Free Republic

A British women’s studies professor at the University of Oxford implied in a new op-ed that she does not want scientists at the renowned university to be the first to create a vaccine against coronavirus because she claims it would be used as “proof of British excellence” and that if the drug is in short supply, it wouldn’t be made immediately available to people outside the U.K. The op-ed: Dr. Emily Cousens notes in an opinion piece for the HuffPost that if Oxford researchers see the development of a coronavirus vaccine “as a race to be won” then “patriotism will...

The Mesa City Police Department's homicide division is investigating the death of Gary Lenius, the Arizona man whose wife served him soda mixed with fish tank cleaner in what she claimed was a bid to fend off the coronavirus. A detective handling the case confirmed the investigation to the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday after requesting a recording of the Free Beacon's interviews with Lenius's wife, Wanda. Gary Lenius, 68, died on March 22. Wanda, 61, told several news outlets last month that both she and her husband had ingested a substance used to clean aquariums after hearing President Donald...

Joe Biden accuser Tara Reade demands the former vice president release records related to his tenure as Delaware senator, during which time she alleges he sexually assaulted her at his office. Her call: “Joe Biden, I want you to release all the personnel records from 1973 to 2009 and be transparent about your office practices,” Reade told the Daily Caller on Tuesday. “I would like to hold you accountable for what happened to me, to how your staff protected you and enabled you, bullied me multiple times into silence.”

Illinois could soon be the first state in history to have its bonds rated as “junk.” Last month, both Moody’s MCO and Standard & Poor’s downgraded Illinois debt to just one notch above junk status. Last week, the Illinois State Senate President Don Harmon (D-Chicago) wrote a letter to Congress requesting a $41.6 billion bailout. Critics balked. In many ways, Illinois may have already crossed the Rubicon. Our analysis at OpenTheBooks.com shows that an Illinois family of four now owes more in unfunded pension liabilities ($76,000) than they earn in household income ($63,585). In a state of 13 million residents,...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife were heckled by locals as they walked through Prospect Park in Brooklyn over the weekend, despite living 11 miles away in Manhattan. De Blasio was filmed strolling with his wife Chirlane McCray, both of whom were wearing masks, through the historic park on Saturday afternoon. New Yorker Darren Goldner took video of the moment he scolded the Mayor for forcing an entourage of four SUV security vehicles to drive his family to the park for a nonessential recreational walk in a completely different borough. 'Seriously, you guys have a park....

U.S. hospitals receive more funds if patients are coded for coronavirus even if those patients haven’t been tested for the virus, fact-checkers at USA Today, Politifact, and Snopes have confirmed. A hospital that admits a likely coronavirus patient can get up to $13,000 in aid and three times as much if that patient is placed on a ventilator, according to Minnesota state senator and physician Scott Jensen.

What are we waiting for? The question can be posed in either a wild, irresponsible way — or a sane, measured way. In New York, our “pause” will continue until at least May 15, and New Yorkers are asking, in a measured, sane way: What exactly are we waiting for?

China has announced it will donate $30 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) to help its fight against the global coronavirus pandemic. The announcement: “At this crucial moment, supporting WHO is supporting Multilateralism and Global Solidarity,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, according to NBC News.

In 2017 our very first reaction to the Steele dossier on January 11, 2017 was that it was completely farcical and filled with complete lies. Here is our reaction at The Gateway Pundit back on January 11, 2017:

Twitter blue checks were high on their own supply after President Donald Trump made mention of a few solutions that have been killing the COVID-19 virus. If you play the clip by itself, it does seem like something completely wacky to say. “So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn’t been checked because of the testing,” Trump said. “And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other...

A CNN reporter thinks he found the silver lining in the global coronavirus pandemic. Bill Weir claims there seems to be a “perception” that the temporary shutdown of industries across the globe “has helped humanity buy some time when it comes to global warming.” He went on to link the origin of the virus to excessive deforestation, citing warnings from virologists “that an invisible enemy would come out of the jungles if we just kept cutting all of them down, and they were right.”

A serial burglary suspect with a long criminal history is free without bail despite allegedly being involved in a recent string of burglaries in Fremont, Milpitas, San Jose, Santa Clara and Palo Alto, Fremont police said. Kristopher Sylvester, 34, of Fremont, was arrested by Fremont detectives on April 2 for allegedly committing multiple commercial burglaries, possessing a loaded firearm, evading police and violating his probation, according to police. Sylvester was booked into Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, but an Alameda County Superior Court judge released him without bail on April 7 after he was arraigned. The judge set a court...

Voter fraud is too nominal to make a difference in any given election, goes one popular line of argument. But tell that to voters in parts of Florida, Missouri, New York, and North Carolina in recent years. Districts in these four states saw election outcomes overturned after absentee voter fraud came to light. Now, with millions of Americans homebound because of COVID-19, progressives are amping up their push for national mail-in voting as Michelle Obama throws her support behind related legislation purporting to be a response to the pandemic.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he pressed President Trump on testing during a “productive” Oval Office meeting on Tuesday afternoon, just days after they had an enormous row on Twitter and national television. Cuomo also told the president during the White House visit that New York no longer needed the USNS Comfort to treat COVID-19 infected patients, offering to deploy it to another hard-hit state.

U.S. states that haven’t been as heavily affected by the coronavirus as others are taking steps to return to normalcy by easing restrictions to reopen their economies. The media seems to overwhelmingly think this is a bad idea and continues to show those efforts in a bad light. The beaches: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) gave some municipalities the green light April 17 to reopen beaches with strict guidelines in place, but he was still quickly criticized. Residents can walk and run on the beaches but can’t sunbathe or bring towels and chairs. Gatherings of more than 10 people are still...

Twenty-four days after new allegations of improper sexual conduct by Joe Biden surfaced, CNN finally published a story touching on the scandal. The report CNN’s report, published Friday seems more concerned with how top Democrats that have endorsed Biden “grapple with” the allegations than with the actual allegations. “Top Democratic leaders and allies of Joe Biden are being asked to respond to an allegation of sexual assault leveled against the former vice president by Tara Reade, at a moment when many in the Democratic Party are eager to consolidate support for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee,” the outlet began, before...

I guess Joe Biden isn’t the only part of his campaign that can devolve into incoherence on a live stream, but I’d think this example isn’t a result of dementia. Rather, she’s just choosing to outright lie. Symone Sanders, who once worked for Bernie Sanders, is a senior adviser for the Biden campaign now. She “interviewed” Tony Goldwyn via one of their streaming hits and then went to Twitter to make a rather ridiculous assertion. She actually attempted to blame Republicans for the PPP money running out for small businesses.

California authorities tried to stop skateboarders by dumping literally tons of sand into at least two area skateparks in an effort to enforce so-called “social distancing.” However, the effort was for naught, it seems. Young residents in California responded to the government’s extreme social distancing enforcement action by grabbing a few shovels, buckets, and booms and turning at least one sand-filled skatepark into a park for both skating and dirt biking.

A Facebook fact-checker that labeled a documentary about the origins of the coronavirus, including the theory that it escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, as “false” has worked at the lab in question. The fact-checker’s ties to the lab in Wuhan were first flagged by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson.

Sunny Hostin said Friday that former Vice President Joe Biden should choose a black woman as his running mate, claiming that black women will “have to risk their lives to vote.” During a segment of ABC’s “The View,” Hostin argued that because black women were a strong voting bloc and Republicans opposed a large-scale move to vote by mail, the threat of coronavirus would put black women at increased risk come Election Day.