The university this year retained a law firm to investigate President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a neuroscientist, following claims that some of his papers contain manipulated data. While the firm's report found no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne himself doctored the papers, he "'has not been able to provide an adequate explanation' for why he did not correct the scientific record when presented the opportunity on multiple occasions," the Stanford Daily reported.

Stanford faced a major crisis under Tessier-Lavigne's leadership. Law school students shouted down a conservative federal judge, disrupting his talk in violation of Stanford's free speech policies, the Washington Free Beacon reported. School diversity dean Tirien Steinbach, who arrived on the scene, sided with the students, accusing the judge of causing "harm."

The incident prompted Tessier-Lavigne and law school dean Jenny Martinez to write a formal apology to the judge and put Steinbach on leave.

Following the controversy, Martinez announced that students had to complete free speech training. A Free Beacon investigation, however, found that the training "required barely a minute's effort" and that students could easily tune out or skip the required training videos.

Tessier-Lavigne has also decided to retract or write extensive corrections for several of his peer-reviewed articles. According to the Daily, retractions are very rare in academia, occurring only in .04 percent of research papers. The retractions typically come only after "clear evidence" surfaces that "the findings are unreliable."

The report also found that Tessier-Lavigne had a tendency to reward lab workers who provided him with results he found "favorable" while punishing those who were "unable or struggled to generate such data."

Another professor at an elite university faced similar charges in recent months. A Chronicle of Higher Education report credibly accused a Harvard professor who studies honesty of using fraudulent data in her research.

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Photos of 22-year-old Deqon Massiah show him sneaking up behind the performers with a six-inch knife and putting his hand on the shoulder of one of the performers. Massiah was charged with menacing, harassment, and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the New York Post. None of the crimes are eligible for bail.

The stalker’s release comes as Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has freed violent offenders. Bragg freed a man without bail last year after he was charged with beating a 67-year-old man to death, despite the alleged attacker’s long criminal record. In two months, he also released two offenders before trial who were later charged with murder. The prosecutor, who received more than $1 million for his primary campaign from billionaire donor George Soros, after he took office released a long list of misdemeanors he would not prosecute.

The judge who released Massiah said the "highest level of monitoring is appropriate."

Some lawmakers blame bail reform for rampant crime. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) said Bragg's policies created a "revolving door of criminals" and criticized Bragg for declining to prosecute many nonviolent crimes.

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"It would seem that Mr. Trump is facing enough legal problems that he would not want to create any more liability," lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a cease-and-desist letter, pointing to the multiple charges Trump faces in New York and with the Department of Justice.

Citing the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots as evidence Trump's words have caused violence, Lowell said, "We are just one such social media message away from another incident."

Trump recently insinuated the cocaine found in the White House earlier this month, for which the Secret Service failed to name a suspect, could be Hunter Biden's.

"I’d bet they already know the answer, but just in case, it could be done in 5 minutes," Trump said on Truth Social. "Is it Crooked Joe and his wonderful son, Hunter? Release the findings, release the tapes. We can’t have a crackhead in charge of our Nuclear Arsenal!!!"

Hunter Biden agreed in June to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes, a move that will likely keep him out of prison. The plea deal ends a five-year probe by the Justice Department into Biden's taxes.

An IRS whistleblower alleged that the Justice Department shielded Biden and his father from scrutiny, undermining the tax investigation.

Biden has received wide criticism in recent months for his role in his family's foreign business dealings.

Texts surfaced last month showing Hunter Biden invoking his father's name to threaten a Chinese businessman to pay up.

"Z if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang or the Chairman I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction," Hunter Biden told Henry Zhao, an official with the Chinese military intelligence-linked energy company CEFC China Energy in 2017. "I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father. I sure hope whatever it is you are doing is very very very important."

President Joe Biden denied any knowledge of the texts. "No, I wasn’t!" Joe Biden shouted at a reporter who asked in late June if he was with his son when the threat was sent. The Washington Free Beacon found that photos on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop place him at his father's house the day the messages were sent.

