COVID-19 variant cases are spreading across Guangdong, a coastal province in South China. Municipal authorities have reported that all local transmissions have been related to the Indian and UK variants, and are spreading rapidly due to their increased transmissibility.
After recording zero confirmed local cases a day before, China’s National Health Commission on May 31 confirmed 20 new locally acquired COVID-19 across the country in the past 24 hours, all from Guangdong Province except for seven imported cases in Guangdong, Shanghai, Fujian, and Henan. Three new asymptomatic cases of locally acquired COVID-19 were also reported in the southern province, which China doesn’t classify as confirmed cases.
A confirmed case in Guangdong came from a baby girl surnamed Liang, aged only one year and a month old.
Chen Bin, deputy director at the municipal health commission of Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong, said at a press conference on May 30 that recent cases were of the new, fast-spreading Indian variant of the virus.
This is the first public confirmation from Chinese officials that the Indian variant has been transmitting locally in mainland China.
Recent transmission chains have been traced back through five individuals mostly located in central Guangdong Province, China’s state media reported.
Officials also announced the launch of broader universal testing and tougher traffic controls to curb the outbreak of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus—the virus which causes the disease COVID-19.
According to the latest notice issued by Guangzhou’s Epidemic Prevention and Control Office, from 10 p.m. on May 31, passengers leaving Guangzhou will have to present their green Health Code and a negative COVID-19 test from within the past 72 hours.
The scope of testing has also been further expanded to Guangdong’s districts of Yuexiu, Haizhu, Tianhe, Baiyun, and Panyu, in addition to Liwan district where the first local case was reported and traced to a 75-year-old female patent surnamed Guo who dined in a local dim sum restaurant on May 21.
A member of the wait staff was asymptomatically infected and not wearing a mask while delivering food to Guo.
Local authorities announced lockdowns for certain communities in Liwan District said to be at high-risk and suspended unessential daily activities. One person per household per day is allowed to go out to buy daily necessities.
A security guard at Pui Chun Primary School in Liwan district told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that the school and its neighborhood has been shut down. They said that police were everywhere and people could not move around. Authorities did not offer any official announcement of the lockdown, he said.
Meanwhile, the UK virus variant has been officially reported in Shenzhen—China’s tech megacity in Guangdong Province. The total number of local cases have climbed to 13 since the new surge was detected in Shenzhen on May 21.
Sequencing results from patients were highly homologous to the UK mutated strain, said Chang Juping, deputy director of the municipal health commission.
The so-called B.117 variant, which peaked in the UK at beginning of this year, is up to twice as deadly as the regular variant, research shows.
Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 28, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Viewpoints
With the latest job creation numbers 75 percent below forecast, and illegal entry into the U.S. across the southern border up 944 percent from April of last year, and the president having difficulty reconciling his support of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with the vocal anti-Semitism of elements of his own congressional party, and inflation on gasoline, lumber, bread, and a number of other vital products running between 50 and 150 percent, the contemporary Democratic Party is reverting to the only arrow left in its quiver and the only song remaining in its song book: Trump-hate.
The administration’s demiurgic effort to continue public panic over the Covid virus has failed. Texas, whose opposition to the complete shut-down President Biden denounced as “Neanderthal,” and other anti-shut down states such as Florida and South Dakota, have so completely outperformed the principal Democratic compulsory lockdown states, as to make it very difficult to sustain public pandemic hysteria at its former stratospheric levels. Likewise, the progress of the vaccines for which no Democrat is physically capable of giving any credit to former President Trump, have made hysteria even more difficult to support.
The administration has acquiesced in the Colonial Pipeline paying a $4.45 million bribe to the Russian cyber-hackers who shut it down as “a corporate matter.” The president has expressed his confidence that the Russian leader Vladimir Putin knows nothing about this illegal computer hacking activity conducted from within his own country.
It would be an offensive use of the generally shabby device of the rhetorical question to ask if any reader could imagine President Eisenhower or President Kennedy or President Reagan or President Clinton being both so blasé about such a development, and so little bothered by the docile media about it being impossible to fill the tank of your car at the gas stations of the nation’s capital because cyber thugs have shut down the pipeline, and it is only being reopened because of the bribe paid by the company, and the president says it’s a corporate matter and believes that the head of the Russian government knew nothing about it.
