Top of the Fold

• Reagan’s would-be assassin gets unconditional release: The man who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, John Hinckley Jr., has been granted an unconditional release by U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman. Hinckley will be released from a federal mental-health facility on June 15 for “good behavior.” In 1981, just three months into his presidency, Reagan was leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington when he was fired upon by Hinckley. Reagan, DC police officer Tom Delahanty, U.S. Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, and Press Secretary James Brady were all hit by gunfire. Reagan was struck by four bullets and came dangerously close to dying. While he would go on to make a full recovery, the same could not be said of Brady, who was struck in the head and was paralyzed. Some 33 years later, Brady would die of his wound with his death being ruled a homicide. Hinckley was tried and found not guilty on account of insanity and was institutionalized. In his decision, which Friedman made last September and confirmed on Wednesday, he asserted that “if [Hinckley] hadn’t tried to kill a president he would have been released unconditionally a long, long, long time ago.” While that sentiment might be true, one wonders if his release would have ever been seriously considered, let alone granted, if it had been a Democrat president that Hinckley had attempted to assassinate. Hinckley, who runs a YouTube channel featuring himself singing and playing a guitar, recently announced his plan to go on a music tour that he has titled the “John Hinckley Redemption Tour.”

• New study debunks CDC’s justification for school mask mandate: A recent study published in the top medical journal The Lancet replicated and expanded the CDC’s study on masks and COVID infections in children and found no “negative association.” In other words, the study, which incorporated “six times as much data as the original [CDC] study,” found no link between mask mandates and COVID infection rates in schoolchildren. As the study states, “Replicating the CDC study shows similar results; however, incorporating a larger sample and longer period showed no significant relationship between mask mandates and case rates.” The study’s authors add: “We failed to establish a relationship between school masking and pediatric cases using the same methods but a larger, more nationally diverse population over a longer interval. Our study demonstrates that observational studies of interventions with small to moderate effects sizes are prone to bias caused by selection and omitted variables.” In short, the more thorough and comprehensive study debunks the CDC’s claims that school masking mandates proved to lower COVID infection rates among schoolchildren.

• Chicago school embraces race-based student grading system: While the existence of critical race theory’s sinister presence in America’s schools been proven, it is a long way from being expunged. In a suburb of Chicago, CRT has seemingly taken complete control of an area school. Beginning next school year at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF), the grades students earn will be directly impacted by the color of their skin. According to the school’s new “equitable” outcome goals, teachers will be required “to adjust their classroom grading scales to account for the skin color or ethnicity of its students.” Further evidence that CRT is behind this attack against meritocratic-based systems comes via a PowerPoint outlining OPRF’s new goals: “Traditional grading practices perpetuate inequities and intensify the opportunity gap.” A CRT-promoting education consultant who sells her services to colleges and universities, Margaret Sullivan, asserted that by instructing teachers to “remove the non-academic factors from their grading practices and recognize when personal biases manifest, districts can proactively signal a clear commitment toward DEIJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice).” Examples of these “non-academic” factors including things like misbehaving in class, failing to turn in homework, or missing class. Ergo, judging students based upon their skin color rather than their behavior is the new means of arriving at “justice.”

Headlines

• Marines feature rainbow-colored bullets for Pride Month (Washington Examiner)

• U.S. raises “Pride” flag at embassy to the Holy See; Roman Catholic moral teaching says homosexual acts are a “grave travesty” (Fox News)

• NASCAR apologizes to “LGBTQ+ community” after allowing Governor Abbott to wave green flag (PM)

• Clerks asked for phone records in Supreme Court probe (The Hill)

• Republican lawmakers demand answers about AFT-NewsGuard “anti-misinformation” pact (Fox News)

• Damage control: Harvey Weinstein adviser in line to become White House chief of staff (Free Beacon)

• PolitiFact is now fact-checking criticism of its bad fact-checks (Townhall)

• Jury sides with Johnny Depp in libel case, awards him $10 million (AP)

• Detroit — a city run by Democrats for 60 straight years — ranked worst place to raise a family (Free Beacon)

• British Columbia to decriminalize small amounts of illicit drugs (Washington Post)

• Iran has enough uranium to build an atomic bomb, UN agency says (NBC News)

• Policy: How to hold woke capital accountable (Daily Signal)

• Humor: Biden welcomes BTS by pulling out his phone and playing “Kung Fu Fighting” (Babylon Bee)

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