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Manchin said in a statement the labor secretary "should have the experience to collaboratively lead both labor and industry to forge compromises acceptable to both parties" and added he had concerns that "Su's more progressive background prevents her from doing this."

President Joe Biden nominated Su, a civil rights lawyer and former California labor commissioner who has served as a deputy labor secretary since 2021, to become labor secretary in February. Su previously served as California's labor secretary.

Su has been controversial for her time as California labor secretary, when she oversaw an estimated $31 billion in fraudulent unemployment payouts after freezing checks on claims. California’s unemployment insurance fund is now in a nearly $20 billion hole.

She was tapped to replace Marty Walsh, who left the post in March to become head of the National Hockey League players' union. Su became acting secretary when Walsh stepped down.

Democrats narrowly control the Senate 51-49 with the support of three independents. No Republicans have endorsed Su. If both Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who switched from being a Democrat to an independent in December, oppose Su, she would not be able to win confirmation without Republican support.

A White House official said Biden and his aides continued to fight for Su's confirmation because she is "highly-qualified, experienced, and has proven herself time and time again when it comes to delivering for America's workers and our economy."

"The president's support for Acting Secretary Su is unwavering, and we hope Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema reconsider their position," the White House official added.

Asked if she had taken a position on Su, a spokesperson for Sinema said the senator "doesn't preview her votes."

Last month, Su helped negotiate a crucial contract deal between U.S. West Coast seaport employers and the union representing 22,000 workers.

Su's nomination has been pending since a Senate committee voted along party lines in April to advance her nomination.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who chaired Su's confirmation hearing, said earlier she is "prepared to take on powerful special interests and stand up for the needs of the working class of this country."

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub, Nandita Bose and David Shepardson; Editing by Kanishka Singh and Jamie Freed)

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The United States detected a breach of federal government accounts "fairly rapidly" and managed to prevent further breaches, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America program.

The U.S. State and Commerce Departments were among the affected agencies, and hackers gained access to the email accounts of Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and State Department officials, the Washington Post reported, citing U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The hackers reportedly had access to the government emails for about a month before officials caught on to the breach.

Raimondo is the only known Cabinet-level official to have their account breached in the incident.

Microsoft said in a statement that the hacking group—which it dubbed Storm-0558—forged digital authentication tokens to access webmail accounts running on the firm's Outlook service. The activity began in May, Microsoft said.

"As with any observed nation-state actor activity, Microsoft has contacted all targeted or compromised organizations directly via their tenant admins and provided them with important information to help them investigate and respond," the company added.

Microsoft did not say which organizations or governments had been affected, but added that the hacking group involved primarily targets entities in Western Europe.

China's embassy in London called the accusation "disinformation" and called the U.S. government "the world's biggest hacking empire and global cyber thief." China routinely denies involvement in hacking operations regardless of the available evidence or context.

White House National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said an intrusion in Microsoft's cloud security "affected unclassified systems," without elaborating.

"Officials immediately contacted Microsoft to find the source and vulnerability in their cloud service," Hodge added.

The State Department "detected anomalous activity" and "took immediate steps to secure our systems," a department spokesperson said in a statement. The Commerce Department said it took "immediate action" after Microsoft notified it of a compromise.

Private sector cybersecurity experts have said newly discovered hacking activity shows how Chinese groups are improving their cyber capabilities.

"Chinese cyber espionage has come a long way from the smash-and-grab tactics many of us are familiar with," said John Hultquist, chief analyst for U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant.

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Diane Craft)

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said advocacy groups that had challenged Tennessee's law could not show they were likely to prevail on their claims it violated the U.S. Constitution. The panel of three judges voted 2-1 to reverse a lower court's decision that had blocked Tennessee from enforcing the law while it was being challenged.

"Life-tenured federal judges should be wary of removing a vexing and novel topic of medical debate from the ebbs and flows of democracy by construing a largely unamendable federal constitution to occupy the field," Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the appeals court.

Neither the advocacy groups that challenged the law nor the state's attorney general could be reached Saturday morning.

