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The Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed on-record for the first time Thursday that the U.S. intelligence community is investigating whether the coronavirus outbreak, which has wreaked havoc across the globe, started as the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, China. “The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S. policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China. The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified,” a statement from the office of acting Director of National...

Doctors Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx have become familiar features on television, and behind the scenes the CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier refers reporters to the World Health Organization for information on China. Long before the coronavirus arrived from Wuhan, the American whitecoats were deploying on another front. “Trump’s manifest grandiosity and disregard for facts, beginning with failure to accept clear evidence about the size of the crowd attending his inauguration, has put mental health professionals in the spotlight from Day One of his presidency,” charges Psychology Today. “Psychologists and commentators from all ideological camps early converged on a label of...

C-SPAN is publishing inaccurate transcripts of President Donald Trump’s remarks during the vitally important national coronavirus task force daily briefings. Yes, really. So Trump is being falsely attacked for what Trump never said (again). The worst of it, lately, is Trump asking questions to scientists. Those questions have been transformed into statements that Trump never made. But as I endeavored to clear up the fog, I was shocked to discover that C-SPAN’s textual transcript are the source of the confusion. The quotes that Trump haters are throwing around happen to be accurate reports of the inaccurate C-SPAN transcript. Not everyone...

Regarding government intervention in the economy, the 19th century free-market economist Frederic Bastiat spoke of “the seen and unseen.” When government does something that impacts the economy – levies a tax, enacts a regulation, places the nation under house arrest – the initial effects are the most visible. They’re the “seen.” The long-term damage that often follows is “unseen,” but nonetheless real. Thanks to Democrats squawking into microphones (including the governors of New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia) bolstered by those nightly briefings, the public is scared senseless and focused almost exclusively on what’s said to prevent the spread...

During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity Wednesday night Sidney Powell, a top attorney representing General Michael Flynn against the FBI, said explosive new documents showing agents framing her client are only the beginning. "The documents I've seen so far in addition to the ones you have in your hands now are even more stunning. It's just absolutely appalling what these agents and then the Special Counsel operation did to General Flynn. It's abuse of their authority at every turn," Powell said. "These documents weren't easily discovered. The emails have been in the FBI the whole time but...

Nevada’s month-old stay-at-home order, set to expire Thursday at midnight, will be extended two weeks to May 15, though some coronavirus restrictions will be eased starting Friday, Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered Wednesday. The governor announced the move early Wednesday evening. While the stay-at-home order remains in place, along with a limit on public gatherings to fewer than 10 people, the following will be relaxed: — All retail businesses, including those previously deemed nonessential, will be allowed to operate under a “curbside commerce model” similar to curbside pickup now allowed for restaurants and eateries. This includes curbside sales for retail marijuana...

Taiwan's aggressive efforts to control the Wuhanic Plague have paid off. See video at link. Awesome! Click here for report on Taiwan's control of virus.

Per a report from the Orange County Register, the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services Center in Los Angeles received 22 calls to their hotline regarding the Wuhan virus in February. However, after a month passed, the number of calls surged to 1,800.

A Chinese food street which sells scorpions, centipedes and other fried insects has reopened after closing for 70 days due to the coronavirus outbreak. Vendors at the daily night market in Nanning offer various snacks and dishes, such as grilled octopus, spicy crayfish, steamed dumplings and rice cakes. But what it's most famous for seems to be its 'insect feast'. Stalls treat intrepid diners with all sorts of cooked bugs, from spiders to silkworms.

Suddenly, skepticism is no longer "crackpot." In February the Daily Kos, an influential left-wing website, denounced "a whole parade of right-wing hand-waving that includes not just Republican Rep. Tom Cotton claiming that COVID-19 was cooked up in a Chinese bio lab." Likewise, The Guardian reported that Dr. Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance in the United States, an organization that researches emerging diseases, said: "Conspiracy theories circulating on social media claim the coronavirus was artificially manufactured in a lab conducting bioweapons research. They are 'crackpot theories that need to be addressed, but in the age of social media it...

