NEW YOR K | DC EDITION | F R I D A Y, M A Y 21, 2 0 21 Truth & Tradition VOL . X V I I I | NO. 2,966 $1.

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JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
EU–CHINA
In the News European
NEWS

The House has voted to

approve $1.9 billion bill to in-
crease U.S. Capitol security in
response to the Jan. 6 breach.
... A3
The Seattle Police Depart-
ment has lost almost 20 per-
cent of its police force in the
past year and a half, official
says. ... A2
Thirty-five Republicans
joined with Democrats in vot-
ing for a commission to inves-
tigate the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol
breach. ... A5
A number of ballots couldn’t
be scanned during local elec-
tions in a county in Pennsylva-
nia, triggering fresh concerns
about election integrity. ...A6
A group of GOP lawmakers
is demanding the reinstate-
ment of a Space Force officer
who was relieved of his com-
mand after publishing a book
that warned of the spread of
Marxism and critical race
theory in the military. ... A7
A federal district court
judge has rejected a motion
seeking a temporary restrain-
ing order against a new regu-
lation barring schools from
maintaining separate bath-
rooms and showers for male
and female students. ... A8
The U.S. government has
suggested it may require that
Parliament
Freezes China
Deal Until
Beijing Lifts
Sanctions
By ALEXANDER ZHANG
The European Parliament has agreed
to freeze ratification of an EU–China
investment agreement until Beijing
lifts sanctions on EU politicians.
China miscalculated and
shot themselves in the foot.
Reinhard Bütikofer, member,
European Parliament
The Chinese regime imposed sanc-
tions in March on several European
A “We are hiring!” sign is seen in front of a restaurant in Miami on March 5, 2021.
EMPLOYMENT entities and political representatives,
including five members of the Euro-
pean Parliament (MEP) and the Sub-
Number of States Dropping committee on Human Rights. Beijing
adopted the measures in retaliation
to EU sanctions on four Chinese of-
Federal Jobless Boost Rises to 22 ficials and one entity over human
rights abuses against the Muslim
Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.
In a resolution adopted on May 20,
‘The amount of job openings in Texas is far greater than the number EU lawmakers condemned “in the
strongest possible terms” the sanc-
of Texans looking for employment,’ Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says tions Beijing recently imposed on
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES several European individuals and
By TOM OZIMEK part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 tril- entities, including five MEPs.

T
cryptocurrency transfers of
more than $10,000 be re-
ported to the IRS. ... A8
The United States is now
granting citizenship to chil-
dren born overseas through
in vitro fertilization. ... A4
Sens. John Kennedy and
Amy Klobuchar are co-spon-
soring a measure to strength-
en the privacy of digital con-
sumers. ... A3
When President Joe Biden
fired then-National Labor Re-
lations Board General Counsel
Peter Robb within minutes of
taking the oath of office on Jan.
20, career staffers cheered,
documents reveal. ...A6
Republican members of the
House Intelligence Committee
believe that it’s more likely the
CCP virus originated within a
Chinese laboratory than from
an animal, report says. ...A9
A skyscraper in China’s
Shenzhen city has swayed
again one day after its inexpli-
cable wobbling led to the evac-
uation of 15,000 people. ...A9
Yiatin Chu, co-chair of the
New York chapter of the Foun-
dation Against Intolerance
and Racism, says that critical
race theory is “racist” and is
having a harmful impact on
schoolchildren. ... A4
OPINION
Victor Davis Hanson: Why
Does the Left Seemingly Hate
Israel?...A13
Stephen Moore: Following
‘the Science’ and Rejecting
Common Sense...A14
Roger L. Simon: Democrats,
Not Trump Supporters, Are the
True Jan. 6 Insurrectionists...
A16
his week, Indiana, Okla-
homa, and Texas joined
19 other Republican-led
states moving to drop the
$300 weekly federal jobless benefit
boost in a bid to encourage the un-
employed to get back to work amid
sky-high levels of job openings and
business hiring woes.
The move by the three states to opt
out of the $300 top-up—which was
Patrons eat lunch at Carmines Ybor Italian restaurant in Tampa, Fla., on June
26, 2020.
PANDEMIC
US States Start Seeing Days of Zero
COVID-19 Deaths
By ZACHARY STIEBER
U.S. states are starting to record
days of zero deaths among people
with COVID-19, another marker
that the pandemic is easing.
Idaho, Minnesota, and Wiscon-
sin saw several zero-death days
in recent weeks, and the nation’s
second-most-populous state, Texas,
saw a zero-death day for the first
time since March 2020.
Fifteen states on May 17 reported
zero COVID-19 deaths, accord-
lion American Rescue Plan—brings
the number of states to do so to 22.
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkan-
sas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
Mississippi, Missouri, Montana,
New Hampshire, North Dakota,
Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina,
South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas,
Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming
A man walks past a “Now Hiring” sign in all plan to end the $300 boost, along
front of a store in Arlington, Va., on Dec. with other federal unemployment
1, 2020. Continued on A2
OCTAVIO JONES/GETTY IMAGES
CHINA
COVID-19
Outbreak in
China Extends
to 6 Provinces;
Source of
Infection Still
Unknown
By ALEX WU
COVID-19 epidemics originating in
China’s Liaoning and Anhui prov-
inces have extended to other Chi-
nese provinces following the May
Day holiday. However, the source
and route of the virus’s spread are
ing to Johns Hopkins University, still unknown, as thousands of Chi-
though many later added several nese citizens associated with iden-
deaths. Still, fatalities attributed to tified cases have been quarantined
COVID-19 were just a handful in due to contact tracing efforts.
most of the states, including Ala- In Liaoning’s capital city of
bama, Arizona, and Delaware. Shenyang, more than 40,000 people
“That’s good news. Not surpris- were reportedly forced into home
ing,” Martin Kulldorff, a professor quarantine because they traveled
of medicine at Harvard Medical during the May Day holiday. Peo-
School, told The Epoch Times. ple were quarantined regardless of
“There are two reasons for that. whether or not they had been tested
One is that we have a lot of immu- for the virus. According to netizens,
nity in the population, mostly from local officials were again seen sealing
Continued on A7 Continued on A10
According to the resolution, any
consideration by the European Par-
liament of the EU–China Compre-
hensive Agreement on Investment
(CAI), as well as any discussion on
its mandatory ratification by MEPs,
have “justifiably been frozen” be-
cause of the Chinese sanctions.
The resolution was approved by
599 votes in favor and 30 against,
with 58 abstentions.
Continued on A9
ICE
An ICE agent in Philadelphia on Sept.
25, 2019.
BORDER SECURITY
ICE Unable to
Track Most Illegal
Immigrants
Released Into
Country
By CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON
As thousands of illegal immigrants
are released into the United States
every week, the agency responsible
for enforcement is unable to keep
tabs on most of them.
Immigration and Customs En-
forcement (ICE) Acting Director Tae
Johnson admitted to Congress that
“there’s certainly some gaps in our
ability to track” illegal immigrants
being released.
Continued on A3

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Affordable prices and plen-
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Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
CAPITOL HILL
Chip Crunch Drives Israel, Hamas Agree to Ceasefire Over
Ford to Cut Production, Gaza Conflict: Netanyahu’s Office NATIONAL GUARD
Including of F-150 and DEPLOYMENT AT
US CAPITOL TO END
By JACK PHILLIPS a mutual ceasefire without
Bronco Sport SUV any conditions, which will
By TOM OZIMEK The office of Israeli Prime go into effect at an hour that
Minister Benjamin Ne- will be determined later.” “We have
Ford will pause or slash production tanyahu confirmed that An official with Hamas, a received no
of vehicles that include its F-150 officials have agreed on a designated terrorist group request to
pickup and Bronco Sport SUV at ceasefire with Hamas after Israeli Prime since 1997, told Reuters they extend it,”
eight North American plants in 11 days of fighting. Minister would enter a “mutual and Pentagon
June as a result of the semiconduc- A statement from his office Benjamin simultaneous” Gaza truce spokesman
tor chip shortage that is putting a said that his security cabinet Netanyahu. at 2 a.m. on May 21. John Kirby.
squeeze on carmakers. ministers agreed to “accept It came after President n A2
Read more on
Continued on A4 the Egyptian initiative for Continued on A11

