NBC News

President Joe Biden has increased his outreach to lawmakers, Democratic governors, and staff after days of criticism that he hasn't done enough to personally tamp down on nervousness that he should abandon his run for re-election. On an all-hands call with campaign staffers, Biden made clear that he didn't plan to exit the race, telling attendees, "Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running," according to one campaign official on the call. "No one is pushing me out," the president added, also saying, "I'm not leaving. I'm in this race to the end, and we're going to win." Read more at the link in bio.

When either Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer take to the stage to hail victory in the British election on Friday, they will be joined at their moment of triumph by either a man with a trash can on his head or someone dressed as “Elmo” from Sesame Street. Among the more than 4,500 candidates standing for election to parliament’s 650 seats are those from fringe parties, single issue campaigners, and, in a peculiarly British tradition, those who are simply making fun of the whole thing. The best known figure in the latter category is Count Binface, “an intergalactic space warrior, leader of the Recyclons from planet sigma IX”, who will be challenging PM Sunak in his constituency in northern England. More at the link in the bio.

Ronaldo, a 6-foot Brazilian rainbow boa constrictor kept at a school in England, was thought to be male — until the snake gave birth to 14 babies last month. The boa had not had contact with another snake for nearly a decade, so she appears to have undergone a natural process of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis. The school said this is the third documented case of this type of birth that it is aware of from a Brazilian rainbow boa in captivity. Parthenogenesis occurs when an embryo develops without being fertilized. The process is especially rare for vertebrates, including snakes. Read more at the link in bio.

Infants and children in the U.S. are dying at higher rates than in other wealthy, developed countries. A new study estimates that the U.S. sees 20,000 excess pediatric deaths per year relative to a group of 16 other countries. The researchers point to high infant mortality rates, along with deaths caused by guns and drug overdoses, as some of the reasons for the disparity. Read more at the link in bio.

Transgender and nonbinary middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz finished the women’s 1500-meter race at the U.S. Olympic Trials with a time of 3:55:33, a trials record, qualifying for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. For Hiltz, who uses they/them pronouns, Paris will mark their Olympic debut. In a post-race interview with NBC Sports, Hiltz, 29, said the race had significance beyond their personal accomplishment. “This is bigger than just me. It’s the last day of Pride Month. ... I wanted to run this one for my community,” they said. “All the LGBT folks, yeah, you guys brought me home that last hundred [meters]. I could just feel the love and support.” Read more at the link in bio. 📷️ Patrick Smith / Getty Images

Kristen Faulkner, who began riding as a side hobby from her finance job, is a medal contender at the 2024 Paris Games. “It was kind of my outlet every day to get into Central Park and ride for two hours away from the bustle of the city,” Faulkner told NBC News. But it didn’t come without some initial growing pains. “I couldn’t clip in” to the bike, she said. “And I was like, 'Why is this not working?' I was starting to get really embarrassed. Finally, we realized I just had incompatible cleats and pedals.” Buoyed by her success, Faulkner quit her job to race competitively as a pro in Europe. Some of her highlights included winning a stage in the 2021 Ladies Tour of Norway and winning gold in the 2023 Pan American Games. Read more at the link in bio.

The new rule implemented by the Supreme Court partially immunized Donald Trump in his election interference case. The Supreme Court said core presidential functions such as communicating with other officials are absolutely immune from prosecution. And other acts that may straddle the line are presumptively immune, meaning a defendant can assume they are immune unless a prosecutor can prove otherwise. Future presidents will enter office knowing they can insulate themselves from prosecution as long as their allegedly illegal acts can be defended as exercises of a bedrock presidential power. Presidents who commit criminal acts can still face removal from office via the impeachment process. Swipe to learn more.

Rudy Giuliani, the disgraced former New York City mayor who tried to overturn former President Trump’s election loss, was disbarred in the state of New York, yet another repercussion for the team that spread lies about mass voter fraud after Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory. Giuliani had no “good faith basis” to believe the lies he spread about the 2020 election, a New York appeals court said. “These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent’s narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client,” the decision read. Read more at the link in bio.

When Patricia McGill was 13 and learning that she had inherited sickle cell disease, she did not think she would reach 30. But now she and her family are celebrating McGill’s 80th year. McGill is one of the nation’s oldest people with sickle cell disease, living decades past age 52, the life expectancy of someone with the disease, which has a disproportionate effect on Black people. Despite her condition, McGill was determined to live life fully. She became a teacher and a mother, eventually having three children. For 37 years, she worked with students with learning disabilities, driven by her deep understanding of their struggles. Read more at the link in bio. 📷️ Courtesy Patricia McGill

On Ukraine’s front lines with Russia, 44-year-old Dmytro Melnyk has had to improvise as he prepares for the Paralympic Games in Paris. When he’s not training, Melnyk is a drone operator dropping bombs on enemy positions or monitoring troop movements from the air from his base near the northeastern town of Vovchansk — the scene of bitter fighting as Ukrainian forces are staving off Russian advances in the Kharkiv region. “Before the war, the Paralympics were my No. 1 dream,” he said via an audio message from the front line. It was one of several interviews he gave to NBC News over the course of months between September 2023 and June this year on the front line near Vovchansk and in his home city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine. More at the link in the bio.

President Biden addresses the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity:

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump has some immunity in his election interference case. Danny Cevallos explains why the distinction between “official acts” is complicated.