Russian AI robot falls face down on stage during debut admin - Latest News - November 13, 2025 admin 15 views 7 secs 0 Comments Russian AI robot falls face down on stage during debut Source link PREVIOUS Nov. 12, 2025, 6:27 PM EST / Updated Nov. 12, 2025, 9:09 PM ESTBy Kyle Stewart, Frank Thorp V and Sahil KapurWASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson said the House will vote next week to repeal a provision slipped into the bill to end the shutdown that would allow senators to sue the government for potentially millions of dollars if their data is obtained without their notification.Johnson said he was “shocked” and “angry” when he learned about the provision, which would uniquely benefit eight Republican senators, whose phone records — but not the contents of their calls or messages — were found to have been accessed as part of the investigation that led to former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.When asked Wednesday if he knew about the provision, which was tucked into the bill to reopen the government, Johnson replied, “No, I found out about it last night.”“I was surprised. I was shocked by it, and I was angry about it, to be honest,” he said.The House passed the package to reopen the government later Wednesday, sending it to President Donald Trump to sign, and end the 43-day government shutdown.But Johnson vowed on X that House Republicans would introduce stand-alone legislation to undo the provision, adding that he will put it on a fast track to get a vote in the House next week. That process means it will need the support of two-thirds of House members to pass and move on to the Senate.Democrats and many House Republicans have been critical of the measure, which appears to apply only to senators and retroactively applies to data requests that were made on or after Jan. 1, 2022.Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., one of two Republicans who voted against the legislation, vented his frustrations with the process that led to the provision being included, and the fact that House Republicans were being asked to vote for the bill regardless.“That does nothing to change the fact that certain senators will get paid an additional $500k of taxpayer money. The Senate will never take up your ‘standalone’ bill,” he wrote on X in response to Johnson. “This is precisely why you shouldn’t let the Senate jam the House.”Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released an unclassified document in October showing that the FBI requested a review of phone data for eight Republican senators and one House member on Sept. 27, 2023.It is unclear who initially pushed for the provision. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., included it in a part of the package that will fund the legislative branch through September.Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., the top Democrat on the subcommittee responsible for funding the legislative branch, said in a statement shared with NBC News: “I am furious that the Senate Minority and Majority Leaders chose to airdrop this provision into this bill at the eleventh hour — with zero consultation or negotiation with the subcommittee that actually oversees this work.”“This is precisely what’s wrong with the Senate,” Heinrich said.A GOP aide said the language was a member-driven provision but did not name which senators made the push, and they said that Thune did include the language at their request. Thune’s office declined to comment.“Leader Thune inserted that in the bill to provide real teeth to the prohibition on the Department of Justice targeting senators,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.A Democratic aide told NBC News that Schumer fought to make the provision prospective to protect his members from a corrupt and out-of-control DOJ under Attorney General Pam Bondi.But a Schumer spokesperson said later Wednesday that Schumer now supports Johnson’s effort to strip the language from the bill and will push for that in the Senate.The eight Republican senators whose phone “tolling records” were accessed were: Ron Johnson of Wisconsin; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; Bill Hagerty of Tennessee; Josh Hawley of Missouri; Dan Sullivan of Alaska; Tommy Tuberville of Alabama; Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming; and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania also had his tolling records disclosed as part of the probe, but the provision in the government funding bill specifically focuses on senators.The “tolling data” would include who was called, when and the length of a call, but not what was said.The provision added to the government funding bill would require that senators be notified if their data is disclosed. If they aren’t — as the eight Republican senators were not — and they successfully sue, the court would be required to award “the greater of statutory damages of $500,000 or the amount of actual damages” for each violation.It would not apply if the senator was the target of a criminal investigation or if a court ordered that the notification be delayed.Graham, whose call data was accessed, said he favors the provision because it would “protect the Senate in the future, and it will also cover any Democrats in this Senate this term that may have something happened to them.”Graham said he “definitely” plans to sue under the provision if it becomes law.“I want to make it so painful no one ever does this again,” he added.Johnson didn’t indicate who was responsible for the provision but said he trusts Thune. “He’s a great leader, but some members got together and hoisted that upon — put it into the bill at the last minute. And I wish they hadn’t,” Johnson said. “I think it was a really bad look, and we’re going to fix it in the House.”The eight Democratic caucus members who voted for the legislation were Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Tim Kaine, D-Va.NBC News asked each of their offices whether they knew the language was in the bill when they voted for it, and whether they agree with Johnson that it should be stripped out.Durbin’s office said he didn’t know about the provision and supports repealing it.A Rosen spokesperson said, “Given that this provision was added at the eleventh hour, Senator Rosen strongly supports efforts in the House to strip it out from the bill.”A Cortez Masto spokesperson said the senator “had nothing to do with the decision to add this provision to the bill at the last minute, and she supports stripping it from the bill.”A Shaheen spokesperson said: “Senator Shaheen was not involved in adding this language.”A Hassan spokesperson said, “Senator Hassan strongly opposes this provision that was added to the legislation by Senate leadership at the last minute without her knowledge and supports action to reverse it.”