Accuracy The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 as an independent newspaper with the goal to restore accuracy and
integrity in media. We have received numerous awards for our reporting, including from the Society of Professional
& Integrity Journalists, the Society for News Design, and the New York Press Association.
A2 | NATION
Number of
States Dropping
Federal Jobless
Boost Rises to 22
CONTINUED FROM A1
benefit programs, at some point this
summer.
The governor of Texas, the biggest state
of the lot, said in a letter to the Biden ad-
ministration that his state’s economy is
“booming” and employers are hiring in
communities throughout the state.
“In fact, the amount of job openings in
Texas is far greater than the number of
Texans looking for employment, making
these unemployment benefits no longer
necessary,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote.
In a further bid to encourage people
to take jobs, some states—Arizona,
New Hampshire, Montana, and Okla-
homa—have announced plans to pro-
vide hiring incentives.
New Hampshire’s Republican Gov.
Chris Sununu said in a May 19 tweet,
“Today, we launched our SUMMER STI-
PENDS program to get people back to
work, and announced we’re ending our
participation in federal unemployment
programs.”
The Summer Stipends program offers
$500 to $1,000 one-time bonuses for in-
dividuals who get a job that pays $25 an
hour or less, and stay in that job for at
least eight weeks.
“Let’s get back to work,” Sununu said.
It comes as Republican leaders and busi-
ness groups have blamed the generous
unemployment benefits for creating a
disincentive for people to take jobs.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCar-
thy (R-Calif.) and several of his GOP col-
leagues recently wrote an open letter to
the nation’s governors, urging them to
“put America back to work” by ending the
weekly pandemic unemployment boost.
In the letter—co-signed by McCarthy
and Reps. Steve Scalise (R-La.), Kevin
Brady (R-Texas), and Jackie Walorski
(R-Ind.)—the Republicans said they’ve
heard from “countless Main Street em-
ployers who are struggling to hire the
workers they need, due in large part to
enhanced federal unemployment insur-
ance benefits.”
“Unfortunately, we are now seeing
the negative consequences of these
misaligned economic incentives,” Mc-
Carthy and his colleagues wrote. “An
estimated 40 percent of the unemployed
now earn more staying at home than
working, causing severe labor shortages
across the country” and impacting a
number of industries.
A recent report from the National
Federation of Independent Business—
the largest small-business lobby group
in the United States—found that a record
number of small businesses couldn’t
find enough workers to hire in April,
even as the number of job openings in
the U.S. economy surged to 8.1 million
in March, the highest number in the his-
tory of the Labor Department’s reporting
on the statistic.
DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
(R-Calif.) addresses reporters outside the
White House on May 12, 2021.
Pentagon: National Guard
Deployment at US Capitol to End
JACK PHILLIPS
The Department of Defense confirmed on
May 19 that the National Guard mission
that was set up at the U.S. Capitol following
the Jan. 6 breach will end on May 23.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told re-
porters during a briefing that the deploy-
ment is expected to wrap up by that date.
“We have received no request to extend it,”
he said, referring to the National Guard de-
ployment around the Capitol. He also said
that around 2,100 National Guard troops
remain from the original 5,000-plus that
were positioned following the breach.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in
March had received a request from the
Capitol Police to extend the Guard’s deploy-
Police detain a person as city crews dismantle the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area outside of the Seattle Police Department’s vacated East Pre-
cinct on July 1, 2020.
Seattle Loses Almost 20 Percent of Police
Officers Amid Anti-Police Sentiment
ISABEL VAN BRUGEN
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) has
lost almost 20 percent of its police force in
the past year and a half, according to a law
enforcement officer.
SPD officer Clayton Powell, who has been
with the department for nearly 27 years,
told CBS News that some 260 officers have
left during that time, and that he’s also
retiring early, although he had previously
planned to leave when he hit three decades
with the force.
“The support that we had in my genera-
tion of policing is no longer there,” he told
the news outlet.
The death of George Floyd in May 2020
and the protests and riots that followed
prompted a wave of police overhaul mea-
sures in dozens of states, from changes in
use-of-force policies to greater account-
ability for officers.
Powell said that during riots last year,
some officers had objects including rocks
and bottles thrown at them, and they had
to “stand there and take it.”
“When you see businesses get destroyed
and families lose their livelihood because
of that destruction, and we can’t do any-
thing about it. We’re not allowed to inter-
cede,” he said.
Meanwhile, in New York, more than
5,300 police officers resigned or retired last
year—a sharp increase of 75 percent over
the previous year—as morale fell follow-
ing widespread unrest and calls to defund
the police. Resigning officers in the state
accounted for 15 percent of total officers
leaving their posts.
According to the Law Officer website, be-
tween May 25 and June 24, 2020, 272 police
officers resigned from New York City’s po-
lice department.
On March 25, the New York City Council
voted to pass various reform measures to
abolish the qualified immunity provision
for police, opening the way for citizens
to sue police over claims of excessive use
of force and unreasonable searches and
seizures.
Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine
ment until May 23, which was approved.
In addition to the troops, fencing was also
erected around the building. Both the fenc-
ing and military posture was criticized by
Republicans, and several GOP governors
ordered their Guard personnel to return
home starting in late January.
“I’m not aware of any—any—threat to jus-
tify a continued presence today around the
capital, much less into the fall,” Sen. Tom
Cotton (R-Ark.), a former Army Ranger, told
Fox News in February, adding that he be-
lieved the military was deployed for politi-
cal purposes.
Keeping the National Guard there was
“outrageous because that’s not their func-
tion. It’s not their mission,” Sen. James In-
hofe (R-Okla.) told reporters in March.
Rioters clash with police near the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct on June 8, 2020.
When you see businesses
get destroyed and fami-
lies lose their livelihood
because of that destruc-
tion ... we can’t do any-
thing about it. We’re not
allowed to intercede.
Clayton Powell, officer,
Seattle Police Department
created 50 years ago that shields govern-
ment officials from being held personally
liable for constitutional violations such as
the right to be free from excessive police
force under federal law, as long as the offi-
cials didn’t violate “clearly established” law.
New York saw a rise in murders in 2020,
an increase some experts have pinned on
the defunding movement. As of May 9, the
number of murders in the city is up 27 per-
cent from 2020.
In Washington state this week, Demo-
cratic Gov. Jay Inslee signed a dozen law
SARAH SILBIGER/GETTY IMAGES
Members of the National Guard enter a gate of
barbed wire fencing on U.S. Capitol grounds in
Washington on Feb. 8, 2021.
Some Democrats also expressed alarm
over the mission.
“We cannot ignore the financial costs as-
sociated with this prolonged deployment,
nor can we turn a blind eye to the effects
it will soon have on the National Guard’s
overall readiness,” said Rep. Adam Smith
(D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed
FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
DAVID RYDER/GETTY IMAGES
DAVID RYDER/GETTY IMAGES
enforcement overhaul measures into law,
claiming they will boost accountability in
policing and address “systemic racism” in
the state. He called it a “moral mandate.”
The package of bills signed by Inslee
includes outright bans on police use of
chokeholds, neck restraints, and no-knock
warrants, and also requires police officers
to intervene if a colleague engages in exces-
sive force.
It also requires the establishment of an
independent office to review the use of
deadly force by law enforcement officers.
Police must also use “reasonable care,”
such as deescalation tactics, in carrying
out their duties.
The legislation restricts the use of tear gas
and car chases, and makes it easier to sue
officers when they cause injury.
According to a Rasmussen Reports sur-
vey released last month, 63 percent of ap-
proximately 1,000 likely U.S. voters are
worried that anti-police rhetoric, which is
often pushed by progressive Democrats,
will result in a shortage of law enforcement
officers and endanger public safety.
Hannah Cai contributed to this report.
Services panel, earlier this year.
Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the Na-
tional Guard Bureau, wrote in a letter to the
Pentagon that the National Guard shouldn’t
adhere to a Capitol Police request to keep
Guard members at the capitol. He noted
that the Guard is overburdened due to civil
disturbances, COVID-19, and wildfires.
“I am concerned that the continued in-
definite nature of this requirement may
also impede our ability to man future
missions as both adjutants general and
Guardsmen alike may be skeptical about
committing to future endeavors,” he said
in a March memo.
Amid the criticism in March, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stated that
the National Guard should remain “as long
as they are needed.”
“We have to have what we need when we
need it, and in the numbers that we need,”
she said at the time. “But that’s a security
decision.”
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
Sens. Kennedy, Klobuchar Join in Bipartisan Effort
to Promote Digital Consumer Privacy
MARK TAPSCOTT
In an increasingly rare act of bi-
partisanship on Capitol Hill, Sens.
John Kennedy (R-La.) and Amy
Klobuchar (D-Minn.) are co-spon-
soring a measure to strengthen the
privacy of digital consumers.
For too long compa-
nies have profited
off Americans’ on-
line data while con-
sumers have been
left in the dark.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar
The proposal, the Social Media
Privacy Protection and Consumer
Rights Act of 2021, could funda-
mentally change the legal land-
scape that currently allows social
media giants such as Facebook
and Amazon virtually unlimited
access to and use of individuals’
data on the internet.
“It’s common sense that people
have a right to data privacy, and
that right does not evaporate
when someone logs on to their so-
cial media profile,” Kennedy said
in a May 20 statement announcing
the proposal.
“Social media companies have
a duty to protect their users’ data
and to offer quick solutions when
a breach occurs. The Social Media
Privacy Protection and Consumer
Rights Act would strengthen us-
ers’ control over their own data and
better protect their privacy.”
Klobuchar echoed the sentiment
in the statement.
“For too long companies have
profited off Americans’ online
data while consumers have been
left in the dark. This legislation will
protect and empower consumers
by allowing them to make choices
about how companies use their
House Passes Bill Approving $1.9 Billion
More for US Capitol Security
JACK PHILLIPS
The House of Representatives
voted on May 20 to approve $1.9
billion to increase U.S. Capitol
security in response to the Jan.
6 breach, with several left-wing
“Squad” members voting either
no or present.
The House voted 213–212 to ap-
prove the measure, which faces
an uncertain future in the Sen-
ate, where 60 votes are needed
to advance legislation.
Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Ilhan
Omar (D-Minn.), and Ayan-
na Pressley (D-Mass.) voted
no. Meanwhile, Reps. Jamaal
Bowman ( D-N.Y.), Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and
Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) voted
present.  All other Democrats
voted in favor and all Republi-
cans voted against.
“This bill is not about politics.
It’s not about settling scores,” Ap-
propriations Committee Chair-
man Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)
said on the floor of the chamber.
“It’s about ensuring that every
person who comes onto the Capi-
tol grounds is safe and is protect-
ed. The funding is not optional.”
Republicans have said that
while the GOP supports the
U.S. Capitol Police and National
Guard members who were de-
ployed after the Jan. 6 breach,
they view the bill as partisan and
drafted without consideration for
how the funds would be spent.
The bill would reimburse the
National Guard for costs in-
curred when troops were de-
ployed to the Capitol earlier
this year, provide Capitol Police
with overtime pay, and other re-
sources. The bill would also cre-
ate a response force that would
aid Capitol Police during a crisis,
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 2, 2021.
data and inform them of how they
can protect personal information,”
she said.
In their joint statement, the sen-
ators said that “social media and
other online platforms routinely
capture users’ behavior and per-
sonal information, which they then
use to help advertisers or other
third parties target those users.”
Unregulated access to key con-
sumer behavior data has driven
the internet to become the most
powerful advertising and com-
munications platform in the world.
The Kennedy/Klobuchar pro-
posal would limit that access by
requiring firms doing business on
the internet to:
• Give consumers the right to opt
out and keep their information
private by disabling data track-
ing and collection.
• Provide users greater access to
and control over their data.
as well as fortify doors and win-
dows at the building.
“House Dems just passed a
Capitol security bill that costs
$3.5 million per member of Con-
gress. Defund the Police for thee
but not for me,” wrote Rep. Jim
Banks (R-Ind.).
“It also provides $200 million
to establish a force within the
D.C. National Guard to respond
to incidents at the Capitol, rais-
ing serious concerns about the
role of our military on American
soil.” Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas)
added.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated that
the proposal needs another re-
view when it heads to the Senate.
“We’re not sure what to spend
the money on yet. So I think we
are pushing the pause button
here,” he said.
The three Democrats who
voted against the measure said
they don’t want to provide more
funding for what they called po-
lice surveillance.
“This bill prioritizes more mon-
ey for a broken system that has
long upheld and protected the
white supremacist violence we
saw on display that day,” Bush,
Omar, and Pressley said in a
statement. Bowman, who voted
present, told news outlets that he
doesn’t want to provide “more
funding to police budgets.”
The bill’s passage comes as the
Pentagon confirmed at a news
conference that the National
Guard will be leaving the Capi-
tol on May 23.
“We have received no request
to extend it,” Department of
Defense spokesman John Kirby
said, referring to the National
Guard deployment around the
Capitol building.
• Require terms of service agree-
ments to be in plain language.
• Ensure that users have the abil-
ity to have access to any personal
information that has already
been collected and shared.
• Mandate that users be notified
of a breach of their information
within 72 hours.
• Offer remedies for users when a
breach occurs.
• Require that online platforms
have a privacy program in place.
Earlier this year, Sen. Josh Haw-
ley (R-Mo.) introduced legislation
designed to apply anti-trust poli-
cies to big tech firms.
“Woke Big Tech companies like
Google and Amazon have been
coddled by Washington politi-
cians for years. This treatment
has allowed them to amass colos-
sal amounts of power that they use
to censor political opinions they
don’t agree with and shut out com-
ICE Unable to Track Most Illegal Immigrants
Released Into Country
CONTINUED FROM A1
After being apprehended at the
border, illegal immigrants are
processed by Customs and Bor-
der Protection (CBP) to determine
who they are and whether they’re
subject to being immediately
turned back under the current
Title 42 public health provision.
Single adults from Spanish-
speaking nations are almost all
subject to immediate expulsion
under Title 42, according to Acting
CBP Commissioner Troy Miller.
But Border Patrol is also encoun-
tering more illegal aliens from
non-Spanish speaking nations,
in particular Brazil and Haiti.
Of the 178,000 illegal border
crossers encountered in April,
around 62 percent were expelled
quickly under Title 42, according
to CBP data.
The remaining 38 percent (or
68,000 individuals) were released
into the interior (family units),
into Health and Human Services
custody (unaccompanied minors),
or ICE custody (single adults from
non-Spanish-speaking nations).
In some border sectors, par-
ticularly the Rio Grande Valley in
south Texas, the Border Patrol fa-
cilities have been so overwhelmed
that many individuals weren’t re-
leased with the common Notice
to Appear document that states a
date and time to appear in court.
Rather, they received a Notice to
Report, which is an honor system
that requires the person to check
in at their closest ICE facility with-
in 60 days.
“For individuals that are just re-
leased with a notification to report
to ICE or to show up in court, then
our ability to track those folks quite
closely is much more limited,”
