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Dalee Sullivan looked straight ahead into her computers camera and started making her case to the judge. She referred to transcripts, emails and policies she had pulled from the student handbook at Alpine High School. The school, she contended, had made errors in tabulating grade-point averages: Classes and exams that should have been included were left out, and vice versa. Sullivan had won Lincoln-Douglas debate tournaments and, in her freshman year, was a member of the mock trial team. But she is not a lawyer. She is 18, and she graduated from the lone public high school in the small West Texas town of Alpine just a week ago, which was the reason she was in court to begin with. This serves to prove that no matter the outcome of the GPA contest, and no matter how many times we had the school recalculate the GPA, Sullivan told the judge during a hearing on Friday, the Alpine Independent School District was going to make certain I could never be valedictorian, even if I earned it. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times School officials said she ranked third in her class. Sullivan disagreed. She could not find a local lawyer who would agree to take on her case. A firm in Dallas told her it would, she said, but estimated the case could cost her $75,000 far more than she could afford. Instead, she figured out how to write a request for an injunction and represented herself in the 394th District Court of Texas. She believed that her GPA could, in fact, have been higher than one or both of the students ahead of her, making her worthy of the title salutatorian or even valedictorian. She and her parents had protested her rank for the past month, and she claimed that the school intentionally did not invite her to an awards event where top students were honored. The school district has said that it calculated her grades repeatedly, and that each time Sullivan still ranked third. In a statement on Friday, school officials declined to discuss the allegations raised by Sullivan, saying the district was not at liberty to discuss the individual student. Although we respectfully disagree with the allegations in the lawsuit, the statement said, we take student and parent concerns very seriously and will continue to address the students concerns. It is not entirely unheard-of for disputes over top spots in high school graduating classes to escalate to litigation. The competition over such accolades can be an intense, even ruthless, zero-sum game. And in the fight to be valedictorian, there is more at stake than just bragging rights. In Texas, the highest-ranking high school graduates can receive free tuition for their first year at in-state public institutions. Sullivan and her parents were inspired by a case last year in Pecos, Texas, about 100 miles from Alpine, where two students claimed to be valedictorian amid confusion over a glitch in the schools tabulations. One of the students with professional legal representation filed for a restraining order and sought an injunction to block Pecos High School from naming its valedictorian. After Sullivan could not get a lawyer, her parents were disappointed but willing to drop the matter. But she refused. She got advice and records from the family in the case in Pecos, using the petition in that case as a guide to start writing her own. Her parents her father, a rancher; her mother, a forensic interviewer read it over and helped her tidy up the language. We arent even close to being lawyers, Sullivan said. In Alpine, a town of roughly 6,000 people in Texas Big Bend Country, some who know Sullivan said they were surprised she would take this on. There are other ways to spend ones last summer before college. (She plans to attend the College of Charleston in South Carolina and major in biophysics with the aim of going into medicine.) But she had always been serious about school and a bit steely in her resolve. Shes already going to college, she already has scholarships, said Teresa Todd, a local government lawyer who is a longtime friend of Sullivans mother and whose sons are close in age to Sullivan. She worked really hard for this, and I think all kids deserve to know where they fall in the pecking order. Kids have to show their work, Todd added. Why doesnt the school have to show their work? She said she offered some advice to Sullivan ahead of her hearing: Be herself. Be respectful. Dont let the other side get you off your game. Sullivan conceded some nervousness before the hearing, especially after filings from the school districts lawyers cited a slew of legal precedents and were peppered with terminology she did not know. But overall, she was confident. I have all the evidence, she said. I have all the facts. And no one knows it as well as I know it. All sorts of cases land in the 394th District Court, whose jurisdiction covers five counties roughly equivalent in size to the country's nine smallest states combined. The court hears criminal cases, divorce proceedings, and now a fight over high school grading. Judge Roy B. Ferguson has a reputation for taking the judicial medley in stride. His courtroom had a flash of viral fame in February when a video clip of a lawyer trapped behind a filter that made him appear to be a fuzzy white kitten in a Zoom hearing boomeranged around the internet. (Im not a cat, the lawyer said.) Ferguson found the humor in it. He added a reference to the unlikely episode to the courts website and accepted an invitation to discuss it at a symposium on remote judicial hearings in Poland. In a recent criminal proceeding, when a lawyer apologized for audio complications, Ferguson replied, Youre not a cat, so youre one step ahead! With Sullivan, he was patient and explained procedure in a way he would not have to with a professional. When she asked a question that was too broad, he encouraged her to narrow the scope. (He often presides over high school mock trials, among them, the State of Texas v. Luke Skywalker.) Kelley Kalchthaler, a lawyer representing the school district, argued that Sullivan had not exhausted the districts grievance process. We dont think the court has jurisdiction over this case, she said, and all parties should be dismissed. She also raised objections to much of the evidence Sullivan wanted to include, contending that it was hearsay or questioning the relevance to the case. In several instances, Ferguson agreed. All right, Ms. Sullivan, are you ready to present evidence in support of your request? Ferguson said. You bear the burden here for this temporary injunction. Sullivan laid out her case. Its not an accurate reflection of my high school career, she said of her final transcript, so its already done irreparable damage. She wanted an independent audit of honor graduates grades. She did not get that on Friday. Ferguson ruled that the dispute needed to go through the school districts grievance process. Still, the case was not closed. If she was not pleased with the outcome, the judge told her, she could come back to court. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 2021 The New York Times Company