The polls so far show President Biden’s approval rating in the low to mid ’50s, a very comfortable position about 10 percent ahead of his disapproval rating though not miraculous for someone so early in his administration. The approval ratings for the former president are about the same in reverse so the effect of the proverbial honeymoon has been to freeze things.
The following insight makes no pretense to being scientific, professional, or in the slightest degree researched. But my impression is that the relief at the less hectic and antagonistic and backbiting atmosphere of the Trump era, chiefly the result of his enemies’ endless attacks upon him, but still the remembered ambiance of Trump’s America, approximately balances the increasing concern over the practical shortcomings of this administration’s performance in almost every field.
None of these problem areas, including the sharply increased crime rates, and all the complicated and almost wholly negative consequences of the country, especially the schools, being shut down for a year, are likely to abate quickly or continue to be assimilated with such Job-like patience as they have been up to now.
It must be said that Mr. Biden does a very good job of appearing to be moderate and likable and while his inarticulation is acoustically irksome and worrisome as an indication of his mental acuity, his understated and good-natured treatment of almost every issue is amiable and in many ways a welcome change.
It now appears that the Democratic senators and congressional representatives, having had the opportunity to consult with their own districts and states, are now substantially disabused of the temptation to try to enact much more of the Sanders socialist program that Biden signed on to, to maintain party unity.
It isn’t working—it is in fact a disaster in every field: open borders, pouring borrowed money out of the treasury to the point that it disincentives people from working and inflames inflation in a way that has not been seen in the United States in more than 40 years. In these circumstances, with failing policies and rising controversy over unspeakable irritations such as the official promotion of racist versions of American history and current sociology even in the Armed Forces, it is logical that the Democrats return to the one card they’ve successfully played these last five years: the confected and orchestrated hatred of the former president.
This appears to be the explanation for the rabidly partisan attorney general of New York, Letitia James’ elevation of the decades-old investigation of the Trump organization, whether by the IRS or the department of justice, to be a criminal investigation.
It is in this context that the personification of the Trump Russian collusion fraud when she was at Lawfare, Susan Hennessey, has joined the Justice Department, and that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pressing ahead with her insatiable ambition to pretend that the Jan. 6 violation of the Capitol really was a Trump-inspired attempt at insurrection.
The FBI, tarnished though it is, has established that it was just hooliganism unconnected to Trump or his political organization. It has also come to light that none of the damage would have been done if the speaker and the egregious mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, had paid any attention when the head of the Capitol Police asked for reinforcements in the receding days.
The Democrats had naturally bought into the Never Trump Republicans’ view that having ousted him from the White House, Trump would vanish into the aberrant past and the Republican party would resume its former post-Reagan status as alternating occupation of the White House and control of the Congress while the machinery of government was entirely operated by Democrats and the country drifted slowly to the left.
It is now clear the Trump retains the support of the great majority of Republicans and that in early polling for the 2024 presidential nomination, he leads the second place finisher former vice president Mike Pence by 43 percent to 13 percent, and other candidates are in single digits. Ironically, the attempt to cancel Trump on the social media platforms has enabled him to be as much present to the public as the public wishes without being oppressively in the face of the public all the time as he was as president.
The prosecutorial system in the United States is so generally corrupt, and grand juries are so hopelessly incapable of providing any comfort at all against capricious prosecution, that Attorney General James could certainly indict Trump but, since he has been under continuous tax audit for 40 years, it is unlikely that she would have a real case.
In New York City and given the terrible abuse of the plea bargain system, juries would convict any Republican of any charge, but such charges as might be mounted against the former president would almost certainly be blown to pieces on appeal and that would not help achieve the Democrats Holy Grail of destroying the Trump political phenomenon.
They are now in the uncomfortable position through there ineptitude and their dalliance with the far left of being unable to pass any legislation that will satisfy the cutting edge of the Democrats, and unable to make any of the policies that they have advocated since the election campaign even passably successful.