GRAEME JENNINGS-POOL/GETTY IMAGES
petitors who offer consumers an
alternative to the status quo. It’s
past time to bust up Big Tech com-
panies, restore competition, and
give the power back to the Ameri-
can consumers,” he said in an-
nouncing his proposal, the Bust
Up Big Tech Act of 2021.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who
is serving his first term in the Sen-
ate, recently introduced his 21st
Century FREE Speech Act, which
takes a different approach from
Kennedy and Klobuchar’s and
Hawley’s measures.
Hagerty took a cue from a con-
curring opinion by Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas,
who suggested Big Tech compa-
nies could be classified by the gov-
ernment as “common carriers,”
much like utilities.
“For too long, Americans have
watched Big Tech abandon the
foundational American princi-
ples reflected in the First Amend-
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
Border Patrol agents arrest seven
illegal immigrants who tried to
evade capture near Penitas, Texas,
on March 15. 2021.
Johnson said during a congres-
sional hearing on May 13.
About 20,400 individuals have
been released with a Notice to Re-
port, and Johnson said ICE has no
way to track those people or where
they plan to reside, as the agency’s
system doesn’t link to the informa-
tion Border Patrol collects at the
initial intake facility.
“Once they report to an ICE of-
fice, they’re put into our system of
record, and at that point we can
track those folks,” Johnson said.
“But otherwise, we would just have
to get a list from Border Patrol of
the 20,000 cases and check them
pretty regularly.”
Johnson said ICE has more suc-
cess tracking individuals that are
released under the alternatives
to detention program, including
those wearing an ankle monitor.
However, illegal immigrants
regularly cut off their ankle brace-
lets or fail to honor their obligation
to check in with ICE or turn up in
court.
“Based on the number of indi-
viduals that we enrolled in alter-
NATION | A3
ment—free speech, freedom of
thought and belief, free assembly,
and the open exchange of ideas,”
Hagerty said in introducing his
measure, which would reclassify
the Big Tech giants as Thomas
suggested.
Thomas explained his reasoning
in concurring with the Supreme
Court’s decision to decline to hear
a case against former President
Donald Trump for blocking peo-
ple from his since-banned Twitter
account.
“In many ways, digital plat-
forms that hold themselves out
to the public resemble traditional
common carriers. Though digi-
tal instead of physical, they are
at bottom communications net-
works, and they ‘carry’ informa-
tion from one user to another,”
Thomas wrote.
“A traditional telephone com-
pany laid physical wires to create
a network connecting people. Digi-
tal platforms lay information infra-
structure that can be controlled
in much the same way. And un-
like newspapers, digital platforms
hold themselves out as organiza-
tions that focus on distributing the
speech of the broader public.”
Federal law dictates that compa-
nies can’t “be treated as the pub-
lisher or speaker” of information
that they merely distribute, ac-
cording to 110 Stat. 137, 47 U.S.C.
Section 230(c). The analogy to
common carriers is even clearer for
digital platforms that have domi-
nant market share.
“Similar to utilities, today’s domi-
nant digital platforms derive much
of their value from network size.
The Internet, of course, is a net-
work. But these digital platforms
are networks within that network.
The Facebook suite of apps is valu-
able largely because 3 billion peo-
ple use it,” Thomas wrote.
Congressional correspondent
Mark Tapscott may be contacted
at mark.tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
natives to detention in FY20, we
had about 11,000 individuals ab-
scond from the program,” Johnson
said. So far, in fiscal 2021 through
March, Johnson said about 2,700
have absconded.
Under the agency’s narrowed
criteria for priority removal, most
of those who abscond won’t be a
priority for ICE to track down un-
less they commit an aggravated
felony. Nationwide, the agency
arrested 645 illegal aliens for re-
moval in March and 1,152 in April,
Johnson said.
The Fall of Title 42
Johnson’s biggest concern is the
impending removal of Title 42.
President Donald Trump imple-
mented Title 42 in March 2020,
which effectively closed the bor-
der to nonessential travel in at-
tempts to mitigate the spread of
COVID-19.
It allowed for Border Patrol to
turn back illegal border crossers
almost immediately, rather than
be placed in ICE custody for a more
protracted process through depor-
tation proceedings under Title 8.
Once Title 42 is revoked, the
3,000 to 3,500 single adults that
Border Patrol is currently arrest-
ing on a daily basis will have to be
accommodated by ICE.
At the same time, ICE has less
capacity than it did during the
previous border surge in 2019. ICE
had around 55,000 detention beds
in 2019; however the capacity was
reduced to 30,000 beds in the fiscal
2021 appropriations package.
“Title 42 is absolutely critical,”
Johnson said. “I don’t think it’s a
situation where it’s going to just be
lifted electively—we will be man-
dated, through some sort of court
order, to lift it.”
A4 | NATION
The State Department in Washington on July 17, 2019.
US to Grant Citizenship to Children
Born via IVF or Surrogacy
ZACHARY STIEBER
The United States is now granting
citizenship to children born abroad
through in vitro fertilization or oth-
er means of assisted reproductive
technology, such as surrogacy.
President Joe Biden’s administra-
tion is changing the federal govern-
ment’s interpretation of Section 301
of the Immigration and Nationality
Act (INA), which outlines the re-
Critical Race Theory Is ‘Racist,’ Harming
Our Children: FAIR Co-chair
TOM OZIMEK
Yiatin Chu, an Asian mother of two
and co-chair of the New York chap-
ter of the Foundation Against In-
tolerance and Racism (FAIR), said
that critical race theory is “racist”
and is having a harmful impact on
schoolchildren.
In an interview with NTD’s “Fo-
cus Talk,” Chu acknowledged the
presence of racism in the United
States, but disputed the notion of
systemic racism, a concept pushed
by critical race theory advocates.
“As a whole, going through the
New York City public school sys-
tem, as an immigrant, as someone
who didn’t even speak English
when I first started, I would say it’s
actually a very good system, a very
caring and open system,” she said.
“I don’t think that there is systemic
racism built into our New York City
public schools.”
Chu described critical race
theory as the idea that disparate
outcomes, such as academic com-
petency, can be reduced to a single
variable—race. Advocates of the
theory, which she said is increas-
ingly being taught at pre-college
levels, push the socialist notion of
equality of outcome, and blame
differences in outcomes on en-
trenched privilege while dividing
Chip Crunch Drives Ford to Cut Production, Including F-150 and Bronco Sport SUV
CONTINUED FROM A1
The company confirmed the
news in a statement to media out-
lets, in response to reports of an
internal Ford memo noting the
chip-driven production rollbacks
or stoppages.
“The global semiconductor
shortage continues to affect global
automakers as well as other indus-
tries,” Ford spokeswoman Kelli
Felker said in a May 19 statement
to Detroit Free Press.
The affected production facili-
ties are the Chicago Assembly
Plant, the  Flat Rock Assembly
Plant in Michigan, the truck lines
at Dearborn Truck Plant and Kan-
sas City Assembly Plant—which
build the company’s cash cow,
the F-150 pickup—the Hermosil-
lo Assembly Plant in Mexico, the
Oakville Assembly Complex in
quirements for acquisition of U.S.
citizenship at birth.
Previously, the government re-
quired children to have a biological
connection to their U.S. parent to
receive citizenship. Under the up-
dated interpretation, the child may
only have a biological connection
to one parent, even if that parent
isn’t a U.S. citizen.
“This updated interpretation
and application of the INA takes
people into “oppressors” and their
victims, the “oppressed.”
She said that the growing prev-
alence of critical race theory in
the classroom means “everyone’s
being judged, everything is being
looked at.
“Every picture you look at, every
classroom you look at, people are
looking at it by race—and it’s just
an awful thing to have to think this
way,” she said.
Anti-racist is actually
a new way of getting
racist outcomes.
Yiatin Chu, co-chair, Foundation
Against Intolerance and Racism’s
New York chapter
She said that she stepped into
education advocacy in response
to mounting pressure on selective,
exam-based admissions schools,
which she said “were being tar-
geted for being racist.”
Advocacy groups didn’t like the
fact that the outcomes of the ad-
missions process led to a high pro-
portion of Asian students admitted
relative to their representation in
the general population, she said.
Canada, and the Ohio Assembly voiced support for more domestic
Plant in Avon Lake.
The production downtimes for
the plants vary, but are generally ufacturing capacity,” Biden said.
scheduled for several weeks
in June.
“Our teams continue
making the most of our
available semicon-
ductor allocation and
will continue finding
unique solutions to
provide as many high-
quality vehicles as pos-
sible to our dealers and
customers,” Felker  told The 2021
Detroit News. Ford F-150
Ford’s announcement King Ranch
came a day after Presi- Truck.
dent Joe Biden visited a
Ford plant in Dearborn, Michi- semi-conductors and the small
gan, to pitch his American Jobs computer chips that make elec-
Plan, called for investment in tric trucks and cars go.”
electric vehicle production, and
SAMIRA BOUAOU/THE EPOCH TIMES
into account the realities of mod-
ern families and advances in as-
sisted reproductive technology
(ART) unforeseen when the Act
was enacted in 1952,” the State
Department told The Epoch Times
via email. “This change will allow
an increased number of married
couples, including those using
ART, to transmit U.S. citizenship
to their child born overseas, while
continuing to follow the citizen-
“And I’m thinking, well, what’s
so wrong about that? You know,
the admissions are fair, you’re tak-
ing a test. These are objective tests
that really don’t have any racial
aspect to it. But they were being
targeted,” Chu said.
Many of these schools have re-
placed the race-blind admissions
process with race-based lotteries
and quotas, in a bid to make the
demographics of the student popu-
lation more closely match that of
the general population in the re-
gion, she said.
Some parents initially support-
ing a race-blind admissions pro-
cess later came to understand
its underpinnings—critical race
theory—she said.
“It was about seeing the world
through the outcomes of dispa-
rate racial demographics and data
like that,” Chu said. “And the way
to correct it was to be anti-racist,
which is, you know, it sounds good,
but anti-racist is actually a new way
of getting racist outcomes.
“Is there racism? Of course,
there’s racism in this country.
There’s racism in New York. There’s
racism that we face every day. But
to say that it’s only racism and
nothing else is just not true.”
Chu also addressed the issue
of “equity,” a word she laments
chip manufacturing.
“We’re going to boost our man-
“That’s why the American Jobs
Plan invests in new and
retooled union facili-
ties: grants to kickstart
new battery and parts
production, loans and
tax credits to boost
manufacturing of
these clean vehicles.
“It also makes the largest
investment in research
and development in gen-
erations. That’s going to
help innovate, manufac-
ture, and build the supply
chains for batteries and
“Never again should we be in the
ship transmission requirements
established in the INA.”
The requirement for a biological
connection to a U.S. citizen remains
in place for unmarried parents.
The State Department declined
to provide an official policy update,
although it has altered language on
its website to reflect the updated
interpretation. The update is effec-
tive immediately and will be ap-
plied retroactively to Dec. 24, 1952,
so individuals who were ineligible
for a birth citizenship but aren’t any
longer can apply for it.
Immigration Equality, a group
that works for equality for LGBTQ
people, cheered the move.
“This is a remarkable moment for
all the LGBTQ families who fought
the U.S. State Department’s uncon-
stitutional policy,” Immigration
Equality Executive Director Aaron
Morris said in a statement.
In recent years, several same-sex
couples sued the U.S. government
over the policy, including U.S. citi-
zen Andrew Dvash-Banks and his
husband Elad Dvash-Banks, who is
a noncitizen.
The couple’s child was conceived
using an egg from an anonymous
donor and Elad’s sperm, meaning
there was no biological connection
to Dvash-Banks. The State Depart-
ment determined that their child,
E.J., was thus not granted citizen-
ship upon birth in Canada.
Federal courts ruled against the
State Department in that case, as
well as in another similar matter.
The State Department withdrew
its appeal last year in one case and
decided not to appeal the ruling in
another.
Allison Blixt, a lesbian parent
who filed a lawsuit against the gov-
Yiatin Chu, co-chair of the New York chapter of the Foundation Against
Intolerance and Racism, in an interview on NTD’s “Focus Talk,” on May 18, 2021.
has become hackneyed and dis-
torted by left-leaning advocacy
groups, who push for equality of
outcome, rather than equality of
opportunity.
She said policies should fo-
cus on providing students with
greater access to basic needs and
learning opportunities, rather
than trying to deny access to
schools based on race.
“What I find ... really sad about
this whole [critical race theory]
thing is ... these are neighbors.
These are colleagues. These are
classmates. And people are really
forced to look at each other purely
based on their race,” she said.
Chu said the driving force behind
the establishment of FAIR was
about “being pro-human.”
“What Martin Luther King
wanted for everyone is to be able
situation we face today with semi-
conductor shortages,” he added.
The chip crunch is affecting
the auto industry more broadly,
with  consulting firm AlixPart-
ners estimating last week that the
shortage will cost automakers $110
billion in lost revenues this year, up
from a prior estimate of $61 billion.
The chip shortage is pushing
companies to adjust their supply
chains and develop direct relation-
ships with semiconductor mak-
ers, according to Mark Wakefield,
co-leader of AlixPartners’ global
automotive practice.
Past supply and price disruptions
prompted automakers to enter into
direct supply agreements with pro-
ducers of certain raw materials,
such as palladium and platinum,
which are used in exhaust scrub-
bing systems. The auto industry,
which is heavily reliant on just-in-
FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
ernment after it denied citizenship
to her baby, called the updated in-
terpretation of INA a success.
“We are relieved and thankful
that our fight for our family to be
recognized by the government
has finally ended,” Blixt said in
a statement.
Under the updated
interpretation, the
child may only have
a biological connec-
tion to one parent,
even if that parent
isn’t a U.S. citizen.
Still, the new legal view could
make it easier to commit fraud,
according to some experts.
“This simply provides another
wrinkle for the marriage fraud
problem,” Jon Feere, director of
investigations for the Center for
Immigration Studies, told The
Epoch Times. “In theory, it could
have U.S. citizens offering to mar-
ry foreign nationals for a sum of
cash and, in exchange, that for-
eign national adds a U.S. passport
holder to their family.”
The State Department also ac-
knowledged this possibility in a
statement to The Epoch Times
“The department is keenly aware
of the potential for fraudulent
claims of citizenship or entitlement
to immigration benefits. As with all
citizenship and immigration ben-
efits we examine, the Department
implements this policy in a manner
that addresses our fraud concerns,”
the State Department said.
SCREENSHOT VIA FOCUS TALK/EPOCH TIMES
to be judged by the content of their
character and not the color of their
skin,” she said.
Critical race theory has gradu-
ally proliferated in recent decades
through academia, government
structures, school systems, and
the corporate world.
Proponents of critical race the-
ory have argued that it’s needed
to demonstrate what they say is
“pervasive systemic racism” and
facilitate rooting it out.
Critics draw parallels between
critical race theory and Marxism,
arguing that the concept advocates
for the destruction of institutions,
such as the Western justice system,
free-market economy, and ortho-
dox religions, while demanding
that they be replaced with insti-
tutions compliant with the critical
race theory ideology.
time production arrangements,
has tended to be reluctant to enter
long-term supply agreements due
to the associated financial liability.
The chip shortage is adding to
the pressure to make the switch,
with Wakefield saying that now,
“the risk is real. It’s not a poten-
tial” risk of losing production due
to chip shortages.
“These things are shocked into
existence,” he said of major supply
chain adjustments.
Ford’s announcement of pro-
duction rollbacks comes weeks
after the company stated that it
expects problems from the chip
shortage to reduce its earnings by
about $2.5 billion in 2021, while
Ford CEO Jim Farley warned in-
vestors several weeks ago that the
company expected to lose about
50 percent of its planned second-
quarter production.
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021 NATION | A5
SAUL LOEB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Protestors enter the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