Tennessee's law is part of a growing series of efforts by Republican lawmakers to impose new restrictions on transgender medical treatments for minors. Lawmakers said the measure was necessary to protect minors from being permanently harmed.

It bans any medical procedure performed for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.

Federal judges have blocked five laws similar to Tennessee's from taking effect. Those judges found the laws violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The appeals court's decision Saturday said that absent a clear showing that Tennessee's law violated the Constitution, choices about medical care and protecting minors are best settled by state legislatures.

Judge Helen White said she believed Tennessee's law "is likely unconstitutional" as a type of sex discrimination.

Sutton wrote that the appeals court will try to reach a final decision about Tennessee's law by Sept. 30. "These initial views, we must acknowledge, are just that: initial," he wrote. "We may be wrong."

(Reporting by Brad Heath; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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The survey, which measures popular opinion on beers, found that Bud Light fell from the list of Americans' top 10 favorite beers. The poll, which surveyed Americans during the second quarter of 2023, found the percentage of people who "like" the beer hasn't changed and still sits at 42 percent, but the percentage of those who like rival drinks soared. Guinness, Corona, and Heineken ranked as the three most-liked beers in 2023. They clocked approval ratings of 58 percent, 53 percent, and 51 percent, respectively.

Bud Light's fall from grace amid its competitors' rising popularity comes after months of boycotting by conservatives. The brand's troubles began in April, when its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney became public. Mulvaney revealed the collaboration on social media on April 1, showing a Bud Light can featuring the influencer's face. Mulvaney also posted a video drinking Bud Light in a bathtub.

Bud Light also lost its position as America's top selling beer. It was the second-best-selling beer in the four weeks leading up to June 3, making up 7.3 percent of U.S. retail-store beer purchases. Modelo took first place with 8.4 percent of sales, the Wall Street Journal reported. Parent company Anheuser-Busch's market cap has fallen by $20 billion.

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The U.S. Navy had monitored the situation and decided not to make any further response, U.S. 5th Fleet spokesperson Commander Tim Hawkins said.

British maritime security company Ambrey said it was aware of an attempted seizure by Iranian forces of a small Tanzanian flagged tanker, around 59 nautical miles northeast of the Saudi Arabian port city of Dammam.

"Iran regularly intercepts smaller tankers it suspects of smuggling oil," the company added in a note.

About a fifth of the world's supply of seaborne crude oil and oil products passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint between Iran and Oman, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa.

The U.S. Navy said on Wednesday that it had intervened to prevent Iran from seizing two commercial tankers in the Gulf of Oman, in the latest in a series of attacks on ships in the area since 2019.

In video of the Wednesday attack shared by the U.S. Navy, an Iranian warship is seen opening fire on an oil tanker. The Iranian vessel gave up the chase when a U.S. guided missile destroyer arrived in the area.

"U.S. forces remain vigilant and ready to protect navigational rights of lawful maritime traffic in the Middle East’s critical waters," Hawkins said.

Iran said on Thursday it had a court order to seize one of the tankers sailing in Gulf waters on Wednesday after it collided with an Iranian vessel. The vessel, the Bahamas-flagged Richmond Voyager, was managed by U.S. oil major Chevron.

Tehran seized two other tankers in May including the Marshall Islands flagged Advantage Sweet, which had been chartered by Chevron.

Since 2021, "Iran has harassed, attacked or seized nearly 20 internationally flagged merchant vessels", the U.S. Navy said this week.

(Reporting by Jonathan Saul; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Andrew Heavens)

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A weapons aid package that includes cluster munitions fired by a 155 millimeter Howitzer cannon was expected to be announced as soon as Friday, said three U.S officials speaking on condition of anonymity. The measure has been under serious consideration for at least a week, one of the officials said.

The White House said sending cluster munitions to Ukraine is "under active consideration" but it had no announcement to make. President Joe Biden is to attend a NATO summit next week in Lithuania expected to be dominated by the war in Ukraine.

