Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is holding a press briefing at the White House at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.

This is the second day in a row that Jean-Pierre will hold a press briefing. During Tuesday’s briefing, she was questioned by press corps members on whether President Joe Biden suffered from dementia and whether he underwent a neurological exam after his disastrous debate performance.

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While Biden has no intention of dropping out of the race, several top Democrats have called for him to end his presidential bid.

The sniffles of young children may have protected them from the worst effects of COVID-19 infections, according to a new study published this week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

After testing nasal swabs from children who visited the emergency room during the height of the COVID pandemic, researchers discovered that children’s innate immune response to other viruses and bacteria helped to minimize the severity of COVID infection.

While it takes time for the body to develop antibodies to target specific pathogens, the body’s first line of defense against infection, known as the innate immune response, takes over. 

Study authors concluded that children had less severe effects of COVID due to their already active innate immune response that was protecting them from other viruses and bacteria. Because children’s innate immune response is more active than adults’, they likely had stronger responses to COVID infections.

“Activation of generalized antiviral defenses in children by other infections may have helped to fight off the initial stages of SARS-CoV-2 infection, leading to less severe outcomes in children compared with adults,” said a press release from the journal’s publisher, Rockefeller University Press.

The team of researchers, led by associate professor at Yale School of Medicine Ellen Foxman, tested over 600 nasal swabs from children for a host of viruses and bacteria, not just for COVID. 

Roughly half of the samples from children under age 5 had respiratory infections other than COVID. 

Samples were also collected from 1-year-olds in their routine well-child checkup and two-week follow-ups. Comparisons showed that more than half tested positive for a respiratory virus during one of their two visits, meaning that they either had gotten or recovered from an infection within that short time period.

Although the innate immune response in children is not continuously active, the findings suggest that it is more often activated because children are more easily infected with relatively harmless respiratory bugs. This may be because children do not have the benefit of having developed antibodies from prior exposure.

This worked to their advantage when exposed to COVID, however, because even adults did not have antibody protection against the novel virus.

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According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, approximately 234,000 children under age 18 were hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID from fall 2020 to spring 2024. This peaked to over 6,500 hospital admissions in one week during the omicron surge in January 2022. 

By spring 2024, there were as low as 310 hospital admissions of children with confirmed cases of COVID. 

Mortgage rates once again crept over 7% as mortgage loan application volume fell, according to the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The MBA said that last week mortgage rates rose from 6.93% to 7.03%. Additionally, the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, fell 2.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis from the previous week, another sign that the housing market is struggling.

“Mortgage rates moved higher last week, crossing the 7% mark, even as the latest inflation data has kept market expectations alive for a rate cut from the Fed later this year,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s senior vice president and chief economist. “Purchase applications decreased the final full week of June, even as both new and existing inventories have increased over the past few months.”

The latest data is yet another reminder of the struggles that the housing market has been facing.

The higher mortgage rates have eaten into housing affordability and have also depressed home purchases. The higher mortgage rates are a direct result of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates in response to too-high inflation.

New home sales fell 11.3% from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 619,000, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau. The number of new home sales is 16.5% lower than it was in May of last year.

The median sales price for a new home was $417,400 in May.

During the pandemic, a flood of homebuyers was able to lock in ultra-low sub-3% mortgages given that the Fed had loosened its monetary policy to a historic degree.

There has been a unique dynamic at play in the housing market because of the higher mortgage rates. Many people are holding on to their existing homes and waiting to sell until mortgage rates are lower, creating a shortage of existing homes for sale.

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Existing home sales in May slowed 0.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.11 million, the National Association of Realtors reported recently. The pace of existing home sales is down nearly 3% from the year before.

Additionally, the median price for an existing home lurched to $419,300, which marks the highest median price ever recorded and the eleventh month in a row of year-over-year price gains.

A senior Hezbollah commander was killed in a presumed Israeli airstrike Wednesday as the two sides brace for a possible all-out war.

The Lebanese-based terrorist group acknowledged the death of Muhammad Nimad Nasser in the strike that took place near the city of Tyre. He has been identified as the leader of the Aziz Unit.

Nasser was responsible for a part of Hezbollah’s operations along Lebanon’s southern border, which it shares with Israel, according to Reuters. Hezbollah began firing cross-border rockets at Israel in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack that left roughly 1,200 people dead, while an additional approximately 250 people were kidnapped.