Republicans Explain Why They Voted

for Jan. 6 Commission
DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

ZACHARY STIEBER target for extremists set on using violence

REPUBLICANS WHO VOTED IN FAVOR

to further their ideology,” Katko said.
The 35 House Republicans who joined “And we in Congress owe it to this nation,
with Democrats on May 19 to vote in favor
of establishing a commission to investi-
to our constituents, and to the dedicated
men and women who risk their lives every
OF ESTABLISHING THE COMMISSION:
gate the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach said single day to protect those institutions, Rep. Don Bacon Rep. Dusty Johnson
they did so because they want to make and I honor them, to see that we learn from (R-Neb.) (R-S.D.)
sure another incident like that never hap- those attacks, that we get answers to the Rep. Cliff Bentz Rep. David Joyce
pens again. hard questions, and that we do not repeat (R-Ore.) (R-Ohio)
“Like many Americans, I was appalled the mistakes of the past.” Rep. Stephanie Bice Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.)
by what took place on January 6th when Katko praised Capitol Police officers Bri- (R-Okla.)
a mob broke down windows and doors, an Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Ill.)
assaulted police officers, and threatened Washington officer Justin Smith, who died (R-Wyo.)
our very democracy,” Rep. David Valadao in the days after the attack from natural Rep. David McKinley
Rep. John Curtis (R-W.Va.)
(R-Calif.) said in a statement. causes or by suicide. (R-Utah)
“An independent commission, similar to Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said after the Rep. Peter Meijer
the 9/11-style review, is needed to remove vote that the commission should work to Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Mich.)
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) at (R-Ill.)
politicization and shed light on what led to figure out “why leadership utterly failed Rep. Mariannette
the U.S. Capitol in Washington
the attack and how members of Congress, to be prepared” on Jan. 6. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa)
on May 28, 2020. (R-Pa.)
intelligence agencies, and law enforce- “What happened that day must never Rep. Blake Moore
ment officials can ensure this never hap- happen again. I urge the Senate to pass Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Utah)
pens again.” the bipartisan 1/6 commission bill. Some (R-Neb.)
Rep. Dan Newhouse
Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) was the lone things must be above politics,” added Rep. Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Wash.)
Republican to speak in favor of the bill on Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who was recently (R-N.Y.)
Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.)
the House floor on May 19; Katko was a co- ousted from the House Republican lead- Rep. Carlos Giminez
sponsor along with Rep. Bennie Thompson ership team. (R-Fla.) Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.)
(D-Miss.), and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) said he support- An independent Rep. Maria Elvira
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez
Katko told members the commission “is ed the commission to get answers from Salazar (R-Fla.)
about finding the truth and addressing the congressional leaders, including House commission, (R-Ohio)
Rep. Mike Simpson
vulnerabilities of our security apparatus Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). similar to the Rep. Tony Gonzalez
(R-Texas) (R-Idaho)
so that we can emerge stronger and bet- “I want answers from Speaker Pelosi 9/11-style review,
ter prepared.” Upton said members still on the lack of adequate security in the Rep. Michael Guest Rep. Chris Smith
lack answers to basic questions about the U.S. Capitol during that day. More impor- is needed to (R-Miss.) (R-N.J.)
attack on the Capitol and believes the bi- tantly, understanding the events of Janu- remove politici- Rep. Jamie Herrera Rep. Van Taylor
(R-Texas)
partisan commission will find answers. ary 6th is critical so that the instances Beutler (R-Wash.)
“The Jan. 6 attack was a completely pre- of heroism can be recognized, and the
zation and shed Rep. Fred Upton
Rep. French Hill
ventable failure of intelligence, informa- errors made will never be repeated,” Hill light on what led (R-Ark.) (R-Mich.)
tion sharing, decision making, and pre- said in a statement. to the attack. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth Rep. David Valadao
paredness. The Capitol Police and D.C. The 10 House Republicans who voted to (R-Ind) (R-Calif.)
Police suffered greatly and continue to impeach former President Donald Trump Rep. David Valadao
Rep. Chris Jacobs Rep. Steve Womack
suffer as a result. The institutions of our for the second time in January all voted for (R-N.Y.) (R-Ark.)
democracy are and will continue to be a the commission.

