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Kennedy said “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people,” but not “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” He later denied saying that, despite video evidence.

At an off-the-rails event Tuesday in New York City, notable anti-vaxxer and longshot 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. parroted what has been characterized as a white supremacist COVID-19 conspiracy theory.

“In fact, COVID-19, there’s an argument that it is ethnically targeted,” Kennedy told a room full of press in a video obtained by the New York Post. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack caucasians and Black people. The people that are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

The Anti-Defamation League and other organizations have previously identified those claims as one iteration of a baseless anti-semitic and sinophobic conspiracy theory voiced by white nationalists.

Jewish advocacy groups on both the right and left have torn into the Kennedy family scion for his unhinged remarks. The ADL said in a statement that Kennedy’s claim “feeds into sinophobic and anti-semitic conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that we have seen evolve over the last three years.”

The Post also quoted an infectious disease expert, who said, “I don’t see any evidence that there was any design or bioterrorism that anyone tried to design something to knock off certain groups.”

In a Twitter post on Saturday, RFK Jr. insisted—despite video evidence—that he “never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews.” Rather, he argued that he was simply pointing out that COVID-19 is “least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews,” during a conversation about how “the U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons.”

“In that sense, it serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons,” Kennedy wrote. “I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.”

Kennedy was also peeved that the Post exposed what he called an off-the-record conversation.

Squeezed between other attendees at a packed dinner table, Kennedy went on to expound on other outlandish theories that have helped form the basis of his conspiracy-fueled bid for the Democratic nomination.

“We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons,” Kennedy said. “They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.”

One pollster sees “flashing red” signs on youth turnout as Gen Z and millennial voters, who are not satisfied with either party, could again play a decisive role in the next election.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday let stand a federal appeals court ruling that found people with gender dysphoria should be protected against discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

By declining to hear this case, the Supreme Court implicitly acknowledges what those who have seriously examined the issue have concluded: the ADA protects people who experience gender dysphoria, including transgender and nonbinary people, from being discriminated against on that basis"

-- Olivia Hunt, policy director for the National Center for Transgender Equality

July 1 marks the start of a new fiscal year for most U.S. states, and with that comes the enactment of new laws. Here's a list of the notable ones:

• Floridians can carry weapons without a permit

• California makes it easier for residents, local governments and the state attorney general to sue firearm retailers in civil court

• Kansas bans transgender people from using restrooms, locker rooms, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers that are consistent with their gender identities

• Georgia blocks most gender-affirming care for transgender people under 18

• Florida bans classroom instruction on STIs and periods before sixth grade

• Near-complete ban on no-knock warrants in Minnesota

• Virginia classifies fentanyl as a 'weapon of terrorism'

• Marriage licenses for kids are banned in Connecticut

• Indiana repeals ban on throwing stars, except on school property. The statute defines throwing stars to "mean a throwing-knife, throwing-iron, or other knife-like weapon with blades set at different angles."

• Tougher consumer data privacy laws in Colorado and Connecticut expected to afford residents more control over their personal data

• Pornography sites required to take "reasonable steps" to verify that their users are at least 18 years old in Virginia

• School books with sex acts are now banned in Iowa

• Restrictions on certain race and gender topics in Tennessee

• Mississippi picks the blueberry as its state fruit

Notable laws not included in NBC's article:

• Maryland legalizes recreational marijuana for those 21 and above presenting an ID

• Connecticut makes it legal for people to grow marijuana

• Massachusetts allows people who are in the country illegally to apply for a state driver’s license

• Washington will deduct a tax from workers' paychecks to fund a mandatory long-term care insurance program for residents who can't live independently due to illness, injury or aging-related conditions

• Washington and Idaho pick state dinosaurs

Under the new bill, Florida could have roads made of phosphogypsum, a material known by the EPA to contain a "potentially cancer-causing, radioactive gas," that's the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S.

A movement to weaken American child labor protections at the state level began in 2022. By June 2023, Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey and New Hampshire had enacted this kind of legislation, and lawmakers in at least another eight states had introduced similar measures.

The laws generally make it easier for kids from 14 to 17 years old to work longer and later—and in occupations that were previously off-limits for minors.

"[This] allow(s) young adults to develop their skills in the workforce" - Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on signing Iowa's more permissive child labor law.