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, once again found himself embroiled in a heated back-and-forth with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) during a Tuesday Senate coronavirus hearing, this time over accusations that he funded a Wuhan lab to develop COVID-19.

Paul, who signaled on Monday that he was going to grill Fauci on the subject, alleged that gain-of-function research to mutate animal viruses to infect humans at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been funded by the National Institutes of Health, something that Fauci strongly disputed. With all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan institute, Bidens chief medical advisor said.

Paul, however, continued to suggest Fauci was personally involved in bioengineering and weaponizing COVID-19, prompting an exasperated Fauci to push back. I do not favor gain-of-function research in China. That is not correct, he said, eventually adding: You are saying things that are not correct!

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Dr. Fauci Clashes With Rand Paul on COVIDAgain

A series of floor speeches by GOP senators Friday morning delayed major votes and provided for social media fodder.

Although the Senate was set to break for recess on Thursday night ahead of the holiday weekend, chaos began to unfold with a last-minute push to thwart a more than $250 billion bill designed to make the US more technologically competitive against China.

The delays, first caused by a vote on an amendment proposed by Sen. Mike Crapo and then furthered by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, culminated in several Senators making lengthy remarks on the Senate floor the next morning.

A highly specific set of floor charts accompanying Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky's presentation began to go viral, starting with an overview of government research spending on the "cocaine and risky sex habits of quail."

The NIH quail example has been used by Paul for years, but this time was being used to raise concerns over what he described as gross overspending in the Biden administration's newly proposed federal budget.

Paul was followed by Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who spoke about US pension investments in Chinese companies, the US-Mexico border, and other matters for around a half-hour.

Then came Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who walked colleagues through a lesson in political philosophy about "human flourishing" and "the twin pillars of any thriving human civilization," free markets, and voluntary civic institutions.

Other Republicans were not as enthralled with the presentations as Paul, Tuberville, and Lee.

One GOP senator griped to CNN's Manu Raju using an expletive, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered some dry humor.

In the end, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer successfully moved to delay the vote on the China tech bill until after the Senate's Memorial Day recess to prioritize a vote on a bill to create a bipartisan January 6 commission.

The Senate ultimately fell short of the 60 votes needed to move ahead with a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection in the first successful filibuster during President Joe Biden's administration.

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The US Senate went off the rails trying to pass a bill on China, which got delayed until after Memorial Day - Business Insider

Sen. Rand Paul has repeatedly claimed people like him who already caught and recovered from COVID-19 have natural immunity and don't need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

However, the reality of thesituationis complex, and recent research has shown previously infected people still can benefit from getting the vaccine.

There's still a lot of research being done into the coronavirus that sparked thepandemic,including inquiries into how long naturalimmunity lasts and how much protection it provides over time.

More: Kentucky's Rand Paul the first known US senator to test positive for coronavirus

It is a generally accepted fact, as Paul has pointed out, people who've previously been infected with COVID-19 get natural immunity from it.

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says "experts do not yet know how long you are protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19."

After all, this is a new disease that was identified less than two years ago.

The World Health Organization says people who've already been infected should get vaccinated against the coronavirus anyway, unless their health care provider tells them they shouldn't.

"Even if youve had a previous infection, the vaccine acts as a booster that strengthens the immune response," WHO's websitesays.