Republican lawmakers had called for the White House to send cluster munitions in order to turn the tide in the war. Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas) said the bombs would be effective in destroying Russia's fortified positions that have slowed Ukraine's counteroffensive.

Human Rights Watch called on Russia and Ukraine to stop using cluster munitions and urged the U.S. not to supply them. The group said that both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used the weapons, which have killed Ukrainian civilians.

The munitions, banned by more than 120 countries, typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area, threatening civilians. Bomblets that fail to explode pose a danger for years after a conflict ends.

A 2009 law bans exports of U.S. cluster munitions with bomblet failure rates higher than 1 percent, which covers virtually all of the U.S. military stockpile. Biden can waive prohibitions around the munitions as Trump did in January 2021 to allow the export of cluster munitions technology to South Korea.

Ukraine has urged members of Congress to press Biden's administration to approve sending cluster munitions known as Dual-Purpose Conventional Improved Munitions (DPICM).

$800 MILLION PACKAGE

A Pentagon spokesman said the Biden administration was considering sending DPICMs to Ukraine, but only those that had a failure rate lower than 2.35%.

The U.S. military believes cluster munitions would be useful for Ukraine, a senior Pentagon official said in June, but they had not been approved for Kyiv yet because of congressional restrictions and concerns among allies.

The U.S. Army is currently spending more than $6 million a year to decommission 155 millimeter cluster artillery shells and other older munitions, according to budget documents. Sending DCIPMs would ease a drain on standard 155 millimeter shells that Washington has been shipping to Kyiv in massive quantities.

Also in the aid package to be announced, which is expected to be worth as much as $800 million, Ukraine will receive munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), and ground vehicles such as Bradley fighting vehicles and Stryker armored personnel carriers, the officials said.

The package was still being finalized and could change, the officials said. It would be funded using Presidential Drawdown Authority, which authorizes Biden to transfer articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval during an emergency. The material will come from U.S. excess inventory.

The security assistance package would be the 42nd approved by the United States for Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, for a total of more than $40 billion.

Ukraine has also been pushing for new Western fighter planes, including F-16s, as it pursues its counteroffensive.

"F-16 or any other equipment that we do need will give us an opportunity to move faster, to save more lives, to stand our ground for a longer time," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an ABC News interview broadcast on Thursday.

NATO members Denmark and the Netherlands are leading efforts by an international coalition to train pilots and support staff, to maintain aircraft and ultimately supply F-16s to Ukraine.

(Reporting by Mike Stone, additional reporting by Idrees Ali, Jeff Mason and Steve Holland, Rami Ayyub and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Christina Fincher, Gareth Jones, David Gregorio and Daniel Wallis)

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"F— the suburbs because they don’t know a goddamn thing about how life is in the city," Johnson said while speaking about crime in Milwaukee. Republicans pointed to the concerning rise in violent crimes bleeding into Milwaukee's suburbs as a reason to increase police funding in the new spending plan.

Critics say Johnson's comments make her party's position clear. "If you’re not Madison or Milwaukee, you don’t matter," one Wisconsin resident tweeted.

Johnson's Democratic colleagues were quick to defend her lack of decorum.

"Senator Johnson spoke passionately to defend the communities she represents," Democratic state Rep. Francesca Hong tweeted. "Republicans who continuously weopanize and villinize [sic] the people of Milwaukee without accountability need to answer for constantly legislating racism. These absurd times in state gov call for real talk."

The proposed budget, which passed 20-13 in the Republican-led chamber, would increase pay for prison workers, prosecutors, and public defenders, cut income taxes by $3.5 billion, and increase funding for K-12 public and private choice schools, the Associated Press reported.

The spending plan is expected to receive final approval from the GOP-led Assembly on Thursday and then head to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers's desk. It is unclear if the governor will veto the bill.

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In remarks prepared for delivery to a Banco de Espana conference on financial stability in Madrid that largely echoed his recent observations on the economy and the state of policy, Powell did not say when those rates hikes may come.