At this point the administration looks like a melting iceberg, turning in the desperation of their failure at governing, back to the only tactic that has worked for them: the malicious character assassination of the former president. It is unlikely that will work again.
Conrad Black has been one of Canada’s most prominent financiers for 40 years, and was one of the leading newspaper publishers in the world. He’s the author of authoritative biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, and, most recently, “Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other,” which has been republished in updated form. You can hear more of Conrad’s thoughts on his podcast “Scholars & Sense” alongside his co-hosts Bill Bennett and Victor Davis Hanson at ScholarsAndSense.buzzsprout.com
Sonora, CA — Fire risk is high, and California Public Health officials are warning people to stay hydrated.
We reported earlier that there is currently an Excessive Heat Warning issued for the Mother Lode, per the National Weather Service. Over nine million people in northern and central California are under either a heat advisory or excessive heat warning.
Temperatures are expected to push near triple digits in the lower Sierra foothills today and continuing through Wednesday. Make sure to find some shade and take breaks to avoid heat exhaustion. Higher elevation areas like Pinecrest are expecting temps in the mid to upper eighties, and Arnold is expected to hit 90.
California’s independent power grid operator states it does not anticipate any energy supply outages related to the heat-wave. However, officials say they will monitor the grid closely
U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently spoke on the Senate floor regarding public safety.
McConnell was Tuesday’s KVML “Newsmaker of the Day”. Here are his words:
“From coast to coast, American families are facing an explosion of violent crime on their streets and in their neighborhoods.
2020 saw homicides skyrocket nationwide. The sharpest one-year increase in decades. And 2021 is already shaping up to be even worse.
Last year Seattle saw a 61% increase in murders citywide.
In 2020, Minneapolis saw homicides hit levels not seen since the 1990s. And so far, 2021 is about doubling last year’s pace.
Here in Washington D.C., 2020 saw homicides hit a 16-year high, and again, 2021 is already on an even worse trajectory.
The situation is devolving all across the country.
In my hometown of Louisville, as one report put it, quote, ‘the number of slayings in 2020 dwarf[ed] anything Louisville has seen – obliterating the previous record.’
Crime and delinquency have many causes. In some ways, the pandemic likely contributed. But it is impossible to ignore that these terrible trends are coming precisely as so-called ‘progressives’ have decided it’s time to denounce and defund local law enforcement.
Seattle cut police funding by 20%. Minneapolis defunded cops by millions of dollars. The District of Columbia’s city council approved $15 million in cuts.
These bone-headed decisions are the direct result of an anti-law-enforcement fad that has swept through the political left like a wildfire.
And perhaps just as important as these funding cuts is the wave of hostile sentiment that’s come with them. Harvard scholars have found that after high-profile incidents reduce the trust that the public and politicians put in the police, the cities in question receive less active policing — and subsequently see an increase in crime, including homicides.
In other words, in the wake of terrible incidents like we saw last summer, local leaders should look for ways to build bridges and rebuild trust between the vast majority of brave and honorable officers and their communities.
But instead, from city councils to the halls of Congress, many on the far left decided to crank the knob all the way up on anti-cop rhetoric, across the board.
Quote: ‘Not only do we need to disinvest from police but we need to completely dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department.’
Quote: ‘Policing in our country is inherently and intentionally racist… No more policing, incarceration, and militarization.’
Incredulous people asked whether this nonsense was even meant seriously. Helpfully, one Member of Congress clarified: quote, ‘defunding police means defunding police.’ End quote.
A small set of politicians may see selfish opportunities for fame or fundraising if they defame and defund the police. But American families are paying a deadly price.
Defunding the police isn’t just a terrible idea for overall public safety. It’s also a uniquely awful strategy for racial justice. One study recently confirmed that, quote, ‘larger police forces save lives and the lives saved are disproportionately Black lives.’
So, look, I’m not sure exactly how the rantings of far-left Twitter about crime and policing became official Democratic Party dogma in so many places across America.
What I do know is that ordinary Americans cannot bear much more of this. And that goes double for the most vulnerable neighborhoods.”