Paul defended his highly publicized decision not to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in a Courier Journal column this week.

"So, when I go out to the media and say that I, as a recovered COVID patient, will not get a vaccine that is not proven to help me nor proved I even need the science deniers, bureaucrats and media typically go nuts," Kentucky's Republican senator wrote. "I choose to follow the science with COVID, rather than submit to fear-mongering."

However, recent research has indicated people who previously caughtCOVID-19, and thus received some degree of natural immunity,can still benefit from getting vaccinated.

The New York Times reported this week: "Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. ...Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters."

The results of one of those two studies "suggest that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who have later been vaccinated will continue to have extremely high levels of protection against emerging variants, even without receiving a vaccine booster down the line," per the New York Times.

Meanwhile, the Penn Institute of Immunology released a study in April that showed people who'd"recovered from COVID-19 had a robust antibody response" after getting just one dose of the two-dose coronavirus vaccines.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., listens to a reporter after speaking on the Senate floor, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)(Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP)

"The findings suggest that only a single vaccine dose in individuals recovered from COVID-19 may be enough to induce a maximal immune response," anews release said. "This is likely due to a primary immune response because of their natural infection."

COVID Watch: U of L seeks people who have had virus for study of ongoing symptoms

The possibility of using a one-dose vaccine regimen for previously infected peopleis still being examined.

Researchers also areexaminingwhether getting the coronavirus vaccine helps alleviate persistent "long COVID" symptoms some people have experienced after getting infected with COVID-19.

There have been anecdotal reports of people whose long-term symptoms improved after they got vaccinated, and researchers are looking into it.

In hisCourier Journal column this week, Paul cited examples of research that had promising findings about the effectiveness of natural immunity.

For example, the senatorcited a study helmed by researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology that showed evidence of persistent immunity for people who'd previously beeninfected.

"The researchers found durable immune responses in the majority of people studied," according to a National Institutes of Healthnews release."As seen in previous studies, the number of antibodies ranged widely between individuals. But, promisingly, their levels remained fairly stable over time, declining only modestly at 6 to 8 months after infection."

In his Courier Journal column, Paul also highlighted the extreme unlikelihood that someone who already had COVID-19 will getinfected again as part of his rationale for skipping the coronavirus vaccine.

Paul is right that cases of people catching COVID-19 for a second time have been found to be rare. Still, the CDC and other public health experts have noted reinfection is possible, albeit quite unlikely.

Ultimately, whether or not to get the coronavirus vaccine right now is a personal choice.

More: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says he won't get COVID-19 vaccine due to natural immunity

Paul has decided not to get one, citing his prior infection with COVID-19 last year as his primary reason.

However, his decision flies in the face of recommendations by the CDC, the WHO and manypublic health experts, whichsay people who've previously been infected still should get vaccinated against this dangerous virus.

Reach reporter Morgan Watkins: 502-582-4502; mwatkins@courierjournal.com; Twitter:@morganwatkins26.

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Fact check: Rand Paul supports skipping the vaccine if you've had COVID-19. Is he right? - Courier Journal