Nasser is believed to have been the same rank as Taleb Abdallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike last month. Hezbollah carried out its largest drone and rocket attack in retaliation for Abdallah’s killing.

The continuous exchange of rocket and drone fire over the border has forced tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border to leave their homes indefinitely, and there’s no clear time frame for their return, given the possibility of a ground war.

Israeli and Hezbollah leaders have warned in recent weeks about the limited conflict expanding into a full-blown war. A major conflict would likely result in both sides incurring significant casualties and destruction, according to experts.

There are also concerns that if Israel and Hezbollah were to commence a full-scale war, it would drag others in the region into the fight. The United States has continued to support Israel’s efforts against Hamas and Hezbollah, while Iran supports both terrorist groups and others in the Middle East.

Several countries, including the U.S., have urgently sought to convince both sides to avoid a larger escalation or miscalculation, though it remains unclear if those concerns will be heeded.

Earlier this week, Kamal Kharrazi, a foreign affairs adviser to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, told the Financial Times that Iran and its “axis of resistance,” a title given to the proxy forces it supports and funds, would come to Hezbollah’s defense with “all means” if an all-out war began.

In addition to Hamas and Hezbollah, Tehran also supports the Houthis in Yemen, which have severely disrupted the global shipping markets with dozens of missile, drone, and rocket attacks on commercial vessels transiting the waterways off Yemen’s coasts, as well as militias in Iraq and Syria that have carried out more than 170 aerial attacks against U.S. forces in the region over the span of several months since Oct. 7, though these attacks have largely stopped.

“There would be a chance of expansion of the war to the whole region, in which all countries, including Iran, would become engaged. In that situation, we would have no choice but to support Hezbollah by all means,” Kharrazi said, emphasizing how the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could devolve into a regional war.

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Tehran did involve itself in the conflict in April when Iran launched a barrage of more than 300 missiles, rockets, and drones from within its own borders toward Israel following an Israeli strike on an Iranian Consulate in Syria that killed a senior Iranian commander and other senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Israel responded minimally, demonstrating its ability to hit within Iran’s borders without inflicting much damage or destruction. President Joe Biden refused to support a more significant response, reportedly telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own,” according to the New York Times. 

President Joe Biden will deliver remarks at the Medal of Honor ceremony around 4:45 p.m. Wednesday at the White House.

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Biden is awarding the medal posthumously to a pair of Union soldiers for their role in a Civil War mission to hijack a locomotive and sabotage a rail line vital to the Confederacy.

Biden will meet with several Democratic governors, including Govs. Kathy Hochul (D-NY), Gavin Newsom (D-CA), and JB Pritzker (D-IL), in person and virtually as he deals with the fallout from his debate performance.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed the state’s new $297.9 billion budget over the weekend, allocating $12 million for reparations bills.

State Sen. Steven Bradford, a Democrat, said California “bears great responsibility” for the past.

“We often say the budget is a reflection of our values and our priorities, so the fact that there’s any money for reparations should be a reason for celebrating,” Bradford said.

California lawmakers opted not to implement widespread payments to descendants of enslaved black people, following recommendations from the reparations task force on addressing discrimination.

Instead, they are considering issuing an apology for the state’s discrimination against the black community and identifying black families who had their homes unfairly seized through eminent domain.

Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire said that “$12 million is not nearly enough.”

There is also the possibility of creating an agency to administer these reparations, with an estimated annual operational cost ranging from $3 million to $5 million, according to an estimate from the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.

In addition, lawmakers decided against legislation for free college tuition at public institutions for descendants of enslaved black people, along with housing and property tax assistance.

Newsom’s approval of the reparations budget drew criticism, especially from Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher.

“Slavery was a stain on our nation’s history, but I don’t believe it’s fair to try to right the wrongs of the past at the expense of the people today who did nothing wrong,” Gallagher said in a statement.

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“More than a quarter of Californians are immigrants — how can we look at those people, who are struggling as it is, and say it’s on them to make up for something that happened more than 150 years ago?” Gallagher said.

These reparations mean “they’re taking accountability and responsibility, and they’re acknowledging the harms and the atrocities to this particular population,” said Kamilah Moore, chairwoman of the reparations task force. “That’s a huge step that should not be overlooked.”