House Homeland Security Committee member Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) speaks during a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Sept. 17, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Republicans
Two GOP lawmakers this week launched a campaign calling on whistleblowers in the military to come forward with their experiences in training programs that promote critical race theory or “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
“We won’t let our military fall to woke ideology,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a former Navy SEAL, wrote in a tweet on Friday while linking to a website where informants can submit their accounts. “With written permission, we will anonymously publish egregious complaints on social media and tell the country what’s happening in our military.”
“For too long, progressive Pentagon staffers have been calling the shots for our warfighters,” said Crenshaw about the web page posted in conjunction with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a former Army captain. They hope that service members “will anonymously publish egregious complaints on social media” in order to “tell the country what’s happening in our military,” according to Crenshaw.
“Progressive Pentagon staffers have been calling the shots for our warfighters,” the lawmaker added, “and spineless military commanders have let it happen. Now we are going to expose you.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. Space Force confirmed it relieved Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier of his duties after he alleged that Marxism and critical race theory—which draws heavy inspiration from Marxist critical theory—are both being spread in the military via training courses that are required by Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other high-level officials.
“Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, Space Operations Command commander, relieved Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier of command of the 11th Space Warning Squadron, Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, May 14, due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead,” the Space Force said in mid-May, adding that Lohmeier’s remarks in a podcast and in his self-published book “constituted prohibited partisan political activity.” The Space Force’s statement didn’t provide an example.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) speaks during a hearing to examine United States Special Operations Command and United States Cyber Command, on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 25, 2021. (Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)
Last week, Lohmeier met with Cotton, who tweeted after their meeting that he’s concerned “by what I heard” and promised to press “senior military leaders for answers.”
Critical race theory denounces U.S. and Western culture as a systematic form of oppression that negatively impacts minority groups. Critics of the ideology—which is sometimes referred to as being “woke”—have said its proponents apply the Marxist tactic of “class struggle” to divide people along lines of race, gender, and ethnicity to label them “oppressors” and the “oppressed.”
At the state level, legislatures and governors have taken action against critical race theory as well as The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” by barring them from being promoted in schools and in government institutions.
The governors of Tennessee, Idaho, Arkansas, and Oklahoma have already signed anti-critical race theory bills. In Texas, Arizona, and Iowa, similar measures have been proposed, according to an analysis.
The office of the Michigan secretary of state has told two county clerks that they do not legally have to provide access to voting equipment maintained by their office if ordered to do so by county boards.
“The Board has no authority to require you or any municipal clerk to provide external access to voting equipment maintained by your offices, and neither you nor municipal clerks in Cheboygan County should provide this access,” Jonathan Brater, director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections, told Cheboygan County clerk Karen Brewster in a May 20 letter obtained by The Epoch Times.
Another official from the office of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, sent a similar letter on the same day to the clerk in Antrim County, conveying the view that the board of commissioners there has no authority to require an audit or compel the providing of election records.
Commissioners can seek such records through a freedom of information act request, Lori Bourbonais, director of the Elections Administration Division at the bureau wrote. “However, they have no authority to direct county or local clerks to provide this information, nor are any opinions they have about the manner in which local clerks conduct voting and registration transactions binding on local clerks in any way,” she added.
Brewster and Antrim County clerks were also advised not to grant access to voting equipment to firms not accredited by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Antrim County’s Board of Commissioners and the county’s clerk were asked at a May 6 board meeting to look into whether or not, and how, an audit of the Nov. 3, 2020 election could be required or requested. The board worked with Guy to ask the Bureau of Elections for answers.
Guy told commissioners during the meeting that voter registration rolls belong to the townships and alleged the board could not demand an audit because it lacked jurisdiction over the townships.
Commissioner Dawn LaVanway, a Republican, moved two weeks later to have the board complete a forensic audit of the election. The motion failed.
The county immediately after the election last year reported that Democrat Joe Biden received over 3,000 more votes in the county than then-President Donald Trump. However, the county twice updated the results, with Trump ultimately being shown ahead by nearly 4,000 votes.
Guy initially pinned the issue on a combination of a software glitch and human error. She and Benson later blamed what happened solely on human error, specifically a failure to update election machine programming. A hand recount later found another difference in the count of about 10 votes.
