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Episode Date: July 29, 2026

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Live from NPR News, I'm Gile Snyder. Dr. Anthony Fauci is expected on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Fauci was issued a subpoena compelling his appearance before the committee chaired by Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. Over the weekend, Paul released what he says are diary entries written by Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic. NPR Azari Daniels says Fauci and Paul are expected to renew their clash over the coronavirus's origins. In a post on X health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested his office had provided the diaries to Senator Paul, but it's not clear exactly how. Paul did publish a thread on X where he summarized his central accusation of Fauci. He said, quote, what he wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.

President Trump spoke Tuesday at the funeral of South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. Trump called Graham a true American original, as in Pierre's deepest shiveron report. Trump and Graham had an openly hostile relationship when the two were running for president in 2016, but in his eulogy Trump lauded Graham, who died earlier this month. He went out at the peak of his career, the top of his game, as a legend that every one of us, many of us here today, blessed to know him and a friend that none of us will ever forget. There was truly nobody like Lindsey Graham. Graham was a staunch advocate for U.S. support for Ukraine and Israel.

Before his death, he authored a bill to put energy sanctions on Russia and used the relationship he'd built with Trump to secure White House support for it. Diba Shiverum and PR News, the White House. Following Senator Graham's funeral service, the Senate took the first steps toward passing a new Russia sanctions bill that Graham had long championed. The Senate advanced the bill on an 86 to 12 vote with a visiting Ukrainian leader below Demer Zelensky in the chambers, Olinsky had attended Graham's funeral and met with President Trump earlier the day.

More than 1,100 workers at AI companies, including top researchers, have signed a petition calling on the government to back a global effort to pace the development of AI. And Pierre Sean Ruich reports the risk is that AI develops faster than humans can understand or control. The petition says it's not guaranteed that AI will help create a better future, and to realize AI's potential, we may need the option to, quote, buy time to address emerging risks, develop security measures, and strengthen oversight. Leading AI companies believe they're close to automating AI research, and the petition says it's unclear how much this could accelerate AI progress, with a risk that it accelerates

beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems. Among the signatories are some of the top scientists and researchers in the field, working at companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google. John Rewich, NPR News. And you're listening to NPR News. The teenager who used an assault-style rifle he got for Christmas to kill four people and injured nine others at Appalachie High School in Georgia has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Cold Gray was 14 at the time of the shooting in 2024. The now 16-year-old pleaded guilty last week, as Georgia Public Broadcasting's Chase McGee reports.

It took Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Prim around an. hour to decide, quote Gray's sentence after three days of victim impact statements and expert analysis. He sentenced Gray to the maximum, life without parole, saying his crimes, quote, reflected permanent incorrigibility. You wrote, I want to make history. I want people to remember the pain I caused. And there you succeeded. The pain that you visited upon this community is unlikely to disappear in my lifetime. Prosecutors focused on Gray's fixation with notoriety, saying he carried out the shooting for online fame among obsessed true crime fans. For NPR News, I'm Chase McGee in Winder, Georgia. More details are emerging about Sunday's shooting during a food festival near Seattle Space

Needle. The police chief said Tuesday that the 15-year-old arrested after the shootout was armed with what's called a ghost gun and that it had an extended magazine. And Chief Sean Barnes said investigators have also recovered two other weapons and 14 shell casings fired by weapons of two different calibers. Authorities say they believe the shootout was gang-related. Three people were killed, including a 19-year-old suspect. I'm Giles Snyder, NPR.