NEWS AND OPINION:
“Three years after then-President Donald Trump pressured the National Institutes of Health to suspend a research grant to a U.S. group studying bat coronaviruses with partners in China, the agency has restarted the award,” advises a report from Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“The new 4-year grant is a stripped-down version of the original grant to the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research organization in New York City, providing $576,000 per year. That 2014 award included funding for controversial experiments that mixed parts of different bat viruses related to severe acute respiratory syndrome, the coronavirus that sparked a global outbreak in 2002–04, and included a subaward to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The new award omits those studies, and also imposes extensive new accounting rules on EcoHealth, which drew criticism from government auditors for its bookkeeping practices,” the report said.
Peter Daszak, EcoHealth’s director, said his embattled group is pleased.
“Now we have the ability to finally get back to work,” he said, according to the report.
DESANTIS PICKS UP SPEED
Steve Cortes was once an advisor to former President Donald Trump. Now he has thrown his support elsewhere as the 2024 presidential election gets closer.
“I am backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president and just joined his PAC, his aligned PAC, Never Back Down. Look, I was honored to work for President Trump, and I think he was exactly the disrupter that the country needed back in 2016,” Mr. Cortes told Fox Business Network.
“When I look at the situation now and going forward, I believe the best option to both win the general election and to govern effectively, to implement a conservative agenda in office — I believe the best option is Ron DeSantis. And let me tell you one other important reason I’m backing Ron DeSantis is that the idea of a rematch of President Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, is something this country overwhelmingly does not want. It is a movie that we have already seen. Nobody liked it. And we know the ending,” Mr. Cortes said.
“We have to put our absolute best candidate forward. Let’s remember, I think we in the conservative movement need to be very honest in assessing what we’ve done well and what we haven’t. We lost 2018. We lost 2020. We lost 2022, at least relative to expectations. Who was the outlier and the lone, big winner in 2022? It was Ron DeSantis,” Mr. Cortes noted.
11 WORDS
Fox News media correspondent Joe Concha has offered a handy 11-word summary of President Biden’s status in the greater political picture.
“He’s the most protected and least available president of our lifetime,” Mr. Concha noted in an appearance on the network Tuesday.
TEXAS IS READY
The Lone Star State is increasing its pushback against illegal immigration in no uncertain terms.
Gov. Greg Abbott has now deployed the newly designated Texas Tactical Border Force to the Texas-Mexico border to respond to the growing border crisis, according to an announcement released Tuesday by Mr. Abbott’s office.
“The governor is enhancing Texas’ unprecedented border security efforts with the tactical deployment of hundreds of Texas National Guard soldiers to join the thousands already deployed as part of Operation Lone Star and serve on the new border force for targeted responses as the nation braces for an expected spike in illegal immigration,” the notice advised.
Operation Lone Star — manned by Texas National Guard soldiers and state troopers — have since apprehended over 373,000 illegal immigrants, arrested over 28,000 criminals, and seized more than 400 million lethal doses of fentanyl, according to the governor’s office.
“With the ending of Title 42 on Thursday, President Biden is laying down the welcome mat to people across the entire world, but Texas is deploying our new Texas Tactical Border Force,” Mr. Abbott said in the statement.
“The Texas National Guard is loading Blackhawk helicopters and C-130s and deploying specially trained soldiers for the Texas Tactical Border Force, who will be deployed to hotspots all along the border to help intercept and repel large groups of migrants trying to enter Texas illegally. The Texas Tactical Border Force will bolster our Operation Lone Star efforts to secure the Texas border amid the chaos caused by President Biden’s elimination of Title 42,” he said.
“Gov. Abbott is doing the job that President Biden and the federal government is refusing to do, and Texas will continue to work relentlessly to defend our border,” said.
FOXIFIED
During the week of May 1-7, Fox News bested rival networks CNN and MSNBC, drawing a nightly average of 1.5 million primetime viewers, compared to MSNBC with 1.2 million and CNN with 494,000.
In addition, Fox News led the coverage during the daytime viewing hours with an average audience of 1.1 million — emerging as No. 1 and besting rivals across the entire cable field, news and non-news networks alike. ESPN was in second place with 888,000 viewers, followed by Turner Network Television (835,000), MSNBC (765,000) and CNN (473,000).
The ratings standouts were “The Five,” which drew an average nightly audience of 2.6 million; “Jesse Watters Primetime,” with an average audience of 2.2 million; and “Hannity,” with 1.9 million viewers.
POLL DU JOUR
• 50% of registered U.S. voters say immigration is a “very important” issue; 69% of Republicans, 48% of independents and 34% of Democrats agree.
• 50% of women and 50% of men also agree.
• 33% overall say immigration is a “somewhat important” issue; 20% of Republicans, 35% of independents and 42% of Democrats agree.
• 35% of women and 31% of men also agree.
• 14% overall say immigration is “not very important” as an issue; 8% of Republicans, 13% of independents and 19% of Democrats agree.
• 12% of women and 15% of men also agree.
• 3% say immigration is “unimportant’ as an issue; 2% of Republicans, 3% of independents and 5% of Democrats agree.
• 3% of women and 3% of men also agree.
SOURCE: An Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted April 29-May 2.
• Follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin.