Powell made note of still too-high inflation, and the "long way to go" before inflation can be returned to the Fed's 2 percent goal.

The Fed's determination that inflation remains too hot comes as the Biden administration has touted its economic record and efforts to lower prices. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden delivered a speech describing his "Bidenomics" as a way to "restore the American dream." American voters have been less pleased with Biden's economic record, with polls consistently showing widespread dissatisfaction with the economy.

After 10 straight rate hikes since March 2022, the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee earlier this month opted to leave its policy rate unchanged at the 5-5.25 percent range.

"We made this decision in light of the distance we have come in tightening policy, the uncertain lags in monetary policy, and the potential headwinds from credit tightening," Powell said.

At the same time, he said, "a strong majority of Committee participants expect that it will be appropriate to raise interest rates two or more times by the end of the year."

The Fed will hold four more policy meetings this year, with the next one on July 25-26.

Rate hikes to date have slowed business investment and the housing sector, where activity is far below its peak last year even as some indicators have recently turned up, Powell said.

"It will take time" for the rest of the economy to feel the full impact of rate hikes to date, he said.

That's especially so for inflation, which by the Fed's preferred gauge—the personal consumption expenditure index—is estimated to have risen 3.9% last month from a year earlier, with the core index, excluding food and energy prices, likely to have risen 4.7 percent, Powell said.

The official figures for May will be released on Friday. If those estimates prove out, it would show a lack of progress on underlying price pressures for the last six months.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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East Coast thunderstorms and continued FAA operational troubles caused 3,000 flights to be delayed and more than 800 cancellations on Wednesday, according to FlightAware. The FAA predicts that Thursday will be the busiest travel day with more than 52,500 total flights.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has blamed continued flight disruptions on the airlines, claiming they schedule more flights than their staff can handle. But airlines have shot back, blaming Buttigeig's FAA for staffing shortages that have made them unable to handle the high numbers of flights, the Associated Press reported.

"We estimate that over 150,000 customers on United alone were impacted this weekend because of FAA staffing issues and their ability to manage traffic," United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby wrote in a memo to employees.

Buttigieg faced fierce criticism over his management last winter as Southwest's massive flight cancellations scrambled December holiday plans and a "computer glitch" grounded planes in January.

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Federal prosecutors in Manhattan say Bankman-Fried, 31, stole billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research, misled investors and lenders, and illegally made contributions to U.S. political campaigns in the names of his colleagues.

Bankman-Fried is accused of making more than 300 illegal political donations, using straw donors to direct corporate funds to campaign committees while bypassing contribution limits. More than 95 percent of Bankman-Fried's contributions went to Democrats and Democratic committees, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The crypto CEO and his cofounders at FTX gave more than $300,000 to members of the House committee that investigated the company's collapse.

The onetime billionaire has pleaded not guilty. He has acknowledged inadequate risk management at FTX, but denies stealing funds.

In May, Bankman-Fried asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to dismiss at least 11 of the 13 fraud and conspiracy charges he faced.

He argued that some were based on a legal theory of fraud that has been invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court, and that some were improperly brought without consent from the Bahamas, where he was arrested in December and extradited to the United States.

"The arguments are either moot or without merit," Kaplan wrote in a ruling on Thursday.

A spokesman for Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The two-day poll that closed on Wednesday showed Americans were divided along partisan lines in their views on the case, with 75 percent of Republicans seeing preferential treatment compared with just 33 percent of Democrats.

Most respondents said the case would not affect their likelihood of voting for the elder Biden next year when he is seeking reelection.

U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a federal prosecutor appointed by Republican former president Donald Trump, said on Tuesday that Hunter Biden, 53, has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes and to enter into an agreement that could avert a conviction on a gun-related charge.

Trump and his Republican allies charged that the plea agreement amounted to special treatment for Biden's son. Weiss was one of a few Trump-appointed prosecutors that Biden asked to stay on after he took office in January 2021, to avoid the appearance of tampering in politically sensitive investigations.