William Bailey, a voter, later sued the county, alleging the vote count was manipulated. Forensic auditors who examined Dominion Voting Systems machines on behalf of Bailey said the company’s software was “purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.” The audit’s findings were disputed by Michigan officials and Dominion.
In Cheboygan County, the Board of Commissioners tasked a subcommittee to explore the desire by some residents to have an audit of the 2020 presidential election. The subcommittee has been looking at different things and trying to collect more data, Board Vice Chairman Sangster told a meeting late last month.
A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections helps stack empty boxes used to organize absentee ballots after nearing the end of the absentee ballot count at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center in Detroit, Mich., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Elaine Cromie/Getty Images)
A team including Matthew DePerno, who represented Bailey, offered to do a free audit in the county. Sangster said his view is that there is nothing free.
Board Chairman John Wallace said the subcommittee will make a recommendation to the board after completing their exploration.
Multiple residents spoke during the meeting, some in favor of ordering an audit and others against the idea.
Wallace and Sangster did not respond to requests for comment on the letter from Benson’s office. Dominion did not return an inquiry. Guy did not respond to a voicemail or an email. Brewster declined to provide a copy of the letter, telling The Epoch Times in an email, “Please request any information with a FOIA Request!” When informed that the letter had been obtained, and asked for comment, she did not respond.
State law indicates that county boards lease, buy, or otherwise acquire electronic voting systems, including machines. That means the boards can order an audit, Beth Bridgman, leader of a group called the Cheboygan Freedom Fighters that is advocating for an audit, told The Epoch Times.
“Our county paid for those machines, right? On behalf of the people, our commissioners did. And those machines are our physical property,” she said.
The funding for the audit, if it were ordered, would come from money donated to Bailey’s legal case and from fundraising, she added. It could be conducted by Cyber Ninjas, the firm running the audit in Maricopa County.
A security person moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a World Health Organization team arrived for a field visit in Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province, on Feb. 3, 2021. (Ng Han Guan/AP Photo) Thinking About China
On May 24, the Wall Street Journal published seven key sets of facts that demonstrate that Wuhan virologists, who claim to have been conducting analyses that would help develop vaccines for a then-non-existent pandemic, might have taken undue risk through gain-of-function research or lax lab safety standards, that sparked the COVID-19 pandemic that killed almost 3.5 million people worldwide, and counting. At the very least, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is culpable for omitting crucial data that would help the world determine the virus’s origins.
First, six workers from a bat-infested copper mine in the Mojiang region of China, got sick in 2012, and three died. All the sick miners had similar symptoms. A CT scan “revealed severe pneumonia, with the same lung markings now seen in many COVID-19 patients,” according to evidence seen by the Journal. Four miners tested positive for SARS antibodies.
The P4 laboratory (L) at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, on April 17, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
Second, WIV scientists suspected a bat-borne coronavirus, and collected samples from 276 bats of at least six different species, from the area. “They extracted genetic material from the samples and sequenced fragments,” according to the Journal. “Half of the samples tested positive for coronaviruses,” including a SARS-type one. “Critically, all six bat species showed evidence of coronavirus co-infection, the researchers found. In other words, the virus could easily exchange genetic material with similar ones to create a new coronavirus—an environment ripe for the creation of new viruses that could potentially infect humans.”
Dr. Shi Zhengli, the top WIV bat coronavirus expert, led that research. Dr. Shi claims to have retested the miners, thereby rejecting the hypothesis that they were infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Third, the WIV once had a public database of 22,000 samples and virus sequences. 15,000 of these were from bats. In September 2019, WIV took the database offline, ostensibly due to over 3,000 cyberattacks.
Fourth, Dr. Shi recently said her team found eight additional SARS-like coronaviruses at the mine. “Many scientists question why the WIV didn’t announce the existence of those viruses earlier, as well as their connection to the mine, and why they waited so long to allow scientists to examine their sequences,” according to the Journal. “Some have noted that Dr. Shi has repeatedly asserted that the Mojiang miners had a suspected fungal infection, not a virus, contradicting research papers at the time and Dr. Shi’s update in [the journal] Nature, which said the miners were thought to have a virus.” Dr. Shi was not fired, so WIV is responsible for her apparent dissimulation.
