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When Stanford University School of Medicine professor John Ioannidis warned on March 17 that the rush to implement sweeping coronavirus lockdowns could be “a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco,” his was a lone voice amid the rising pandemic panic. Not any longer. As the statistical models on deaths are revised downward and the economic and social costs of the stay-at-home strategy grow more dire, contrarians are diving into the data and asking whether the lockdown pain was worth the gain — or whether the COVID-19 reaction was overblown. “It is now clear that the lockdowns were a major mistake everywhere except the...

The Biden campaign reportedly is relying on a New York Times report in talking points being circulated to combat the explosive sexual assault allegation made by the candidate's former Senate staffer, Tara Reade. BuzzFeed News reported on Tuesday that despite strong denials the campaign has issued to various media outlets, aides for former Vice President Joe Biden are taking Reade "seriously enough behind the scenes to coordinate messaging among other Democrats to try to cast the matter as one that’s been thoroughly vetted and determined to be unfounded." The "talking points" reportedly read, “Biden believes that all women have the...

Spitzer said the convicted men spent “just days” in jail instead of the six months required by law for those registered as sex offenders. The men apparently had also been charged with cutting off their GPS monitors or tampering with their tracking devices. They were released on April 7 as a result of rulings by appointed Court Commissioner Joseph Dane... “It is not the court’s responsibility to control the jail population by releasing these dangerous criminals back into our communities,” the DA said. “The residents of Orange County deserve to have the peace of mind that registered sex offenders are...

An I’m-so-cute-and-clever reporter recently asked the president if he deserved to be re-elected given the number of deaths from coronavirus, noting that the number is greater than American fatalities from the Vietnam war. People can always find something as a point of comparison as if that automatically adds weight to what they are implying. No doubt this reporter thought stats from the Vietnam war added gravitas to her query. In any case, her disrespectful and rude question didn’t deserve to be dignified with an answer. But Trump answered her anyway. Unfortunately, he didn’t use the opportunity to his advantage by...

...Recent reports, then, that excessive flab may be a leading indicator of susceptibility to the novel coronavirus are problematic indeed. Here are the specifics so far: as Melissa Healy reported in the Los Angeles Times last week, two new studies, both out of New York University, show that young and middle-aged COVID-19 sufferers with high body-mass indexes (BMIs) are “twice as likely as their non-obese peers to be admitted to the hospital for acute care instead of being sent home from the ER.” They’re also nearly twice as likely to end up in the ICU. (Among patients over 65, interestingly,...

China is badly bungling its diplomatic response to its responsibility for unleashing COVID 19 on the world, and the consequences for its ambition to become the world’s hegemon will be profound. As you may have seen, when Australia announced it would investigate the origins of the Coronavirus pandemic, China threatened a boycott. The leftist Guardian summarizes the contretemps:  Australia has been described as “gum stuck to the bottom of China’s shoe,” by a Chinese state media editor as Beijing criticised calls for an inquiry into the coronavirus origin as “political manoeuvring,” further straining ties. Australia has emerged as one...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials report that an illegal alien from India tested positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19) after he illegally crossed the border with a group of Mexican nationals. CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan reported that Border Patrol agents patrolling near Calexico, California, apprehended a group of three Mexican nationals and an Indian national after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico. Border Patrol agents quickly returned the Mexican nationals to their home country under anti-coronavirus policies. “On Thursday, April 23, a U.S. Border Patrol agent apprehended three Mexican nationals and one Indian national suspected of having illegally...

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio oversaw the dispersal of a large, tightly packed Hasidic Jewish funeral and lashed out at the mourners who had gathered in defiance of social distancing rules intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus. "My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed," de Blasio tweeted Tuesday after police dispersed the funeral in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. In another tweet, de Blasio said, "Something absolutely unacceptable happened in Williamsburg tonite: a large funeral gathering in the middle of this...

Andrew Cuomo backed a state regulation that turned nursing homes into pandemic hotspots. But journalists determined to boost him at TrumpÂ’s expense arenÂ’t biting. The news media isnÂ’t waiting for the dust to settle on the coronavirus pandemic to start assessing blame for the ensuing losses. Since the moment it became apparent that the Wuhan coronavirus was going to exact a fearsome toll in the United States, the pundit class began asserting that the Trump administration had failed to safeguard the country against the threat.As the crisis deepened and lockdowns were imposed, a different political narrative emerged that contrasted with...

