening to the speech”, which includes whether Trump “gave it intentionally or otherwise; the breadth of the audience of the message and impression; and the extent of any resulting injury or harm”.

Michael Boren requested more aircraft for 7-acre Cabin Creek fire, some of which were diverted from other fires

Michael Boren, the US undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment who oversees the US Forest Service, reportedly pressed agency staff last month to deploy more aircraft to a 7-acre (2.8-hectare) fire that was burning near his Idaho ranch, according to a Washington Post report on Friday.

The Cabin Creek fire in Idaho began on about 12 July as a result of an unattended campfire, and spread across several acres in Idaho’s Sawtooth national forest. By 15 July, the forest service said that the fire was 100% contained.

In the Post report, a forest service official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the outlet that Boren, whom the Post reports owns a 480-acre ranch in the Sawtooth national recreation area, contacted forest service officials at the regional and national levels multiple times while the fire was burning, questioning why more aircraft were not being used to fight the blaze.

Companies that kept policies did just as well financially, even after Trump’s executive order, as those that didn’t

Conservative backlash was supposed to put an end to the diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) movement as companies were warned “go woke, go broke”.

In January 2025, Donald Trump delivered a death knell, ending DEI within the federal government with executive orders and threatening to target companies that still supported it. Companies including Google, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s and Walmart that had embraced DEI years earlier fell into line and announced an end to their policies.

But new research published on Friday and shared exclusively with the Guardian found that companies that resisted the pressure and kept their DEI practices, including Costco, Apple and Delta Air Lines, performed just as well as their competitors who pulled back.