Top of the Fold

• Australian swimming legend opposes males competing against females: Emma McKeon, a world-record-setting swimmer and Australia’s most decorated Olympian holding 11 medals, recently voiced her disapproval of biological males competing against biological females in swimming. “I personally wouldn’t want to be racing against someone who is biologically a male,” stated the 27-year-old. “Now that it’s a growing thing, the sport has to think about how to handle it and how to deal with it because you do want to be inclusive, but you don’t want to have females racing against swimmers who are biologically male because it’s just not fair.” Meanwhile, a high school coach of a girls’ rugby team in Guam is demanding a rule change to prevent “transgender”-identifying males from competing against females after three of his players were injured in a single game by the same “transgender” player on the opposing team. “The aggressive nature that was witnessed clearly showed that it’s a definite issue that we have to deal with,” he stated.

• Shanghai’s reportedly low COVID deaths expose China’s dubious numbers: Following the recent COVID outbreak in Shanghai, which saw the nation’s communist government place the city of 25 million in a total lockdown for nearly a month, the total number of COVID deaths being reported from the surge is just 17. Of course, Beijing is touting the dubious number as evidence that its draconian response, which left people locked in their homes and apartments without access to even basic life-sustaining necessities like food and water for days on end, was entirely justified and is the gold standard. However, the unbelievably low number has placed scrutiny on China’s overall reported number of COVID deaths, which is supposedly still fewer than 5,000. Further exposing China’s numbers as false are the COVID death totals from Hong Kong, which was hit by the Omicron variant in February and registered over 9,000 fatalities. China limits its death totals by only counting a death as a COVID fatality if there were no other comorbidities and only if coronavirus-related pneumonia is the cause. And we doubt the nation is even honest about that.

• A GOP kerfuffle in Tennessee: It appears that a “good ole boy” element within Tennessee’s Republican Party has raised its ugly head to oppose a new-to-the-state candidate from being able to qualify for the GOP’s upcoming primary. Morgan Ortagus, who moved to Tennessee last year after working in the Trump administration, has been endorsed by Donald Trump himself. But she has been disqualified by the Volunteer State’s Republican executive committee. The stated reason is that certain GOP members see Ortagus as a carpetbagger and not a “bona fide” Tennessee Republican. State Senator Frank Niceley certainly didn’t live up to his name when he argued, “I don’t think Trump cares one way or the other” about the decision to disqualify Ortagus, though “I think Jared Kushner — he’s Jewish, [Ortagus] is Jewish — I think Jared will be upset. Ivanka will be upset. I don’t think Trump cares.” Tennessee voters can decide what they think about his implications, but this seems to us the way to lose elections.

Headlines

• CDC asks DOJ to appeal ruling overturning public transit mask mandate (PM)

• Election forecaster shifts 11 House races — all towards Republicans (Hot Air)

• Department of Education to evaluate “equity” when awarding grants across the country (Fox News)

• More than two dozen GOP governors form border security “strike force” (Washington Times)

• Florida Senate passes bill to strip Disney of self-governing district, moves to House (FLvoicenews.com)

• Florida follows the science with new guidelines on gender dysphoria treatment for kids (Daily Signal)

• School Library Journal releases list of classics that woke teachers want to remove from summer reading plans (Not the Bee)

• Russia test-fires new intercontinental ballistic missile (AP)

• Policy: A critical look at critical race theory in America’s classrooms (Daily Signal)

• Satire: Grim study reveals all two million Americans who flew yesterday are now dead of COVID (Babylon Bee)

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

The Patriot Post is a certified ad-free news service, unlike third-party commercial news sites linked on this page, which may also require a paid subscription.