As the weeks have worn on, however, the incessant drumbeat of commercials, public service announcements and local news hairdos declaring that "we are all in this together" and imploring everyone to "stay inside" have become insufferable. Often these directives are conjoined with salutes to the "heroes" in masks who are credited with saving our secluded backsides from a dreaded plague. (Yes, health professionals almost exclusively in the New York City area have done heroic work, but hospitals around the country have been laying off employees and suffering huge financial losses due to a shortage of patients.) Another flood of commercials...

Defying the stay-at-home order. That's what non-essential employees at a prominent Silicon Valley tech company said their bosses are telling them to do. Workers at Broadcom in San Jose said they were ordered to return to work Monday to perform jobs they believe can be done from home. Broadcom as of Monday afternoon has not responded to NBC Bay Area's requests for comment on this story.

Fauci warns reopening states: 'You can't just leap over things' The infectious disease expert and coronavirus task force member was interviewed on NBC's "TODAY" show. WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that states reopening their economies "can't just leap over things" that would potentially allow the coronavirus to rebound. In an interview on NBC's "TODAY" show, Savannah Guthrie asked Fauci whether the states that are beginning to reopen have the capability to do contact tracing and Fauci responded that while he can't go through a list of each of them, he urged those that don't have that capability to...

President Donald Trump has warned Democrats that he will demand "adjustments" for sanctuary cities as a condition of bailout aid for states.The president suggested he may withhold funding from states with "radical left" sanctuaries in the next round of emergency coronavirus relief.Democrats are demanding at least $500 billion to fill state coffers drained by business shutdowns amid the COVID-19 crisis.

New claims for unemployment benefits fell to 3.84 million in the week ended April 25, data from the Department of Labor showed Thursday. That brings new unemployment claims, a proxy for layoffs, over the past six weeks to around 30 million. Continuing claims, those filed after the initial week of benefits, rose to just under 18 million. Economists had expected around 3.5 million new claims.

Second lady Karen Pence said Thursday that Vice President Pence had been unaware of the Mayo Clinic's policy requiring all visitors to wear a face covering until after he left the facility on Tuesday. "As our medical experts have told us, wearing a mask prevents you from spreading disease. And knowing he doesn’t have COVID-19, he didn’t wear one," she said on "Fox & Friends." "It was actually after he left Mayo Clinic that he found out they had a policy of asking everyone to wear a mask," the second lady continued. "So someone who’s worked on this whole task...

One of the less helpful aspects of our current quandary is the shrill argument between two closed-minded camps. One condemns those who wish to open up the economy as science-defying ghouls who care nothing for human life. The other depicts the stay-at-homes as economic saboteurs willing to destroy the national economy in the name of unobtainable safety. Neither reckons with the indispensable bridge -- the testing problem. Whatever mayors, governors, or presidents might say, we cannot restart the economy as long as people are too frightened to resume working, shopping, and socializing. An NPR/Marist poll found that 65 percent of...

A Facebook post of mine was referenced in my local newspaper that misrepresented conservative views on the shutdown. In response to that, I wrote a column that the paper published. I’m re-publishing it here. Rod Thomson Herald-Tribune political editor Zac Anderson referred to my Facebook post from last week supporting the anti-lockdown movement in a Page 1 Sunday story on the partisan divide over re-opening the economy. Anderson’s story accurately reflects how Democrats and the media writ large define the divide. But alas, that does not make it accurate. This distorted view is reflected a few pages later on Sunday’s...

The U.S. stock market is a day away from having its best month since 1974. The optimism helped the S&P 500 jump 2.66 percent higher, and it extended a rally that’s brought the U.S. stock market to the brink of its best month in 45 years. The S&P 500 has surged more than 15 percent in April, putting it within one day of its best month since its 16.3 percent gain in October 1974. Over the past 12 months, the S&P is down 2.6 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.2 percent. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 3.57 percent. The...

Ottawa is set to ban a number of assault-style firearms and weapons involved in mass shootings in Canada and abroad, including the Ruger Mini-14 that was used during the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, federal officials say. The formal announcement of the gun ban is expected by the end of the week, but the key measures have already been approved by cabinet, the officials said. In addition to the gun ban, according to officials, the government will be putting forward further gun control measures in a coming legislative package. Along with the Ruger Mini-14, the government will ban the AR-15 and...