The Weekly Scramble

Dr. Anthony Fauci will face a contempt of Congress vote next week
Dr. Anthony Fauci will face a contempt of Congress vote in a Senate committee next week after he invoked the Fifth Amendment in a hearing about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its origins.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul led the charge to have the now-retired infectious disease expert testify.
But Fauci declined to answer dozens of questions from senators.
"Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion," said Fauci.
"Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions. Thank you."
Paul told CBS News he believes Fauci could be prosecuted for not answering questions during the hearing.
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Mamdani: Today, I am proud to announce a collection of essential staples that will be predictably 30% cheaper at all five of our city-run grocery stores. This core set of goods will include all fresh produce, meat, and seafood, along with 20 other essential items like cheese, milk, and bread.
Here's how it will work. Once a month, our five city-run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail prices. No exceptions, no gimmicks. The savings will last for the entire month. That means no weekly fluctuations or sticker shock at the checkout line—not for our seniors living on fixed incomes, nor for the parents who rely on a regular supply of apple slices to keep toddler tantrums at bay.
Also:
45 restaurants that shaped Twin Cities dining courtesy of The Star Tribune

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Artificial intelligence models from OpenAI staged a breakout this month. AI researchers will often ask models that they're testing to perform a task without having access to the internet. It's like taking a closed-book exam in school. OpenAI says two of its experimental models escaped that isolated environment to cheat on the test. According to the maker of ChatGPT, the models gained access to the internet and hacked into another AI company called Hugging Face. OpenAI called it, quote, "unprecedented cyber incident" and the CEO of Hugging Face said it was, quote, "an attack unlike anything we've seen before." To better understand this, we called Nate Soares. He's the president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and coauthor of the book "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies."
Nate, so I got to be honest, and I hate to do this - defaulting to Hollywood (laughter) on questions about AI - but it sounds like "Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines" meets "The Matrix." So walk us through what happened.
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The best day of the year is the day after the World Cup final so we can all stop pretending to care about soccer.
Mike played with Adam Thielen in the 3M Open Pro-Am tournament.
Major changes at ESPN include our friend Tom Pelissero.
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Gov. Tim Walz is defending his vote to pardon a man convicted of molesting a 10-year-old child more than 20 years ago.
Last week, the Trump administration deported Tou Lue Vang despite a pardon approved by Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson in their role on the Board of Pardons.
Walz said the victim’s advocacy for Vang factored in his decision to grant the pardon.
“I can tell you in these pardons, one of the overriding factors that continuously influences the decision — certianly of me, I can’t speak for the rest of the board, but looks like that — depends on where the victims are at,” Walz said.
The governor emphasized that this action “didn’t let this person out of jail.” Vang completed his sentence — served entirely as supervised probation — in 2019.
Walz said his vote to pardon Vang was not an attempt to prevent him from being deported, though Vang is at least the third convicted felon with pending removal orders to be pardoned in Minnesota this year.
In May, the Board of Pardons unanimously granted clemency for At “Ricky” Chandee, who was convicted of second-degree assault in 1993; and Jai Vang, a Laotian man who was convicted of aggravated robbery in 1994.
On the same day the board considered a pardon for Vang, four others who had applied for pardons — including three who were facing deportation — were denied. Brian Evans, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, said they lacked victim support.
In all cases, the Department of Homeland Security criticized the pardons as attempts to “take away qualifying convictions” for removal from the U.S.
Vang was deported anyway.
Walz questioned whether Vang’s removal improved outcomes in Minnesota.
“I guess the question I would as is, did that make us any safer? Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable? Did it improve the idea that we can’t all be judged by our worst day?” Walz said.
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