During 1940 the determined efforts of President Franklin Roosevelt to involve America in the war against Hitler’s Germany were blocked by the overwhelming opposition of the American people, running at 80% according to some polls. A group of young Yale Law School peace activists had launched the America First Committee and it quickly attracted 800,000 members, becoming the largest grassroots political organization in our national history. The leadership of the AFC included many of our most prominent business and journalistic figures, and famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, one of our greatest national heroes, served as its top spokesman.
Cleared by Congress, legislation later signed by US President Joe Biden in March ordered the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to declassify information regarding the potential origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The measure forced the DNI to declassify its report within 90 days.
Hu and two of his WIV colleagues were thrown into the furious COVID-19 origin debate on 13 June when an online newsletter called Public said the three scientists developed COVID-19 in November 2019. That was prior to the outbreak becoming public when a cluster of cases at the end of December 2019 surfaced in people linked to a Wuhan marketplace. Public’s report was quickly embraced by a camp that argues COVID-19 came from a virus stored, and possibly manipulated, at WIV, rather than from infected animal hosts, perhaps being sold at the Wuhan market. A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article on 20 June that said it had “confirmed” the allegations against the three, without referring to any public evidence or named sources with direct knowledge, fueled the flames even more. Social media and other publications spread the charges—and the scientists’ names.
Murdoch was displeased with Carlson’s stance on the Ukraine war—a graphic on Carlson’s show had previously called the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky a “Ukrainian pimp.” The host also repeatedly chided the U.S. for providing military aid to Ukraine. Murdoch’s opinion of Carlson’s commentary had become so negative that he complained about it during a newsroom meeting, according to anonymous sources cited by the Washington Post
Elon Musk’s favorite anti-trafficking advocate has set off a war in right-wing circles after Twitter banned some of her critics—and her own friends are poking holes in her story.
The Bankman-Frieds’ family foundation in February also committed $5 million to ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, to support reporting focused on pandemic preparedness and biosecurity, including one-third of the grant delivered upfront. The funding has subsidized several staff and articles — including a high-profile story with Vanity Fair about the possibility that covid leaked from a Chinese laboratory, which frustrated some of the Bankman-Frieds’ pandemic advisers who pointed to criticism of its translations of Mandarin Chinese. ProPublica was told last week that the remaining two-thirds of the grant is being paused, a spokesperson confirmed.
In the days after ProPublica published a searing expose based on a close reading of Communist Party memoranda in Mandarin, it called in at least two translators, according to three people familiar with the exchanges.
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