Joe Biden has cancer and an anti-natalist ideology is behind a fertility clinic bombing: Weekend Rundown

Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his personal office announced Sunday.

“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,” read a statement released by the office. “On Friday he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.”

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

The former president and his family are meeting with doctors and considering “multiple treatment options,” including hormone treatment for the cancer, according to a source familiar with Biden’s and his family’s thinking.

FBI links California fertility clinic bombing to anti-natalist ideology

Investigators are focusing on social media posts by the suspect in the California fertility clinic bombing that they say support the belief that no one should have children.

While the posts and a 30-minute audio recording are still being verified, officials believe an anti-natalism ideology was the motive behind the bombing, which the FBI deemed an act of terrorism.

The suspect, identified by authorities as Guy Edward Bartkus, is believed to have detonated the explosive in Saturday’s attack, which claimed his own life and injured four others.

The same person may also be linked to an online forum post from earlier this month in which the individual contemplated suicide using an explosive device, according to two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the incident. Investigators are also looking at a YouTube account, under the same moniker, that features videos of experiments with homemade explosives.

Mike Pence criticizes Trump on tariffs and key foreign policy issues

Former Vice President Mike Pence criticized President Donald Trump’s approach to tariffs in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” calling Trump’s original tariff plan “the largest peacetime tax hike on the American people in the history of this country.”

Pence opened with broad praise for the second Trump administration, applauding the president for having “secured the southern border in a historic way” and ordering military action against the Houthis in Yemen, among other things.

“But in the midst of all of that, I have seen some departure from the policies of our administration both at home and abroad,” Pence told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. He mentioned “wavering support” for Ukraine in the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, and he was especially critical of Trump’s tariffs.

Pence also said Trump was wrong to issue a blanket pardon of people who faced charges for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

“Individuals who broke into the Capitol, who assaulted police officers, I said that day and I believe to this moment should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Pence said.

‘Meet the Press’

Earlier this weak, Moody’s Ratings downgraded the United States’ credit rating by a notch from the highest level. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asserted that the downgrade was related to the Biden administration’s spending policies, which that administration had touted as investments in priorities including combating climate change and increasing health care coverage.

Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Murphy told “Meet the Press” that “it was a mistake” for Democrats to allow Joe Biden to remain in the 2024 presidential race for as long as he did, echoing recent comments from other Democrats as the party reckons with fallout from new reporting on the then-president’s mental acuity.

Politics in brief

• President Donald Trump has said he’ll speak separately to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday as he ramps up efforts to help the two nations reach a ceasefire.
• Decades-old artifacts related to slavery and civil rights are rotating out of exhibits at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture as a potential White House review looms.

Pope warns against hatred and ‘religious propaganda’

Pope Leo XIV disavowed “an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest” in a homily at his inaugural Mass in front of St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday, marking the formal start of his papacy.

Vice President JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were present for the event, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Leo said the church’s authority must be rooted in charity, not “religious propaganda or by means of power.”

“In this our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest,” he said, according to an English translation provided by the Vatican.

Journalism rallies to a Preakness victory — and provides a symbolic win for Altadena

Michael McCarthy had just witnessed a display of resilience unfold in front of him at the Preakness Stakes on Saturday when he referenced another.

“We’ll rebuild,” McCarthy told NBC in a televised interview from the wet track of Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course, just minutes after his horse, Journalism, won the 150th running of the Triple Crown’s middle leg. “This is for Altadena.”

Journalism’s victory required a comeback of more than five lengths, an improbable run that required slipping between two horses on either side as it entered the backstretch, then furiously making up ground on leader Gosger, never taking the lead until the final strides.

The route was unexpected and challenging — not all that dissimilar to what Journalism’s trainer and other Southern Californians have endured since the January wildfires impacted more than 30,000 people.

Notable quote

The fatal crash of a Mexican Navy ship into the Brooklyn Bridge left even the most hardened New Yorkers a bit stunned. The ship’s captain lost control due to a mechanical issue, according to Mayor Eric Adams, causing the ship’s tall masts to hit the bottom of the 142-year-old bridge connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan.

In case you missed it

• Austria was crowned the winner at Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest final, with the song “Wasted Love” by countertenor opera singer JJ beating strong competition from Israel, Estonia and Sweden to come in first place on an evening full of glitz and glamour.
• Caught between the U.S. and China, young people in Taiwan prefer to maintain the status quo rather than confront the island’s uncertain future.
• An Afghan war hero who protected U.S. Green Berets was killed over a parking dispute. The shock and heartbreak felt by his family has been compounded by what they consider to be a baffling decision by law enforcement to release the gunman with no charges.