Fifth, WIV conducted gain-of-function research. Such research makes viruses more lethal and infectious, under highly-controlled circumstances, ostensibly in order to develop vaccines. Some scientists, according to the Journal, say that research papers reveal that WIV employees “were combining some bat coronaviruses they had cultured with genetic material from others.”
“Dr. Shi has publicly described doing experiments, including in 2018 and 2019, to see if various bat coronaviruses could use a spike protein on their surfaces to bind to an enzyme in human cells known as ACE2,” according to the Journal. “That is how both the SARS virus and SARS-CoV-2 infect humans.” The experiments required the combination of a bat coronavirus and the spike protein of another, then the infection of genetically-engineered mice containing human ACE2, according to Dr. Shi.
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli is seen inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei Province, on Feb. 23, 2017. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
According to the Journal, “Ralph Baric, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolina … worked with the WIV on a study to create an artificial coronavirus that infected human cells in the lab.” Dr. Baric has some explaining to do. Scientists should not collaborate with totalitarian regimes on dangerous biological research.
Sixth, three WIV researchers got sick in November 2019 and were hospitalized with symptoms consistent with both seasonal flu and COVID-19. This information, obtained by the Journal, was likely from Australia’s intelligence service.
Seventh, Chinese authorities are obstructing researchers and reporters from accessing the copper mine and environs (although one heroic Journal reporter recently managed to make it there by mountain bike to take a photo). Officials detained him for five hours and deleted the photograph.
Scientists are looking at these facts, raising concerns, and demanding more data.
Ian Lipkin, infectious-disease specialist at Columbia University, said WIV experiments on coronaviruses in labs might have been at a lower biosafety level than is required in the United States.
Dr. Ralph Baric believes that the genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 indicates a wild origin and natural evolution to infect humans, but that a “rigorous investigation would have reviewed the biosafety level under which bat coronavirus research was conducted at WIV … detailed information on the training procedures with records, the safety procedures with records and strategies that were in place to prevent inadvertent or accidental escape,” according to the Journal.
Virologist Bernard Roizman at the University of Chicago told the Journal, “I’m convinced that what happened is that the virus was brought to the lab, they started to work with it … and some sloppy individual brought it out. They can’t admit they did something so stupid.”
Clearly, the gathering and public revelation of more evidence is needed to address these concerns. The WHO-led team tasked with investigating the virus’s origin, only spent three hours at WIV. It was unable to do antibody tests on animals and people near the copper mine. Even WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus criticized his own team’s investigation as inadequate.
China’s gain-of-function research should be a concern to all. According to the Journal, “Critics say the risk of harmful, genetically enhanced viruses leaking from the lab is too great” to justify any benefit from gain-of-function research that assists in developing vaccines for future potential pandemics.
In 2014, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) stopped funding gain-of-function research, only to reinstate it in 2017 though under the greater strictures of an expert review panel. China’s restrictions on gain-of-function are less rigorous, and its science is often substandard. It can and is hijacked by an unethical Chinese military under Xi Jinping’s control.
In sum, the WIV lab researchers did not disclose their collaboration with the Chinese military, released discrepant data that appears to evidence dissimulation, and are not being transparent. They failed to provide full access to evidence that could explain the origin of the virus.
Most scientists do believe the lab-leak hypothesis is unlikely relative to natural human-to-animal spillover, which happens much more frequently.
But until China improves its scientific and political ethics, it has no business conducting gain-of-function research. Western scientists should immediately stop putting such powerful technologies into the hands of potentially sloppy and military-linked scientists in China, when the stakes are so high. Continuing to conduct collaborative scientific research with them, given what we know today, is an unjustified risk for the world.
Anders Corr has a BA/MA in political science from Yale University (2001) and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University (2008). He is a Principal at Corr Analytics Inc., Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, and has conducted extensive research in North America, Europe, and Asia. He authored “The Concentration of Power” (forthcoming 2021) and “No Trespassing,” and edited “Great Powers, Grand Strategies.”