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A6 | NATION
Arizona Auditor:
Did Not Backtrack
on Election
Database Deletion
Allegation
ZACHARY STIEBER
A forensic auditor helping conduct an
audit of 2020 election machines in Ari-
zona’s largest county disputed on May
20 reports claiming he backtracked on
allegations that files were deleted from
one of the machines.
“My testimony on May 19th before
the AZ Senate is being taken out of
context by some media outlets. To
confirm: the ‘Databases’ directory on
the EMS Primary Server WAS deleted
containing the voting databases. I was
able to recover the deleted databases
through forensic data recovery pro-
cesses,” Ben Cotton, founder of CyFIR,
said in a statement emailed to The Ep-
och Times by the audit’s liaison.
Some reports, including articles from
The Associated Press and CNN, alleged
auditors had “backtracked” from or
“reversed” allegations that files were
deleted from a machine.
I was able to recover
the deleted databases
through forensic data
recovery processes.
Ben Cotton, founder, CyFIR
AP, for instance, claimed that Cotton
said that “data was not destroyed, re-
versing earlier allegations that election
officials in the state’s most populated
county eliminated evidence.”
CNN claimed that auditors “back-
tracked” from claims that a key data-
base had been deleted.
Both outlets left out the crucial con-
text from Cotton’s testimony before
Arizona state senators on May 18.
Cotton said in examining the ma-
chine that he discovered a master file
table “that clearly indicated that the
database directory was deleted from
that server.”
“Subsequently, I’ve been able to re-
cover all of those deleted files, and I
have access to that data,” he said. “I
have the information I need from the
recovery efforts of the data.”
Outlets had only included the latter
portion in attempting to promote the
idea that Cotton’s testimony conflicted
with what Arizona Senate President
Karen Fann, a Republican, told Mari-
copa County in a May 12 letter.
The Associated Press and CNN didn’t
immediately respond to inquiries.
Fann told The Epoch Times on May
20 that there was no backtracking of
the deletion claims.
“The file was deleted but Cyfir was
able to recover it from other areas.
But yes, the file had been deleted on
that portion of the drive,” she wrote
in an email.
The Senate and its audit team have
clashed with county officials over the
claims.
In her recent letter, Fann said that
in addition to the database directory
apparently being deleted, the main
database for election management
system software wasn’t found any-
where on the machine.
“This suggests that the main data-
base for all election related data for the
November 2020 General Election has
been removed,” she wrote.
Maricopa County officials rebut-
ted the allegations in a letter, a board
meeting, and a technical analysis.
But Cotton stood by the audit’s pre-
liminary findings and said his team
is trying to ascertain whether the files
that were recovered can be analyzed.
“We are performing data continuity
checks to ensure that the recovered
databases are usable,” he said.
The audit is on hold as high school
graduations take place at Veterans
Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. It’s
scheduled to resume on May 24.
ARIZONA CAPITOL TELEVISION VIA NTD
Ben Cotton, founder of CyFIR, one of four
firms working on the 2020 election audit
in Maricopa County, Ariz., testifies to state
senators in Phoenix on May 18, 2021.
Mostly Republican Ballots Fail to Scan in
Pennsylvania County Election, Stoking Concerns
ZACHARY STIEBER
A number of ballots couldn’t be scanned dur-
ing local elections this week in a southwest-
ern county in Pennsylvania, triggering fresh
concerns about election integrity.
The ballots, mostly from Republican vot-
ers in Fayette County, were missing bar
codes that typically help facilitate elec-
tronic scanning.
“What we know at this point in time is that
a bar code that’s required to allow the paper
ballots to be scanned at the polling places
was missing,” state Rep. Matthew Dowling,
a Republican, told The Epoch Times.
George Rattay, chairman of the Fayette
County Democratic Party, was present when
the issues began around 7 p.m. on May 18.
He said nobody initially knew what the prob-
lem was. He and others went to the county
Bureau of Elections and found out it was a
bar code issue.
“The majority of them were Republican
ballots,” he told The Epoch Times.
A bureau spokeswoman declined to com-
ment, citing an ongoing investigation.
A hand recount was taking place on May 20.
The county said in a statement that the
bureau identified and was addressing “a
printing issue” with some of the primary
election ballots and that the issue was af-
fecting all parties.
“Alternative solutions to the scanning is-
sues were already established and are being
enacted. Election officials are currently in
direct contact with the judges of elections
at all precincts. All judges were trained on
these procedures prior to the election,” the
county said.
“Every voter will have an opportunity to
vote at their polling place. Election officials
will ensure every vote is counted.”
Republican county officials helped obtain
a judicial order that directed a hand count of
all unscanned ballots.
Dowling, state Rep. Ryan Warner, and
state Sen. Pat Stefano have issued a right-
to-know request seeking records involving
ballot and voting machine testing, as well
as financial records, including contracts,
Federal Labor Board’s Staff Cheered Biden’s Unprecedented
Firing of Trump-Appointed General Counsel
MARK TAPSCOTT
When President Joe Biden fired then-Na-
tional Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Gen-
eral Counsel Peter Robb within minutes
of taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, ca-
reer staffers cheered, according to internal
emails obtained by the National Right to
Work Foundation (NRTWF).
Biden’s demand that Robb resign his post
by the end of the official business day was
delivered to him within 23 minutes of the
inauguration, making the action one of the
very first taken by the new president.
When Robb refused to resign because he
had been appointed by President Donald
Trump in 2017 to a four-year term, Biden
fired him and his deputy Alice Stock, and
then named NLRB Regional Director in
Chicago Peter Sung Ohr as acting general
counsel. Robb was the first general coun-
sel to be fired in the history of the agency,
possibly setting a precedent for presidents
to remove appointees from the previous
administration upon taking office.
The NRTWF said in a statement on May
19: “Once appointed, Ohr swiftly began to
do the bidding of union officials, withdraw-
ing pleadings in cases filed by workers with
National Right to Work Foundation legal aid,
thereby preventing the cases from being de-
cided by the full Board in Washington, D.C.
“Among others, Ohr ordered the with-
drawal of two cases in which workers con-
tended that their employers’ ‘neutrality
agreements’ unlawfully aided union of-
ficials during organizing drives.”
Ultimately, Biden nominated former Com-
munications Workers of America (CWA) law-
yer Jennifer Abruzzo to replace Robb on a
permanent basis.
The CWA had endorsed Biden during the
2020 presidential election and contributed
funds and volunteers to a campaign to pre-
vent Trump from being elected to a second
term in the White House.
The NRTWF wrote: “Among the emails
unearthed in the FOIA [Freedom of Infor-
mation Act] request was a message to Ohr
from a redacted individual (identified in a
subsequent FOIA as longtime NLRB attorney
Emily Hunt) describing her reaction on the
day of Biden’s inauguration when she learned
that Robb had been removed: ‘I exclaimed
to myself, ‘This day just keeps getting better
Election workers count ballots at the Philadelphia Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2020.
relating to the printing of ballots and any
reports of ballot malfunctions.
“We do want to provide transparency and
let our constituents know how this blunder
happened,” Dowling told The Epoch Times,
adding that the county has not yet said why
the barcode was missing on some ballots.
“I’m assuming there was nothing nefari-
ous, although I think that does have to be
investigated to see why this happened.”
The issue compounds an already low
level of faith among some voters in election
integrity, with some of the representatives’
constituents saying they aren’t willing to
vote again.
Fayette County District Attorney Richard
Bower told CBS Pittsburgh that his office
plans to investigate what happened. The
office didn’t immediately return a voice-
mail on May 20.
Bill Kozlovich, chairman of the Fayette
County Republican Party, told The Epoch
Times that he believes the missing bar-
codes stemmed from a mistake by the
printing company.
and better!’ The email commends Ohr for
rescinding Robb’s memos.”
Other emails obtained by the foundation
include one from NLRB Region 31 director
Mori Rubin, who “derided Stock as a ‘clone’
of Robb. She said, ‘there is talk that Peter Ohr
may be appointed acting GC, which would
be wonderful!’ Respondents to the thread,
whose names are redacted, proclaimed: ‘Go
Biden!!’ ‘That would be terrific!’ and ‘Hope
this comes true!’”
Abruzzo’s confirmation hearing before
the Senate was marked by her refusal to
commit to recusing herself from cases in-
volving her former union employer, accord-
ing to the foundation.
The Biden Administration
continues to stack the deck
in favor of union bosses.
Mark Mix, president,
National Right to Work Foundation
“At a Senate hearing, Abruzzo admitted
she was part of the NLRB review team ad-
vocating Robb’s removal, thus undermin-
ing the independence of the very office she
seeks to hold. At the hearing, Abruzzo also
refused to commit to recusing herself from
cases involving her former employer or its
affiliates,” the foundation said.
The reference to the “NLRB review team” is
to the transition teams that are typically es-
tablished by a President-elect the day after an
election for the purpose of assessing depart-
ments and agencies for recommendations to
the incoming chief executive about policy
and personnel changes to be considered.
“The President’s unprecedented attack on
the NLRB’s Congressionally established in-
dependence should have shocked any NLRB
official concerned about neutrally applying
the law, rather than twisting it to the benefit
of the President’s political allies,” NRTWF
President Mark Mix said in the statement.
“Yet the documents obtained show the
Biden power grab was celebrated by many
inside the agency who are supposed to im-
partially apply the law.
“Independent-minded workers should not
have their cases adjudicated by officials who
FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
CHRIS MCGRATH/GETTY IMAGES)
“I honestly believe it was an honest mis-
take,” he said.
Fayette County uses Dominion Voting
Systems machines. Issues cropped up with
Dominion machines in Luzerne County in
the May 18 election. Those were blamed on
“a ballot screen error.”
Regarding the Fayette County issues, a Do-
minion spokesperson referenced the county
statement blaming a printing issue.
“Known conspiracy theorists have falsely
claimed that Dominion machines were at
fault. Dominion is not the ballot printing
vendor for Fayette County,” the spokesper-
son said via email. “Local Fayette elections
officials quickly implemented a back-up plan
and assured voters that every vote will be
tallied accurately.”
Rattay, the chair of the county’s Democratic
Party, urged people not to take out their an-
ger at what happened on polling workers,
because they weren’t involved with the issue
and are already overworked and underpaid.
“They’re going to get their ears beat off.
Well, they had nothing to do with it,” he said.
celebrate partisan, pro-union boss attacks
on the NLRB. The Biden Administration
continues to stack the deck in favor of union
bosses and against the rights of workers who
want nothing to do with union affiliation,
and these emails show many at the NLRB
seem all too happy to go along.”
The NRTWF statement also pointed to
emails separately obtained by the Free-
dom Foundation (FF) via a FOIA request
as evidence of the pro-union bias among
NLRB staff. Among the internal messages
published by the FF were these:
• A senior NLRB attorney emailed congratu-
lations to Ohr, describing his appointment
as “such a REFRESHING change!!!”
• In an email, an assistant general counsel
wrote Ohr, “Good for you, good for us, good
for the country!”
• A deputy regional attorney in Region
9 wrote to Ohr, “What you heard out in the
field upon your appointment was a huge
sigh of relief and hope from us.”
• In an email to Ohr, a field examiner super-
visor in Chicago thanked him for a Jan. 26
meeting between him and NLRB employ-
