TikTok Prompts Users to Call Congress to Fight Possible Ban

Washington lawmakers introduced a bill this week calling for TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese parent company or face a ban in the United States. When many users opened the popular app on Thursday, the company greeted them with a message to oppose the legislation, prompting a flood of phone calls to several Capitol Hill offices. “Stop a TikTok shutdown,” the message on the app read. It included a button for people to call their representatives, saying: “Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to…

N.I.H. Leader Rebuts Covid Lab Leak Theory at House Hearing

The suspicions revolve around $8 million in grants to EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that was collaborating on coronavirus research with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in the city where the pandemic began. Late last month, an internal federal watchdog agency found that the N.I.H. had made significant errors in its oversight of those grants. In a 64-page report, the Office of Inspector General at the federal Department of Health and Human Services outlined missed deadlines, confusing protocols and misspent funds — raising and reinforcing concerns about the government’s…