Top of the Fold

• House passes $1.9 trillion pork-stuffed COVID bill (Fox News)

“The vote was 220 to 211 in the House. No Republicans voted ‘yes’ on the legislation. … Republicans said the legislation was unnecessary, too big and filled with unrelated liberal priorities, such as $350 billion for state and local governments. … Biden is expected to sign the bill into law at the White House on Friday.”

• New commonsense report urges reopening of schools (Axios)

“The report — commissioned by the Walton Family Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and five other nonprofits — analyzed the conclusions of more than 130 studies of whether schools can be reopened safely. … Any benefits to closing schools are far outweighed by the grave risks to children from remote-only schooling — risks that intensify the longer it continues, the report says. The harms include academic loss — so severe that it could set children back for life — and mental health problems related to loneliness and isolation.”

Big Tech Oligarchs

• Monopolistic Facebook files to dismiss justified antitrust lawsuits from FTC and state AGs (Examiner)

“Facebook said that the lawsuits ‘do not credibly claim that our conduct harmed’ competition in the social media industry or consumers. Furthermore, the social media giant alleges that the lawsuits are an attempt to ‘do-over’ acquisitions Facebook made in years past, such as its purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram, which the FTC approved. Facebook said its acquisitions were not anti-competitive and denied that it has monopoly power in the industry.”

• Free speech-suppressing Apple denies Parler’s request to be reinstated in App Store (Post Millennial)

“The company severed relationships with seven workers, mostly contractors, and developed a new terms of service in order to appease the big tech giants. The changes were apparently not enough to warrant re-entry onto the App Store, however.”

Health

• U.S. orders 100 million more doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine (CBS News)

“Last month, HHS announced it purchased 200 million more doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, which each require a two-shot regimen. The administration’s order brought the total doses bought by the federal government from the two companies to 600 million, enough to fully vaccinate 300 million people, most of the U.S. population.”

• Pandemic pushed rural hospital closures to a record of 20 in 2020 (Examiner)

“As the pandemic worsened in March, most states ordered hospitals to discontinue elective procedures. For rural hospitals, that meant canceling a great many outpatient procedures. The Chartis Center has found that outpatient procedures account for an average of 76% of rural hospital revenue.”

National Security

• Biden’s first full month sets new records for illegal immigration (Washington Times)

“Nearly 9,500 unaccompanied juveniles were nabbed at the southwest border, part of an overall surge of migrants that is double what the country experienced last year at this time, and even runs ahead of the record-breaking 2019 border surge. Across all demographics, Customs and Border Protection said it recorded more than 100,000 encounters with illegal immigrants.”

• Mexican officials worried about Biden’s immigration policy is incentivizing human smuggling and gang activity (Examiner)

“The internal assessments further revealed that policies from within Mexico are encouraging migration to the U.S. due to COVID-19 vaccinations and protections for children. Those looking to cross the border have been implored to bring children with them, following a new law in the country that bars families with children who are seven and older from being returned to Mexico if border enforcement is unable to house them.”

• Biden administration to resume undeserved taxpayer aid to Palestinians (Disrn)

“The Palestinian government continues to spend international aid dollars on the ‘pay-to-slay’ program, where large portions of the money are given to imprisoned terrorists and their families.”

Annals of the “Social Justice” Caliphate

• Disney yanks several movies from Disney+ kid profiles (Disrn)

“The movie Dumbo is cited for having crows paying ‘homage to racist minstrel shows.’ Peter Pan is criticized for portraying ‘Native people in a stereotypical manner.’ The Aristocats movie uses a Siamese cat in a way that plays into a ‘racist caricature of East Asian peoples.’”

• Mumford & Sons guitarist steps away from band for promoting book Unmasked by conservative reporter Andy Ngo (Daily Wire)

Non compos mentis: “I have offended not only a lot of people I don’t know, but also those closest to me, including my bandmates and for that I am truly sorry. As a result of my actions I am taking time away from the band to examine my blindspots.” — Winston Marshall

• A food chain in Washington, DC, wants you to know which products come from oppressed identity groups (Not the Bee)

“[Giant Food] will feature labels on more than 3,000 products, indicating if they’re women, black, Asian-Indian, Hispanic, LGBT, Asian-Pacific, or veteran owned.”

• Fewer than 1 in 5 support “defund the police” movement (USA Today)

“Only 18% of respondents supported the movement known as ‘defund the police,’ and 58% said they opposed it. Though white Americans (67%) and Republicans (84%) were much more likely to oppose the movement, only 28% of Black Americans and 34% of Democrats were in favor of it [emphases added].”

Other Notables

• FBI releases new video of suspect planting pipe bombs at DNC and RNC headquarters (UPI)

• Dow ends at new record above 32,000 (MarketWatch)

• In 70-30 vote, Senate confirms Merrick Garland as attorney general (CNBC)

• In 66-34 vote, Senate confirms Michael Regan as EPA chief (Examiner)

• Left-leaning poll shows 53-32 favor banning biological males from women’s sports (Daily Wire)

• If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again: Eight senators propose extending Daylight Saving Time to year-round (Daily Signal)

Closing Arguments

• Policy: Washington must face the coming Medicare crisis (Daily Signal)

• Policy: Managing the economy: More than the Fed can do (National Review)

• Humor: American patriots dump Harry and Meghan into Boston Harbor (Babylon Bee)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit Headline Report.

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