Decades of scientific investment have paid off in the past month, with researchers announcing promising breakthroughs against cancers and other deadly afflictions, Axios' Caitlin Owens writes.

• "This has quietly been a miracle month in medicine," notes Derek Thompson, author of a smart Substack and co-author of "Abundance."

🔬 In late-stage clinical trial results, Revolution Medicines' experimental pancreatic cancer treatment doubled patients' life expectancy compared with standard chemotherapy.

• Eli Lilly's latest experimental anti-obesity drug appears to reduce body weight at levels approaching bariatric surgery in clinical trials.
• A Mayo Clinic AI model spotted abnormalities on scans up to three years before patients were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Reality check: We're still in the era of medicine where most miraculous new drugs generally don't cure the disease as much as allow sick people to live longer.

• And the new wave of anti-obesity drugs, which have the potential to stave off cardiovascular disease in the long term, are expensive and must be taken indefinitely to retain their benefits.

🔮 What we're watching: AI is fueling hopes for a transformational era of medicine, where diseases are detected earlier and cured altogether.

• An experimental drug acquired by Eli Lilly earlier this year, which targets multiple myeloma by editing cells inside the body, showed a 100% response rate in early-phase clinical trial results.
• A small, early-stage study found that an experimental gene-editing therapy could potentially permanently lower cholesterol levels after just one infusion, opening the door to one-and-done heart disease prevention.
• Late-phase trial results for a hepatitis B treatment found it was "a functional cure" for 20% of patients who received it.

Sign up for Axios Vitals for the latest in health care innovation and policy.

Hunter Biden is staging one of the most unlikely reinventions in politics, attempting to charm and disarm internet trolls who feasted on the darkest moments of his life, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

Why it matters: Former President Biden's 56-year-old son spent years as the ultimate MAGA villain, staying largely silent as his addiction, legal troubles and personal life were used as a cudgel against his father's presidency.

• Now seven years sober, Hunter Biden has re-emerged with a raw, self-deprecating candor that is drawing grudging respect — and even empathy — from some of his former tormentors.

🎙️ Zoom in: Biden's unlikely charm offensive began last month with a nearly two-hour interview with Candace Owens, the conservative podcaster and conspiracy theorist who had spent years mocking his addiction.

• Owens apologized and admitted to treating Biden as a "caricature" rather than a person. "It means the world," an emotional Biden replied.

This week, Biden took that humility to X, where he's begun directly engaging critics and trolls with the same unflinching honesty and dark humor.

• When a MAGA account said she'd rather "live under a rock than smoke it," Biden replied: "Me too. It was awful." Her tone softened: "Glad you're off that stuff. Hope you stay clean. You deserve a better life than you were living."

Between the lines: Biden's softer public image has come with a sharp political edge.

• He has used his own scandals as a populist contrast against Trumpworld — arguing that MAGA spent years obsessing over a supposed "Biden crime family" while ignoring the Trump family's profiteering.

Keep reading.

U.S. officials have discussed having the federal government take financial stakes in big AI companies, after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pitched a similar idea to the Trump administration last year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• Discussions have centered on the firms ceding shares to the government — similar to the idea Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pitched this week for a one-time 50% tax on top AI companies, paid in stock, NOTUS reports.

🤔 Separately, Anthropic floated the idea of a global pause on AI development in a report about recursive self-improvement — a future state where AI fully builds itself.

• "If it were possible to effectively slow the development of this technology to give ourselves more time to deal with its immense implications, we think that would likely be a good thing," says the report co-authored by Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, with Marina Favaro of The Anthropic Institute.

💣 Truth bomb from Jim VandeHei: OK, this PR blitz is odd. The same people said the same thing weeks ago, including to us. They acknowledged little evidence then, or little now, that AI is truly recursively learning in substantial ways. And they surely know the U.S. and China have zero chance of agreeing to an impossible-to-enforce "pause."

• Everyone should be aware of the dangers when recursive learning hits. So that's the most charitable explanation.

Read Anthropic's report.

As stocks have rallied to record highs, a relatively small number of giant, AI-related tech stocks have been powering the gains while others tread water or worse, Axios markets correspondent Matt Phillips writes.

• "The outperformance of these AI infrastructure providers accounted for about 20% of the total increase in equity prices in 2023–2024 and 70% since 2025," Goldman Sachs market analysts wrote in a note yesterday.

📈 The Dow hit another record yesterday, jumping 875 points (1.7%) to 51,561.93, led by banks, small companies and other stocks that were left behind by AI euphoria. Health care also contributed. Go deeper.

• But AI stocks are sliding after going on the tear you see above. "Sentiment took a further knock after S&P Dow Jones Indices said it will keep its existing eligibility criteria for benchmarks such as the S&P 500," Bloomberg reports.
• That means SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI would have to wait at least a year to benefit from demand from passive index-tracking funds.

Anthropic is helping the National Security Agency use Mythos AI — its most powerful model — for offensive cyber operations, the Financial Times reports ($).

• The AI company installed about half a dozen staff within the NSA as forward-deployed engineers to guide the use of the technology and customize models for specific applications, the FT says.

🥊 Anthropic is still fighting the Pentagon, which oversees the NSA, in court over its designation as a "supply chain risk."

• I'm told the White House wants that resolved.

John Bolton, national security adviser in the first Trump administration, has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information under a deal with the Justice Department that could allow him to avoid prison time. He'll face a $2.25 million fine. Go deeper.

🏛️ President Trump said he'll nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to serve permanently. That would touch off a bruising confirmation battle for his former personal lawyer in the Senate. Go deeper.

The booming stock market is making lots of people richer, especially those who are already spectacularly rich.

• Globally, ultra-high-net-worth individuals — those with $30 million or more in investable assets — saw their wealth increase nearly 10%, Axios' Emily Peck writes from a new report by consulting firm Capgemini.

So-called "millionaires next door," with $1 million to $5 million, saw growth of less than 8%.

👀 Between the lines: The AI boom was the main driver overall for rich people's wealth last year, says Luca Russignan, global head of Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services.

• The general public may soon get access to those same assets, particularly through mega-IPOs later this year, but likely won't see the same returns as early-stage investors.

Download the report ... Share this story.

Teens looking to hang out this summer are discovering that their presence is often treated as a problem.

• The decline of malls, cheap hangout spots and welcoming public spaces has left teenagers with fewer places to gather, Axios' Josephine Walker reports.

With limited options, teens have organized large and sometimes disruptive gatherings in cities nationwide, which local officials have dubbed "teen takeovers."

• Some cities have responded with curfews aimed at keeping minors from gathering in public. Others are enforcing "no unaccompanied minors" policies.

Keep reading.