Friday News Executive Summary

Above the Fold

On May 22, a dubious hydroxychloroquine study that appeared in the medical journal The Lancet surmised “that treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients [with the drug] actually increased their risk of death,” Reason reports. But, lo and behold, “Three authors of the study are now retracting it.” The retraction statement explains: “Our independent peer reviewers informed us that Surgisphere [a medical data aggregation firm] would not transfer the full dataset, client contracts, and the full ISO audit report to their servers for analysis as such transfer would violate client agreements and confidentiality requirements. As such, our reviewers were not able to conduct an independent and private peer review and therefore notified us of their withdrawal from the peer-review process.” Peer reviews are not only necessary but are to be expected. So it goes without saying that failing to submit to an audit is rather suspicious.
Yesterday, Joe Biden mimicked Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” snub when he bloviated, “There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there who are just not very good people.” As Fox News reminds us, “The remarks harken back to the controversial comments made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election when, at a campaign event, she estimated that ‘half’ of Trump’s supporters belong in a ‘basket of deplorables.’” That insult worked really well for her in November 2016.

Government & Politics

Black Lives Matter sues Trump administration over use of force on DC protesters (NBC News)
Attorney General William Barr defends decision to push back “unruly” protesters (National Review)
Trump to sign executive order that attempts to speed up infrastructure projects by suspending environmental regulations (The Daily Caller)
The partisan New York Times issues an apology for publishing Senator Tom Cotton’s “Send in the Troops” op-ed (The Daily Wire)

Business & Economy

May sees biggest jobs increase ever as economy starts to recover from coronavirus (CNBC)
This is the greatest 50-day rally in the history of the S&P 500 (CNBC)
AMC, the world’s largest movie theater chain, has “substantial doubt” that it can survive shutdown (CNBC)

Culture & Heartland

Los Angeles is cutting $100–$150 million from LAPD budget to be “reinvested in black communities and communities of color” (Disrn)
Minneapolis City Council vows to “dismantle” police department (Fox News)
Judge rules that Tennessee must allow vote by mail for all amid virus (Politico)
“Consider destroying your enemy”: Project Veritas infiltrates antifa, insanity ensues (Hot Air)
Hundreds of nursing homes ran short on staff, protective gear as more than 30,000 residents died during pandemic (The Washington Post)

National Security

U.S. Navy veteran Michael White detained in Iran is freed (Fox News)
On sad anniversary, few to mourn the D-Day dead in Normandy (Fox News)
Chinese, Iranian hackers targeted Biden and Trump campaigns (NPR)
Huawei Technologies hid business operation in Iran (Reuters)

Other Notables

Coronavirus appears to be declining in potency and people are contracting it less easily, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center doctors reveal (UK Daily Mail)
“Never forget June 4”: Tens of thousands defy Hong Kong police to gather for Tiananmen Square vigil (The Daily Caller)

Closing Arguments

Policy: Why we commemorate Tiananmen Square (The Heritage Foundation)
Policy: The “institutional racism” canard (National Review)
Humor: Antifa rioter has yet to redistribute his loot to the less fortunate (The Babylon Bee)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights.

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