Jawan C. Carroll allegedly opened fire on a crowded street outside a Minneapolis nightclub on May 22, prosecutors say (Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office) Regional News
A 24-year-old suspect who allegedly opened fire near a nightclub in Minneapolis was charged with murder and attempted murder.
Prosecutors said (pdf) that Jawan C. Carroll, an alleged member of the gang “Tres Tres,” was charged with two counts of second-degree murder for the fatal shooting of Charlie Johnson, 21, and Christopher Jones, 24. He also faces seven counts of attempted second-degree murder. The incident occurred last weekend.
The criminal complaint filed by Hennepin County prosecutors said a number of people were in front of the Monarch nightclub at 322 First Ave. N. when the shooting took place at 2 a.m. on May 22.
Johnson, a University of St. Thomas student, and another person were walking in the area and had walked out of an alley onto the sidewalk when the shooting started, the complaint said. Johnson was struck in the back by gunfire while he was running away.
Family members told local media that he was out with friends to celebrate before their graduation ceremony the next day.
“He was just trying to celebrate his college graduation with his buddies, trying to walk home, and was gunned down on the streets of what now is a broken city that I don’t know that I can go back into,” Charlie’s father, Greg Johnson, told KARE-TV, likely referring to the widespread violence that occurred last summer in Minneapolis.
Steve Cramer, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said the shooting is fallout caused by the “defund the police” movement that erupted last year amid Black Lives Matter protests and riots.
“What’s not debatable is what they did in this case to hold people accountable for their behavior,” Cramer told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “It’s a critical function that the ‘defund the police’ crowd doesn’t have an answer for.”
An amendment to the Endless Frontier Act that would ban the use of U.S. tax dollars to fund “gain-of-function” research in China was adopted by the Senate on a voice vote on May 25.
The amendment was introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and co-sponsored by Republicans Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
“No funds made available to any federal agency, including the National Institutes for Health, may be used to conduct gain-of-function research in China,” the amendment said.
The amendment defines gain-of-function research as “any research project that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity or transmissibility in mammals.”
That’s the same definition the National Institutes for Health (NIH) used when implementing a funding moratorium on gain-of-function research from 2014 to 2017. The moratorium lapsed during the previous Congress.
Paul’s amendment follows a growing debate in Congress and the media over the issue of whether the CCP virus—also known as the novel coronavirus—originated due to a leak, accidental or otherwise, from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), or from transmission to humans via bat meat sold in an open-air market in Wuhan. The latter is the official explanation of the Chinese regime.
“We don’t know whether the pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan or evolved naturally,” Paul said in a statement about his amendment. “While many still deny funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, experts believe otherwise. The passage of my amendment ensures that this never happens in the future.
“No taxpayer money should have ever been used to fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, and now, we permanently have put it to a stop.”
Earlier this month, Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), had a heated exchange during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, concerning whether the Wuhan lab had received U.S. funding directly or indirectly.
Fauci, who has been a highly visible and controversial adviser on the CCP virus to both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, vigorously denied that such funding came from NIAID.
“Gain-of-function research essentially involves juicing up naturally-occurring animal viruses to infect humans,” Paul’s office said in the statement.
“For years, Dr. Ralph Baric, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create super viruses.
“During their research, Dr. Baric and Dr. Shi worked together to insert bat virus spike protein into the backbone of the deadly SARS virus and then used the man-made super virus to infect human airway cells.
“Much of the research they were doing was funded through Dr. Fauci’s NIH and NIAID.
“When Dr. Paul asked Dr. Fauci whether he supports the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan, Dr. Fauci, a strong supporter and ardent advocate of gain-of-function research, claimed that the NIH ‘has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.’
“Despite Dr. Fauci’s previous denials, there is ample evidence and backing by the scientific community that the NIH and the NIAID, under his direction, funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“A multitude of scientists have reviewed this research and said it meets the definition for gain-of-function. Many of these scientists have also discussed the inherent dangers of conducting gain-of-function research and the risks it poses to the human population.”
The Endless Frontier Act is sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and provides a massive increase in funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Schumer’s bill would boost NSF’s funding from its present $8.5 billion annual budget by creating within it a new Directorate for Technology and Innovation that would receive $100 billion over the next five years.