"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me" (Matt. 5:10-11). The persecution you receive for proclaiming Christ is really aimed at Christ Himself. Savonarola has been called the Burning Beacon of the Reformation. His sermons denouncing the sin and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church of his day helped pave the way for the Protestant Reformation. Many who heard his powerful sermons went away...

WASHINGTON - A week ago, President Donald Trump chastised Georgia for starting to reopen. “It’s too soon,” he said. But on Tuesday, he cheered Texas as it began resuming business. “Great job,” he said. And Florida may be next as the president welcomed its governor to the Oval Office. White House guidelines urge states to retain coronavirus restrictions until they meet certain criteria, but Attorney General William P. Barr is now threatening to sue them if he deems those limits too strict. And even as the president talks about opening the country, he has ordered it closed to immigration, even...

...Nurse Miller blamed the spread on staffing problems that have plagued the home for years. Workers were forced to cover shifts in different areas, taking germs with them — and at least one unit was shut with not enough staff to operate it. SEE ALSO Utah launches program to issue free face masks to residents “Veterans were on top of each other,” she said. “We didn’t know who was positive and who was negative and then they grouped people together and that really exacerbated it even more. “That’s when it really blew up,” she said. The home’s superintendent, Bennett Walsh,...

Amid the president's mixed messages, some supporters go against health experts. Outside groups tied to President Trump’s re-election bid have ramped up recent efforts to promote back-to-work protests, pushing anti-lockdown messaging -- and even some conspiracy theories -- that would appear to contradict the Trump administration’s own prescription for knocking down the novel coronavirus. And amid the throes of the global coronavirus pandemic, some pro-Trump influencers with ties to the president’s re-election team, who’ve already joined forces with outside political action groups such as Turning Points USA and ViralPAC, are bombarding millions of social media followers with messaging that undermines...

Many academic disciplines have gotten “woke” in recent years, especially in the humanities and social sciences. For the most part, this transformation has occurred in plain view as colleges created departments for (and offered degrees in) “Women’s and Gender Studies,” “Black Studies,” “LGBTQ Studies,” “Latino Studies,” and the rest of the intersectionality parade. One discipline, however, sports an innocent-sounding moniker—“Religious Studies.” Studying religion would seem to be immune to the current trends in higher education, focusing instead on theological concerns. That impression, however, is inaccurate. Religious studies—one of the most “woke” disciplines on America’s college campuses—is an ideological wolf in...

'Even a phenomenon as menacing as COVID-19 is one of the inevitable risks of life,' writes Purdue President and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. While other education leaders are waiting for politicians to release their students from the lockdowns suspending their futures, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, now head of Purdue University, is making plans to reopen his campus for fall.“We have every intention of being on campus this fall,” he told the faculty senate on April 20, according to USA Today. “We are sober about the challenges that will bring. We believe in the value of the on-campus experience,...

As the spread of COVID-19 begins to slow nationwide, some governors are proving to be more serious than others about what comes next. As the coronavirus spread slows, governors are responding in different, sometimes wildly divergent ways. Many of them, recognizing their states are not likely to see an outbreak on the scale of New York or New Jersey, have in recent days announced plans to loosen lockdown orders and get their residents back to work. Others have taken the opposite tack, extending lockdown orders and keeping businesses shuttered even as jobless claims mount.The first set of governors, generally speaking,...

“The king that faithfully judgeth the poor, his throne shall be established for ever” (Proverbs 29:14).

Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020 (table 1), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2019, real GDP increased 2.1 percent. The GDP estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see "Source Data for the Advance Estimate" on page 2). The "second" estimate for the first quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on May 28, 2020.

Gilead Sciences said Wednesday it is aware of “positive data” from one of its studies looking at antiviral drug remdesivir as a potential treatment for the coronavirus.

Gross domestic product fell 4.8% in the first quarter, according to government numbers released Wednesday that provide the first detailed glimpse into the deep damage the coronavirus wreaked on the U.S. economy. Economist surveyed by Dow Jones had expected the first estimate of GDP to show a 3.5% contraction. This marked the first negative GDP reading since the 1.1% decline in the first quarter of 2014 and the lowest level since the 8.4% plunge in Q4 of 2008 during the worst of the financial crisis. The biggest drags on the economy were consumer spending, nonresidential fixed investment, exports and inventories....