Six years on from Covid crisis, Republicans still politicizing science – and Fauci remains a political punching bagA US Senate committee hearing featuring Dr Anthony Fauci revealed at least one certainty: six years after the pandemic, politicizing science remains a vital political tactic.The high-profile hearing was pitched by its Republican chair, Rand Paul of Kentucky, as an investigation into the origins of the Covid pandemic. It quickly became a forum for recrimination of a once-leading US g
Six years on from Covid crisis, Republicans still politicizing science – and Fauci remains a political punching bag
A US Senate committee hearing featuring Dr Anthony Fauci revealed at least one certainty: six years after the pandemic, politicizing science remains a vital political tactic.
The high-profile hearing was pitched by its Republican chair, Rand Paul of Kentucky, as an investigation into the origins of the Covid pandemic. It quickly became a forum for recrimination of a once-leading US government scientist by Republican senators.
This blog is now closed. You can read our latest story hereSign up for US Breaking News emailGary Peters, the Democratic ranking member on the homeland security committee, said that the committee has a long history of bipartisan inquiry and oversight, and the subject matter of risky research and the origins of covid-19 are a legitimate area to study.But today’s hearing with Anthony Fauci was not an example of that, Peters said. Continue reading...
Gary Peters, the Democratic ranking member on the homeland security committee, said that the committee has a long history of bipartisan inquiry and oversight, and the subject matter of risky research and the origins of covid-19 are a legitimate area to study.
But today’s hearing with Anthony Fauci was not an example of that, Peters said.
Adviser to Trump and Biden for pandemic says Republican senator has ‘unhinged obsession’ with himUS politics – live updatesDr Anthony Fauci refused to answer questions at a high-profile Senate committee hearing on the origins of Covid-19 and accused the Republican senator leading questioning of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.Fauci, the veteran former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden durin
Dr Anthony Fauci refused to answer questions at a high-profile Senate committee hearing on the origins of Covid-19 and accused the Republican senator leading questioning of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.
Fauci, the veteran former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the Covid-19 pandemic. The hearing was called by Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who has investigated Fauci for years.
Lithuanian border guards have found an unfinished underground passage dug from Belarus toward their territory, Lithuania's public broadcaster LRT reported. The shaft never broke through to the surface on the Lithuanian side, so nobody used it. Lithuania's border service reads the dig was probably meant to move migrants across the frontier.
Minsk and Moscow have spent the past year testing the European Union's eastern edge with methods that stay below the threshold of op
Lithuanian border guards have found an unfinished underground passage dug from Belarus toward their territory, Lithuania's public broadcaster LRT reported. The shaft never broke through to the surface on the Lithuanian side, so nobody used it. Lithuania's border service reads the dig was probably meant to move migrants across the frontier.
Minsk and Moscow have spent the past year testing the European Union's eastern edge with methods that stay below the threshold of open war, running from airport closures to smuggling balloons and daily attempts at the border.
Vibrations in the soil gave the diggers away
Officers working in the Varėna district, in Lithuania's southeast, registered vibrations in the ground last Wednesday, LRT reported, citing the country's border service. The tremors suggested that someone was cutting an underground passage from the Belarusian side. Polish specialists joined the search and brought equipment built to locate tunnels. The crews drilled a control hole and found the passage underneath.
The State Border Guard Service (VSAT) put the tunnel's diameter at about one meter and its depth at about 1.5 meters. It had no exit onto Lithuanian soil. VSAT said the dig was probably intended for illegal border crossings by migrants.
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Lithuania's border chief points at the guards on the other side
The find was not an isolated one, according to VSAT head Rustamas Liubajevas. Migrants have changed tactics and increasingly use tunnels or caves, he told the Lithuanian news portal 15min. Border guards have identified tens of places where digging is almost certainly under way, he added.
"Without logistical support from the Belarusian border guards, this would not be possible," he said, pointing to the timber that reinforces the shaft, needed for work going on right next to the border line.
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Poland has pulled the same passages out of its own frontier
VSAT recalled that border services had found similar tunnels before, in Lithuania and in Poland, used to smuggle goods and to move people out of Belarus. In December 2025, Polish border guards uncovered a passage that more than 180 foreigners had already used to enter the country. Border Guard spokesman Andrzej Juźwiak said the dig was professionally prepared, tall enough for people to move through freely and several dozen meters long.
Another tunnel turned up in Poland's Podlaskie Voivodeship in October 2025, under the barrier on the Belarusian border. That one started on Belarusian territory and stopped about 20 meters short of the line.
Baltic nations. Map: Euromaidan Press.
The pressure on this border goes back to 2021
Migration became a tool on this frontier in 2021, after Western sanctions hit Belarus over the falsified presidential election and the crackdown on the opposition and on protests. A flow of migrants from Middle Eastern countries then surged toward the borders of Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. European governments hold that Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime engineered that crisis on purpose, adding flights from the Middle East as revenge. Lithuania answered by turning people back toward Minsk and by building a wall along the Belarusian border.
The methods have multiplied since then. Smuggling balloons launched from Belarus have grounded flights and cost Lithuanian airports hundreds of thousands of euros, and Polish crews have collected them out of fields carrying cigarettes and, in one Christmas Eve wave, GPS trackers. Latvia went further and put Belarusian military documents on the record, taken off a detained migrant.
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