“The goals of the directorate shall be, among other things, the strengthening of U.S. leadership in critical technologies through basic research in key technology focus areas, such as artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and advanced manufacturing, and the commercialization of those technologies to businesses in the United States,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
“The bill gives the NSF the authority to provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information within the United States concerning the NSF’s activities and the results of those activities.”
In addition, the Schumer proposal would dramatically increase NSF’s work in the areas of critical technologies in the national security sector of advanced technology research.
The proposal also directs the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop on an annual basis “a strategy for the federal government to improve national competitiveness in science, research, and innovation to support the national security strategy.”
In addition, the bill directs the Department of Commerce to “(1) establish a supply chain resiliency and crisis response program to address supply chain gaps and vulnerabilities in critical industries, (2) designate regional technology hubs to facilitate activities that support regional economic development that diffuses innovation around the United States, and (3) award grants to facilitate development and implementation of comprehensive regional technology strategies.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Saturday accused the progressive “Squad” of acting as “press secretaries for Hamas terrorists,” as he announced that he is introducing a resolution backing arms sales to Israel.
“Rep. [Ilhan] Omar accused Israel of carrying out acts of terrorism. That is a vicious lie. And to be honest, the Squad is acting more like the press secretaries for Hamas terrorists than they are like United States congressmen,” Cruz said during an appearance on Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”
The Texas Republican was referring to a group of progressive women with a socialist agenda who became known as “the Squad,” including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). They have supported the “defund the police” movement, “Medicare for All,” free college education, the “Green New Deal,” and other socialist policies.
The women come under fire in recent days for their controversial anti-Israel tweets as violence intensified between Israel and Hamas, a designated terrorist group since 1997, before a ceasefire agreement was eventually reached Thursday. The 11-day conflict started when Hamas launched rockets into Israel over a court case to evict several Palestinian families in East Jerusalem that triggered riots.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) speaks as Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) listen during a news conference in Washington on July 15, 2019. (Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)
Ocasio-Cortez last week said President Joe Biden’s defense of Israel’s use of force to protect itself against the terrorist group was “siding with the occupation.”
Tlaib meanwhile accused Israel of “promoting racism and dehumanization” under a discriminatory “apartheid system.”
“Israeli air strikes killing civilians in Gaza is an act of terrorism,” Omar wrote. “Palestinians deserve protection. Unlike Israel, missile defense programs, such as Iron Dome, don’t exist to protect Palestinian civilians. It’s unconscionable to not condemn these attacks on the week of Eid.”
Cruz said that their rhetoric makes them sound “more like they’re acting as press secretaries for Hamas terrorists than as members of the United States Congress defending American national security and the security of our allies.”
Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back at criticism from the group.
“They were firing thousands of rockets on our civilian population. They were trying to murder our people in their homes. We were defending ourselves,” Regev told Fox News. “They were firing out of schools. They were firing out of built-up areas. They were firing out of homes, out of mosques, even out of playgrounds.”
“People need to understand—Hamas is not just Israel’s enemy,” he added. “Hamas is the enemy of everyone who wants to see peace and reconciliation in our part of the world. They are a brutal jihadist terrorist group. No one should make excuses for them.”
Rockets are launched toward Israel from the southern Gaza Strip on May 17, 2021. (Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)
Cruz told Fox News his resolution will show whether lawmakers are willing to “support Israel” or “sashay up to the anti-Israel left.”
“Let’s decide if you’re willing to send weapons to support Israel, or if you’re going to sashay up to the anti-Israel left, then you need to own it and I hope we’re going to have a vote next week and decide which side of the line everyone stands on,” he said.
The senator’s plans for a resolution comes after progressives, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), pushed to block a $735 million arms sales to Israel last week.
“I’m introducing a resolution to approve the arms sales, and I’m going to fight for a vote because there are a lot of Democrats in the Senate who want to play footsie, who want to say: ‘Well, no. I don’t agree with that antisemitic language from the Squad.’ Well, let’s vote,” Cruz added. “Let’s decide if you’re willing to send weapons to support Israel, or if you’re going to sashay up to the anti-Israel left, then you need to own it.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar, and Pressley for comment.