ees in her office, writing that Ohr embodies
“the true ethos of the Agency” and that his
remarks produced “a spark of hope in my
colleagues’ faces. People need to believe
that their work matters and their voices will
be heard, and you clearly communicated
that message.”
• A field attorney thanked Ohr for his “nu-
anced sensitivity to questions of privilege
and access” and for “imbuing our work
with more meaning, and for making so
many feel seen.”
Kayla Blado, the NLRB’s spokesman,
told The Epoch Times: “These are personal
comments from current and former career
employees congratulating Acting General
Counsel Peter Sung Ohr on his presidential
designation in this position after serving as a
career employee himself for several decades.
“As the first immigrant and Asian-Amer-
ican to hold this position, he was proud to
serve in this capacity and uphold the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act.”
Congressional correspondent
Mark Tapscott may be contacted at
mark.tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
US States Start
Seeing Days of Zero
COVID-19 Deaths
CONTINUED FROM A1
natural disease but also from the
vaccines. We also know that it’s a
seasonal disease.
“So the decline in March and
April was mostly due to immunity
but now, in May, seasonality has
also helped.”
Officials in Minnesota, which
reported zero deaths on five days
since March 22, said the success
stemmed from vaccination and
adherence to mitigation measures.
“We have seen declines in case
counts the last four weeks due to
increasing levels of vaccination.
Deaths lag behind infections and
case counts, so now, in general,
we are also seeing declines in
deaths,” Doug Schultz, a spokes-
man for the Minnesota Depart-
ment of Health, told The Epoch
Times in an email.
The decline in March
and April was mostly
due to immunity but
now, in May, season-
ality has also helped.
Martin Kulldorff, professor, Har-
vard Medical School
“Minnesotans, in general, have
also been vigilant in wearing
masks and social distancing and
adhering to other measures that
we know can slow the spread of
the virus and its variants, thus giv-
ing the vaccines a chance to work.”
As cases, hospitalizations, and
deaths fall across the nation, two
numbers have steadily risen:
those who have recovered from
COVID-19 and people who have
gotten the vaccine.
Cases dropped to a 10-month
Lawmakers Demand Reinstatement of
Space Force Officer Who Was Removed for
Denouncing Critical Race Theory
ISABEL VAN BRUGEN
A group of Republican lawmakers
sent a letter to the acting secretary
of the U.S. Space Force on May 19,
urging him to immediately rein-
state a lieutenant colonel who was
relieved of his command after pub-
lishing a book that warned of the
spread of Marxism and critical race
theory (CRT) in the military.
Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a
former instructor and fighter pi-
lot, was relieved as commander
of the 11th Space Warning Squad-
ron “due to loss of trust and con-
fidence in his ability to lead,” a
Defense Department official told
CNN on May 14.
The decision came after Lohm-
eier took part in podcasts to discuss
his self-published book, titled “Irre-
sistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal
of Conquest & the Unmaking of the
American Military,” which warns
against the spread of Marxism and
CRT in the military.
During an appearance on
the  podcast “Information Op-
eration,” Lohmeier criticized
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s
agenda. The department deemed
his comments to be “partisan po-
litical activity.”
In their letter, the two dozen Re-
publicans expressed their alarm
over the decision to relieve Lohm-
eier. They said it appeared to reflect
the development of an “increasing-
ly politicized environment” in the
Department of Defense, which has
now manifested in the Space Force.
The lawmakers criticized the use
of euphemisms such as “diversity
training” in describing CRT. Such
terms, they said, are “grotesque
distortions of reality.”
CRT has gradually proliferated
low in the United States last week,
hitting about 36,600 per day on
average. Hospitalizations have
decreased for all age groups,
including one of the most vul-
nerable populations—those 65
and older, with just 8,905 inten-
sive care unit beds occupied by
COVID-19 patients. Meanwhile,
deaths nationwide have dropped
to a seven-day average of 546, the
lowest since March of last year, as
of May 18.
“The past week has been a big
week, with progress and mile-
stones that set us on a path out
of this pandemic,” Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky
told reporters in a virtual briefing
this week, adding that Americans
should have “cautious optimism.”
The declining metrics mean
that the danger from the CCP
virus is lower because of fewer
people having the disease, but
older people should still be vac-
cinated to obtain protection
against infection and severe ill-
ness, Kulldorf said.
The number of people who have
recovered, meanwhile, is continu-
ing to rise, with those patients
enjoying some measure of natu-
ral immunity against the  CCP
(Chinese Communist Party)
virus, which causes COVID-19.
The number of Americans who
have gotten at least one dose of a
vaccine is up to 48 percent of the
population, or more than 159 mil-
lion. Over 80 million seniors have
received at least one dose.
Dr. Peter Gulick, who runs an
infectious disease clinic in Lan-
sing, Michigan, recalled one of his
patients who had received a vac-
cine dose getting COVID-19. But
the patient’s condition recovered
after treatment.
“He became a little hypoxic, we
Then-Capt. Matthew Lohmeier, 460th Operations Group Block 10 chief of
training, stands in the Standardized Space Trainer on Buckley Air Force Base,
Colo., on July 22, 2015.
in recent decades through aca-
demia, government structures,
school systems, and the corporate
world. It redefines human history
as a struggle between the “oppres-
sors”—white people—and the
“oppressed”—everybody else—
similar to Marxism’s reduction of
history to a struggle between the
“bourgeois” and the “proletariat.”
It labels institutions that emerged
in majority-white societies as racist
and “white supremacist.”
Like Marxism, CRT advocates for
the destruction of institutions, such
as the Western justice system, free-
market economy, and orthodox re-
ligions, while demanding that they
be replaced with institutions com-
pliant with the theory’s ideology.
Proponents of CRT have argued
that the theory is merely “demon-
strating how pervasive systemic
racism truly is.”
“Those leaders who are complicit
with this poisonous philosophy
which promotes racial essentialism
and collective guilt in our beloved
Pedestrians walk down South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, on March 3, 2021.
People wait to get COVID-19 tested at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium on the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin–Madison campus on Nov. 24, 2020.
put him on oxygen, we gave him
remdesivir and some steroids, and
then he went home, whereas with-
out the vaccine probably he would
have accelerated to maybe going
through the full COVID storm and
you’re on a ventilator and dying.
So I think you’re seeing some of
the positive effects of the vaccine,”
he told The Epoch Times.
Clinical trial data indicate that
the vaccines help prevent severe
DARREN SCOTT/U.S. AIR FORCE
military will be judged by history
accordingly,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Promoting critical race theory will
disrupt the good order and disci-
pline in the Space Force and evis-
cerate our nation’s ability to attract
patriotic talent to serve in uniform
and fight our wars.”
Signatory Rep. Doug Lamborn
(R-Colo.) said in a statement that
the military should focus on
threats to U.S. national security
and “not pandering to one politi-
cal ideology.”
“I can’t imagine a better way to
weaken ourselves in the midst of
a great-power competition with
China and Russia,” he said. “Lt. Col.
Lohmeier listened to the Secretary
of Defense and stood up against
extremism on the left. He should
be praised for his courage.”
Space Force officials didn’t re-
spond to a request for comment
by press time.
Petr Svab contributed
to this report.
ANDY MANIS/GETTY IMAGES
disease and death in recipients,
according to drug regulators.
Improved treatments are also
playing a role, including mono-
clonal antibodies. The treatment,
which was received by former
President Donald Trump last
year, can reduce the amount of
the CCP virus in a person’s sys-
tem, potentially leading to a lower
level of symptoms.
The positive signs have contrib-
Whitmer Faces
IRS Complaint,
New Bill Over
Florida Trip She
Failed to Disclose
ZACHARY STIEBER
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
is facing a complaint to federal tax
authorities and new state legisla-
tion over a trip she took to Florida
earlier this year but didn’t initially
disclose.
Whitmer, a Democrat, visited
her father in Florida in March. She
omitted the trip when discussing
her recent travel in April, but her
office has since reluctantly released
details about the trip following lo-
cal media coverage.
Whitmer’s office disclosed on
May 14 that Michigan Transition
2019, a corporate nonprofit formed
to pay for the governor’s inaugura-
tion, paid for the charter that flew
her to and from Florida, and that
the governor had paid $855 out of
pocket.
Michigan Rising Action, a non-
profit aimed to hold liberals ac-
countable, filed a complaint with
the Internal Revenue Service on
May 19, alleging that the personal
trip “is not within the exempt pur-
pose of Michigan Transition 2019.”
The corporate nonprofit’s $27,521
payment “was a private benefit to
Governor Whitmer,” it noted in the
complaint, encouraging federal tax
officials to investigate whether the
nonprofit violated tax law.
“Governor Whitmer’s use of
501(c)(4) funds for personal benefit
is a clear violation of the law, and
we’ve asked the IRS to launch a full
investigation into the matter,” Eric
Ventimiglia, executive director of
Michigan Rising Action, said in a
statement.
“From her blatant hypocrisy to
the litany of ethical and legal viola-
NATION | A7
MONTINIQUE MONROE/GETTY IMAGES
uted to virtually all states loos-
ening or abandoning COVID-19
rules, such as mask mandates or
social distancing requirements.
Those that reopened earlier than
others, such as Texas, didn’t see a
corresponding increase of cases,
hospitalizations, or deaths.
As far as herd immunity, experts
have pegged the range of those
needing immunity through prior
illness or vaccination at 70 percent
or even as high as 90 percent.
Gulick said herd immunity in
the United States is one thing, but
global immunity would be best
because of how frequently people
travel to and from the country.
Kulldorf said the threshold for
herd immunity changes based on
the season and location, depend-
ing on factors such as the density
of the population.
Kulldorff thinks it’s a good time
for people to try to resume their
pre-pandemic lives, suggesting
activities such as going to the
doctor for an annual visit and
spending time with family and
friends, and “start to repair some
of the damage or collateral dam-
age that we have had because of
the lockdowns.”
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at Beech
Woods Recreation Center in South-
field, Mich., on Oct. 16, 2020.
tions, Governor Whitmer has spent
the last two months misleading the
people of Michigan about her trip
to Florida. It’s time for her to be held
accountable.”
Republican lawmakers in Michi-
gan have recently introduced a bill
that would require Whitmer to no-
tify them when she plans to leave
the state.
“We’re simply asking to know
who is fulfilling the duties and re-
sponsibilities of governor in your
absence,” state Sen. Tom Barrett,
a Republican, told WLNS.
Whitmer’s office didn’t respond
to a request for comment.
In a statement to news outlets,
press secretary Bobby Leddy said
the Michigan Constitution already
clearly outlines a process to ensure
that there is always an acting gov-
ernor available to continue the
functions of the state in case of an
emergency.
“If the Legislature wants to waste
their time playing games, that’s
their own decision, but Gov. Whit-
mer is going to remain focused on
ending this pandemic and putting
Michigan back to work,” he said.
Michigan State Police spokes-
woman Shanon Banner told out-
lets that sending notification of the
governor’s travel plans would be
a security concern, especially in
light of the alleged kidnapping plot
against Whitmer that was uncov-
ered last year.
“The more people who know or
have access to her movements,
the higher the risk level for both
her and her executive protection
detail,” Banner said.
A8 | NATION FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021