“Can absolutely say that Sen. King wasn’t aware” of that provision, said a spokesperson for King.The others didn’t immediately return requests for comment.Kyle StewartKyle Stewart is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the House.Frank Thorp VFrank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.Sahil KapurSahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News. NEXT Nov. 13, 2025, 5:00 AM ESTBy Aria BendixOne of the most common viruses in the world could be the cause of lupus, an autoimmune disease with wide-ranging symptoms, according to a study published Wednesday.Until now, lupus was somewhat mysterious: No single root cause of the disease had been found, and there is no designated treatment for it. The research, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, suggests that Epstein-Barr virus — which 95% of people acquire at some point in life — could cause lupus by driving the body to attack its own healthy cells.It adds to mounting evidence that Epstein-Barr is associated with multiple long-term health issues, including other autoimmune conditions. As this evidence stacks up, scientists have accelerated calls for a vaccine that targets the virus.“If we now better understand how this fastidious virus is responsible for autoimmune diseases, I think it’s time to figure out how to prevent it,” said Dr. Anca Askanase, clinical director of the Lupus Center at Columbia University, who wasn’t involved in the new research.In lupus patients, an autoimmune attack can result in extreme fatigue, joint pain and skin rashes. In rare cases, the disease may lead to fatal or life-threatening issues such as kidney damage, or weaken the immune system so the body can’t fight off infections.Scientists have long suspected a link between Epstein-Barr and lupus, but the exact connection had remained elusive. Dr. William Robinson, a co-author of the new study and chief of the division of immunology and rheumatology at Stanford University, said his new findings solve a major piece of that puzzle.“From our perspective, it’s the key, missing mechanistic link,” Robinson said. “We think it applies to all lupus cases,” he added. Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. are living with the disease.But Hoang Nguyen, assistant vice president of research at the Lupus Research Alliance, said it’s too soon to know if the mechanism is behind every case.“Although the evidence is intriguing and promising, more evidence is needed to demonstrate that the link to EBV applies to all lupus,” Nguyen said. The alliance is a private funder of lupus research and contributed grant funding to Robinson’s study.An infection withe Epstein-Barr virus does not necessarily cause symptoms, especially among children, though the virus is also the most common cause of mononucleosis (often referred to as mono).It’s primarily transmitted by saliva from kissing or sharing drinks, food, utensils or toothbrushes. After someone is infected, the virus lingers permanently in the body, where it usually remains inactive — though not always. The new study is not the first to tie Epstein-Barr to autoimmune issues. Past research has linked it to multiple sclerosis. Though not the sole trigger of MS, the virus may be part of a chain of events that leads to the disease. Robinson said a pathway similar to the one described in his new study could also lead to other autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, but more research is needed to tease that out. Of course, the vast majority of people who contract Epstein-Barr do not go on to get lupus, MS or any other autoimmune disease. Robinson said it’s possible that only certain strains of Epstein-Barr trigger autoimmune reactions.To determine the causal link between Epstein-Barr and lupus, Robinson and his co-authors focused on B cells — white blood cells that help fight off infections. Even in healthy individuals, Epstein-Barr lies dormant in a tiny portion of B cells. But those virus-containing B cells are far more prevalent in lupus patients, who have a 25 times higher share of them, according to the new research.The study also highlights a type of protein called antinuclear antibodies, which bind to the nucleus of cells and are one of the hallmarks of lupus. The researchers found that Epstein-Barr infects and reprograms B cells to produce antinuclear antibodies that attack the body’s own tissue, thereby causing lupus.Robinson said the findings go hand-in-hand with some other theories about what causes lupus. For instance, scientists suspect that a person’s genetics or hormones can predispose them to the disease, as well. A study published last year in the journal Nature also found that people with lupus have too much of a particular T cell — another type of white blood cell — that’s associated with cell damage and too little of another T cell associated with repair. Robinson said the pathway described in his study could activate that T cell response.The new research points to a few potential options for lupus treatment, according to Robinson, who is the co-founder of two drug development companies exploring treatments for autoimmune diseases.Many of the current medications given to ease lupus symptoms, such as corticosteroids, broadly focus on reducing inflammation. Robinson said future therapeutics could specifically target B cells infected with Epstein-Barr.But an Epstein-Barr vaccine — several of which are in clinical trials — could someday stop infections in the first place.“Vaccination to protect people against ever being infected by EBV would be the ultimate, fundamental solution,” Robinson said.Aria BendixAria Bendix is the breaking health reporter for NBC News Digital.