The New York Times

Dalee Sullivan looked straight ahead into her computers camera and started making her case to the judge. She referred to transcripts, emails and policies she had pulled from the student handbook at Alpine High School. The school, she contended, had made errors in tabulating grade-point averages: Classes and exams that should have been included were left out, and vice versa. Sullivan had won Lincoln-Douglas debate tournaments and, in her freshman year, was a member of the mock trial team. But she is not a lawyer. She is 18, and she graduated from the lone public high school in the small West Texas town of Alpine just a week ago, which was the reason she was in court to begin with. This serves to prove that no matter the outcome of the GPA contest, and no matter how many times we had the school recalculate the GPA, Sullivan told the judge during a hearing on Friday, the Alpine Independent School District was going to make certain I could never be valedictorian, even if I earned it. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times School officials said she ranked third in her class. Sullivan disagreed. She could not find a local lawyer who would agree to take on her case. A firm in Dallas told her it would, she said, but estimated the case could cost her $75,000 far more than she could afford. Instead, she figured out how to write a request for an injunction and represented herself in the 394th District Court of Texas. She believed that her GPA could, in fact, have been higher than one or both of the students ahead of her, making her worthy of the title salutatorian or even valedictorian. She and her parents had protested her rank for the past month, and she claimed that the school intentionally did not invite her to an awards event where top students were honored. The school district has said that it calculated her grades repeatedly, and that each time Sullivan still ranked third. In a statement on Friday, school officials declined to discuss the allegations raised by Sullivan, saying the district was not at liberty to discuss the individual student. Although we respectfully disagree with the allegations in the lawsuit, the statement said, we take student and parent concerns very seriously and will continue to address the students concerns. It is not entirely unheard-of for disputes over top spots in high school graduating classes to escalate to litigation. The competition over such accolades can be an intense, even ruthless, zero-sum game. And in the fight to be valedictorian, there is more at stake than just bragging rights. In Texas, the highest-ranking high school graduates can receive free tuition for their first year at in-state public institutions. Sullivan and her parents were inspired by a case last year in Pecos, Texas, about 100 miles from Alpine, where two students claimed to be valedictorian amid confusion over a glitch in the schools tabulations. One of the students with professional legal representation filed for a restraining order and sought an injunction to block Pecos High School from naming its valedictorian. After Sullivan could not get a lawyer, her parents were disappointed but willing to drop the matter. But she refused. She got advice and records from the family in the case in Pecos, using the petition in that case as a guide to start writing her own. Her parents her father, a rancher; her mother, a forensic interviewer read it over and helped her tidy up the language. We arent even close to being lawyers, Sullivan said. In Alpine, a town of roughly 6,000 people in Texas Big Bend Country, some who know Sullivan said they were surprised she would take this on. There are other ways to spend ones last summer before college. (She plans to attend the College of Charleston in South Carolina and major in biophysics with the aim of going into medicine.) But she had always been serious about school and a bit steely in her resolve. Shes already going to college, she already has scholarships, said Teresa Todd, a local government lawyer who is a longtime friend of Sullivans mother and whose sons are close in age to Sullivan. She worked really hard for this, and I think all kids deserve to know where they fall in the pecking order. Kids have to show their work, Todd added. Why doesnt the school have to show their work? She said she offered some advice to Sullivan ahead of her hearing: Be herself. Be respectful. Dont let the other side get you off your game. Sullivan conceded some nervousness before the hearing, especially after filings from the school districts lawyers cited a slew of legal precedents and were peppered with terminology she did not know. But overall, she was confident. I have all the evidence, she said. I have all the facts. And no one knows it as well as I know it. All sorts of cases land in the 394th District Court, whose jurisdiction covers five counties roughly equivalent in size to the country's nine smallest states combined. The court hears criminal cases, divorce proceedings, and now a fight over high school grading. Judge Roy B. Ferguson has a reputation for taking the judicial medley in stride. His courtroom had a flash of viral fame in February when a video clip of a lawyer trapped behind a filter that made him appear to be a fuzzy white kitten in a Zoom hearing boomeranged around the internet. (Im not a cat, the lawyer said.) Ferguson found the humor in it. He added a reference to the unlikely episode to the courts website and accepted an invitation to discuss it at a symposium on remote judicial hearings in Poland. In a recent criminal proceeding, when a lawyer apologized for audio complications, Ferguson replied, Youre not a cat, so youre one step ahead! With Sullivan, he was patient and explained procedure in a way he would not have to with a professional. When she asked a question that was too broad, he encouraged her to narrow the scope. (He often presides over high school mock trials, among them, the State of Texas v. Luke Skywalker.) Kelley Kalchthaler, a lawyer representing the school district, argued that Sullivan had not exhausted the districts grievance process. We dont think the court has jurisdiction over this case, she said, and all parties should be dismissed. She also raised objections to much of the evidence Sullivan wanted to include, contending that it was hearsay or questioning the relevance to the case. In several instances, Ferguson agreed. All right, Ms. Sullivan, are you ready to present evidence in support of your request? Ferguson said. You bear the burden here for this temporary injunction. Sullivan laid out her case. Its not an accurate reflection of my high school career, she said of her final transcript, so its already done irreparable damage. She wanted an independent audit of honor graduates grades. She did not get that on Friday. Ferguson ruled that the dispute needed to go through the school districts grievance process. Still, the case was not closed. If she was not pleased with the outcome, the judge told her, she could come back to court. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 2021 The New York Times Company

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An amendment by Rand Paul barring the NIH from funding some types of research in China passed in the Senate amid new debate on COVID-19's origin -...