Federal Judge Rejects Restraining Order on HUD Rule

Requiring College Boys and Girls to Share Bathrooms, Showers
MARK TAPSCOTT
A federal district court judge on May 19 re-
jected a motion filed on behalf of the College
of the Ozarks seeking a temporary restrain-
ing order (TRO) against a new regulation
barring schools from maintaining separate
bathrooms and showers for male and fe-
male students.
Government overreach
by the Biden administra-
tion continues to victim-
ize women, girls, and
people of faith.
Julie Marie Blake, senior counsel,
Alliance Defending Freedom
Judge Roseann Ketchmark of the U.S. Dis-
trict Court for the Western District of Mis-
souri heard arguments from both sides of the
case for about two hours, then said from the
bench that she was denying the motion and
observed that it was “not justiciable.”
It wasn’t clear from Ketchmark’s announce-
ment if she was referring simply to the TRO
motion or more generally to the school’s suit.
She said she would issue a written order soon.
The judge didn’t immediately respond to a
request by The Epoch Times for clarification.
In its request for the TRO, the school argued
that the new regulation “interferes with the
college’s speech, burdening its exercise of
its moral and religious principles, and in-
truding upon its students’ privacy. Without
emergency relief, the college must eliminate
its current housing policies, cease talking to
students about its policies, and stop planning
for fall semester housing, all in violation of its
longstanding religious beliefs, or else suffer
massive fines and investigatory burdens by
continuing to provide housing based on bio-
logical sex. The college thus asks this Court
to enjoin the directive in order to maintain
the legal status quo while this suit proceeds.”
Ketchmark was appointed to the federal
bench in 2014 by President Barack Obama
and confirmed by the Republican-led Senate
in September 2015.
“While we’re disappointed by the court’s
ruling yesterday, we are confident that the
College of the Ozarks will obtain the relief
Williams Memorial Chapel at the College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo., on April 30, 2016.
that it seeks as this case moves forward,”
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior
Counsel Julie Marie Blake told The Epoch
Times on May 20.
The school is being represented in the liti-
gation by ADF, which is an Arizona-based
public-interest law firm that specializes in
religious liberty litigation.
The firm has won 12 Supreme Court victo-
ries since 2001, including the landmark Mas-
terpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights
Commission, which affirmed that an in-
dividual couldn’t be required to provide a
service or message that conflicted with his
or her religious views.
“The federal government is seeking to force
private religious colleges to open females’
single-sex dorm rooms and communal
showers to biological males, if the male iden-
tifies as female,” Blake said.
NAN FRY VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/CC BY 2.0
“The Constitution guarantees that religious
schools, like College of the Ozarks, are free to
follow the religious tradition that inspires ev-
erything that they do. But this new policy that
redefines sex in federal law, a policy pushed
forward by President Biden, forces the Col-
lege of the Ozarks to open its dormitories to
members of the opposite sex.”
The regulation prompting the litigation
was issued by the Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD) following
President Joe Biden’s signing on his first day
in the Oval Office of an executive order di-
recting all federal agencies to reinterpret Title
VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in light of the
Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v.
Clayton County.
That court decision held that prohibitions
on sex-based discrimination must include
an individual’s gender identity and sexual
orientation. Based on Biden’s order, HUD
officials, led by Secretary Marcia Fudge, a
former Democratic congresswoman from
Ohio, issued a Feb. 11 directive that bars any
recipient of federal funds for any purpose
from segregating bathrooms, showers, and
other living quarters on the basis of gender.
The result, according to College of the
Ozarks, a Point Lookout, Missouri, private
Christian college established in 1906, is that
the institution will be forced to violate its
long-held religious beliefs and practices by
opening all campus living spaces to male
and female students, including dormitory
bathrooms and showers.
The school is challenging both the Biden
executive order and the HUD directive in the
U.S. District Court for the Western District of
Missouri’s Southern Division.
“The government cannot and should not
force schools to open girls’ dorms to males
based on its politically motivated and inap-
propriate redefinition of ‘sex,’” Blake told
reporters during a digital news conference
on May 19. “Women shouldn’t be forced to
share private spaces—including showers
and dorm rooms—with males, and reli-
gious schools shouldn’t be punished simply
because of their beliefs about marriage and
biological sex.
“Government overreach by the Biden ad-
ministration continues to victimize women,
girls, and people of faith by gutting their legal
protections, and it must be stopped.”
College of the Ozarks doesn’t charge tuition
but instead provides students with jobs on
campus and other financial assistance that
enable them to work their way to a degree.
The curriculum is “designed to develop
citizens of Christ-like character, who are
well-educated, hard-working, and patriotic,”
according to the suit. The college has about
1,200 male and female students living in nine
dormitories on the campus.
It also operates a K–12 grade school, which
allows the institution to provide a compre-
hensive K-to-college experience, providing
“the advantages of a Christian education
for youth of both sexes, especially for those
found worthy, but who are without sufficient
means to procure such training,” according
to its charter.
Congressional correspondent
Mark Tapscott may be reached at
mark.tapscott@epochtimes.nyc