Media pundits largely dismissed concern that Hunter Biden received special treatment and downplayed the charges he pleaded guilty to.

"What do these jerks in the House want Joe Biden to do?" MSNBC commentator and former Democratic senator Claire McCaskill said.

Hunter Biden will make an initial appearance in federal court in Delaware on July 26, a court filing showed on Wednesday.

According to court filings, Hunter Biden received taxable income of more than $1.5 million in 2017 and in 2018 but did not pay income tax those years despite owing in excess of $100,000.

He is also charged with unlawfully owning a firearm from roughly Oct. 12 to Oct 23, 2018, when he was using and addicted to crack cocaine. For that charge, he entered a pretrial diversion agreement, an alternative to prosecution that is sometimes used to allow defendants to avoid prison time or a criminal conviction.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 1,004 U.S. adults nationwide and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points.

(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis)

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"Kodak was charged for the same crime. Got over 3 years," Bradford Cohen, a Florida-based criminal attorney, wrote in an Instagram post. "Mr. Biden will not serve a day. Feels right? Do FBI agents and federal authorities take cases personally?"

Biden and Black were both charged with possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. Black—then 22 years old with prior convictions—was sentenced to over three years in federal prison but was pardoned by then-president Donald Trump the day before President Joe Biden's inauguration. Hunter Biden struck a plea deal with the Justice Department Tuesday on two counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and agreed to a pretrial diversion agreement on his gun charge.

Black had been previously arrested in 2015 on charges of robbery, battery, two counts of false imprisonment of a child under 13 years of age, three counts of false imprisonment of an adult, driving with a suspended license, and possession of marijuana. He was also arrested twice in 2016 on possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, possession of marijuana, fleeing from law enforcement, armed robbery, and false imprisonment.

"After 26 years, I have yet to have a plea in a case with an illegal possession of a weapon and tax evasion, that did not come with some kind of prison sentence," Cohen said in a Twitter post on the same day. "Indigents charged the same way would be getting jail time."

The Washington Free Beacon's reporting earlier this month chronicled Biden’s drug use in the days surrounding the gun purchase that led to federal charges.

CNN host Dana Bash said Tuesday that Republican allegations that there are "two tiers of justice" for Democrats and Republicans are unfounded.

"We can’t say this enough," Bash said. "There is no evidence to prove it at all."

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"My son's done nothing wrong," Joe Biden said on MSNBC last month when asked about the federal investigation into Hunter Biden. "I trust him, I have faith in him, and it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him."

Hunter Biden on Tuesday agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes, potentially bringing an end to the Justice Department's five-year investigation while avoiding jail time.

The investigation in Hunter Biden also focused on his purchase of a firearm while he was using crack cocaine, which is a federal offense. The first son entered a pretrial diversion agreement that will see the federal government drop the gun charge against him.

The investigation into Hunter Biden came under scrutiny this year after IRS whistleblowers alleged the Biden administration exerted political pressure to undermine the probe into the president's son.

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"We're on the right trail here," Biden said of U.S.-China relations. Asked by reporters whether he felt progress had been made, he replied, "It's been made."

Biden also praised Blinken and said "he did a hell of a job."

Congressional Republicans were less enthused by Blinken's trip to China, suggesting the secretary of state undermined efforts to put pressure on China.

"The Biden administration’s weak actions on the global stage continue to embolden the CCP," Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) said.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) criticized the Biden administration for not demonstrating its willingness to confront China militarily.

"Engagement disconnected from a robust military deterrent? I’m not sure what it will actually achieve," Gallagher said.

China and the United States agreed on Monday to stabilize their intense rivalry so it doesn't veer into conflict but failed to produce any major breakthrough.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in California and Nandita Bose in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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"We did what we needed to do to protect our interests, we said what we needed to say and made clear what needed to make clear in terms of this not happening again. So as long as it doesn't, that chapter should be closed," Blinken said in the video interview with MSNBC.

The Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental United States in January, collecting sensitive data from military sites. The Biden administration did not order the balloon shot down until it reached the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 4.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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