North Carolina Restaurant Gets Backlash for Insisting
Customers Mask Up or Show Proof of Vaccination
TOM OZIMEK
The owner of Alpha Dawgs, a
restaurant in Raleigh, North
Carolina, said he has been facing
mounting backlash for demand-
ing customers either show their
proof of vaccination or mask up—
or be denied service.
Last Friday, Hisine McNeill,
owner of Alpha Dawgs, posted a
message on the restaurant’s Face-
book page that made clear his es-
tablishment’s policy on COVID-19
vaccines and masks.
‘To whom it may concern: If you
decide to come into my establish-
ment claiming that you are fully
vaccinated, I WILL ASK TO SEE
YOUR CARD. If you don’t want
to provide it then you will have
to wear a mask in my store. And
if you still don’t want to comply
with either then I have the right to
deny service. Thank you for your
cooperation,” the post reads.
“Again don’t get up here think-
ing this is a debate,” a follow-
up message states. “If you can’t
seem to understand what’s being
mentioned please don’t come. I’m
not endangering others for a few.
Have a great day.”
The Raleigh Republican Club
shared McNeill’s post, adding
the caption: “Should you be in
the area.... Eat somewhere else.”
McNeill told local outlet WREL
that, following the Raleigh Repub-
lican Party’s post, backlash over
his restaurant’s mask or vaccine
policy increased.
“People [were] trolling my busi-
ness page leaving fake/false re-
views, making claims I’m a Nazi
and stuff like that,” McNeill told
the outlet.
He told WREL that some of
his employees have underlying
SAUL LOEB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
health conditions, and he believes
his decision to require masks or
proof of vaccination is the right
thing to do.
“We value lives over profit,”
reads the most recent post on the
Alpha Dawgs page.
People who commented on
the Raleigh Republican Party’s
post were broadly supportive of
McNeill’s freedom to set policies
that he believes are right for his
business and employees in his
establishment.
The Epoch Times has reached
out to the Raleigh Republican
Club and to Alpha Dawgs for
comment, but did not receive a re-
sponse from either by press time.
Last week, North Carolina Gov.
Roy Cooper lifted the state’s mask
mandate, but recommended
that people who aren’t fully vac-
cinated continue to wear facial
coverings. This followed updated
guidelines from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), which stated that vacci-
nated individuals generally no
longer need to wear masks in any
settings, indoor or outdoor.
The issue of mask mandates and
proof of vaccination requirements
has become a divisive political
North Carolina
Gov. Roy Coo-
per speaks to
Guilford Tech-
nical Commu-
nity College in
Greensboro,
N.C., on April
19, 2021.
issue amid the pandemic, with
Republicans often arguing that
they amount to infringements on
personal liberties.
The relaxation of mask poli-
cies has led Republicans in the
House to voice their opposition
to the requirement that they
wear a mask on the House floor,
while Democrats—who hold a
majority in the chamber—are
refusing to change the rules fol-
lowing updated CDC guidance.
Some fully vaccinated people
are also not ready to give up wear-
ing masks.
Jan Massie, a retired Alabama
educator, is fully vaccinated
against COVID-19. She told The
Associated Press that she contin-
ues to wear a facial covering as an
extra precaution.
“I’ve worn a mask where it really
wasn’t required,” Massie told the
outlet. “Many people, more than
I expected, still are, too.”
Some fully vaccinated mask-
wearers are still worried about
new viral mutations and the
off-chance they might contract
COVID-19 and pass it along to
others, though the risks of both
are greatly reduced for those who
are fully inoculated.
US Wants to Force Reporting of Crypto
Transfers Over $10,000 to the IRS
ZACHARY STIEBER
The U.S. government has sug-
gested mandating the reporting
of cryptocurrency transfers of
more than $10,000 to the IRS, the
latest proposal by federal officials
to introduce more red tape into
the crypto space.
“As with cash transactions, busi-
nesses that receive cryptoassets
with a fair market value of more
than $10,000 would also be report-
ed on,” the Treasury Department
said in a May 20 report on efforts
to improve tax compliance. “Al-
though cryptocurrency is a small
share of current business trans-
actions, such comprehensive re-
porting is necessary to minimize
the incentives and opportunity to
shift income out of the new infor-
mation reporting regime.”
Federal law already requires
people to report cash transactions
of more than $10,000 to the IRS.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurren-
cies have become increasingly
popular among Americans, help-
ing some of the currencies to in-
crease significantly in value. Bit-
coin recently hit a record-high of
over $60,000, though it has since
gone as low as $32,061.55.
Cryptocurrencies are used to
store value and can be used in
transactions, primarily over the
internet. The most popular is bit-
coin, which was introduced in
early 2009. The currencies rely
on nodes scattered across the
world to check transactions in a
so-called ledger system, which
has been praised by some as
improving transaction security
and removing banks from the
equation.
Transactions are often con-
ducted through exchanges like
Coinbase. In recent years, U.S.
regulators have cracked down
on exchanges, forcing them to
gather more and more data from
customers based in the United
States. IRS officials have taken to
upping enforcement of tax pay-
ments owed from cryptocurrency
gains, drawing harsh criticism
from some early purveyors of the
new forms of currency.
The Treasury’s new report was
issued to outline how President
Joe Biden’s new tax compliance
initiatives—laid out in his pro-
posed American Families Plan—
would work. The plan involves
improvement at gathering taxes
by addressing loopholes that left
nearly $600 billion owed in 2019
uncollected.
The department said crypto-
currency transactions still con-
stitute a relatively small portion
of business income today, but
predicted they would “likely to
rise in importance in the next
decade, especially in the pres-
ence of a broad-based financial
account reporting regime.”
Cryptocurrencies were not
mentioned in the White House
fact sheet about the plan, which
is aimed at upping taxes to pay for
providing free preschool to all 3-
and 4-year-olds and free two years
of community college to adults.
Other Biden administration
officials have pushed for greater
regulation on the crypto space.
Gary Gensler, recently con-
firmed to head the Securities
and Exchange Commission,
told a House panel earlier this
month that the crypto asset mar-
ket “could benefit from greater
investment protection” and that
exchanges at this time don’t
“have a regulatory framework
that can instill greater confi-
dence” in consumers.
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021 CHINA | A9
HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES SERGIO FLORES/GETTY IMAGES

European Union flags flutter outside the

European Commission headquarters in
Brussels on Aug. 21, 2020.

European Parliament
Freezes China Deal
Until Beijing Lifts
Sanctions
CONTINUED FROM A1

Reinhard Bütikofer, a veteran German

Green Party politician and one of the
MEPs sanctioned by the Chinese regime,
wrote on Twitter after the vote that the
China deal “is definitely in the freezer.”

An aerial view of the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on April 17, 2020.
The European Parlia-
ment welcomed EU sanc-

House Intelligence Republicans Point

tions against Chinese
officials who are respon-
sible for human rights

to Wuhan Lab as CCP Virus Origin violations in Xinjiang.

“China miscalculated and shot them-
selves in the foot,” he wrote on Twitter.
MEPs also advised the European
FRANK FANG sistent with both COVID-19 and common to close down a WIV virus database. Commission, the European Union’s ex-
seasonal illnesses.” Beijing also silenced whistleblower doc- ecutive body, that Parliament will take
Republican members of the House Intel- The Chinese regime has denied that the tors in late December 2019 when they tried into account the human rights situa-
ligence Committee believe it to be more virus’s origin was linked to the WIV and has to warn the public of an “unknown pneu- tion in China, including in Hong Kong,
likely that the CCP virus originated within pushed a natural zoonotic hypothesis—that monia” outbreak in Wuhan. when deciding whether to endorse the
a Chinese laboratory than from an animal, the virus was transmitted to humans from “The WIV and the Chinese government agreement.
according to their interim report published an animal host. However, Beijing has so far stymied and manipulated the World The European Parliament welcomed
on May 19. failed to identify the original animal spe- Health  Organization’s 28-day review of EU sanctions against Chinese officials
“There is overwhelming circumstan- cies that allegedly passed the virus on COVID-19’s origins,” the report stated as who are responsible for human rights
tial evidence ... to support a lab leak to humans. another example of China’s cover-up. violations in Xinjiang.
as the origination of COVID-19,” According to the report, Beijing The WHO led a mission to Wuhan earlier The EU lawmakers also called for a
stated the report, which was led tested more than 80,000 animals this year in an effort to trace the origins of rebalancing of EU–China relations.
by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and still couldn’t identify the the virus. Its findings, presented in a report They expressed support for a “toolbox”
the ranking member on the original species. released in late March, concluded that the of measures, such as legislation against
committee. “By contrast, little Additionally, the report also lab leak theory was “extremely unlikely” the distortive effects of foreign subsidies
circumstantial evidence has pointed to previous lab leaks in while the zoonotic hypothesis was a “pos- on the internal market. They also called
emerged to support the PRC’s China, including one in Beijing sible-to-likely pathway.” for an import ban on products linked to
[People’s Republic of China] claim in 2004. forced labor, as well as an enhanced and
that COVID-19 was a natural occur- The 2004 leak involved China’s strengthened EU Foreign Investment
rence, having jumped from some National Institute of Virology, Screening Regulation.
Ranking
other species to humans.” Member where researchers were carrying U.S. Government must The lawmakers stressed that the EU
COVID-19, a disease caused by the Rep. Devin out experiments using SARS coro- needs to adequately address China’s cy-
CCP (Chinese Communist Party) vi- Nunes navirus. The incident came follow- place more pressure on bersecurity threats and hybrid attacks.
rus, first appeared in China’s central (R-Calif.). ing the 2002 SARS epidemic, which China to allow full, cred- Also on May 20, 55 Chinese human
city of Wuhan in late 2019, when a infected 2,769 people and killed 425 ible investigations of the rights defenders and activists in exile
cluster of cases was linked to a local outside of mainland China, accord- across Europe issued an open letter urg-
wet market. More than a year later, the ori- ing to data from the World Health Organi- source of the COVID-19 ing all EU member states to suspend all
gins of the virus remain unknown, though zation (WHO). Experts say the numbers pandemic. bilateral extradition agreements with
the focus now has been on the theory that inside China are likely much higher than the Chinese regime.
the virus was leaked from a laboratory at officially reported. House Intelligence Committee Signatories include former Hong Kong
China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). There were also existing safety concerns GOP members lawmaker Nathan Law; artist and activ-
WIV is home to China’s only P4 lab—the regarding the WIV. According to the report, ist Ai Weiwei; Angela Gui, the daugh-
highest level of biosafety—and it’s located health and science experts from the U.S. Critics have denounced the WHO inves- ter of abducted Swedish bookseller Gui
not far from the city’s wet market. A State Embassy in Beijing warned Washington tigation as lacking independence. Earlier Minhai; and Dolkun Isa, the president
Department fact sheet released in January about a possible “new SARS-like pandem- this month, 18 medical experts in biology, of the World Uyghur Congress. Their
stated that the WIV had been conducting ic,” after multiple visits to the WIV between epidemiology, immunology, and virology effort was endorsed by lawmakers of
experiments on bat coronavirus starting late 2017 to March 2018. The experts iden- signed a joint letter calling for a “proper in- the European Parliament and national
at least as far back as 2016. The institute tified “grave safety concerns” associated vestigation” into the virus origins, including parliaments of EU member states.
also carried out “laboratory animal experi- with the WIV’s practices that could lead to examining the lab leak theory. “As long as extradition treaties with
ments” for the Chinese military since at accidental leaks. “To protect American citizens from fu- the People’s Republic of China remain
least 2017. Beijing’s decisions to cover up the out- ture pandemics, the U.S. Government must in force, hundreds of Uyghurs, Tibetans,
More importantly, the department stated break also served as circumstantial evi- place more pressure on China to allow full, Hong Kongers, and Chinese dissidents
that it had reason to believe that “several dence to the lab leak theory. According to credible investigations of the source of the living in Europe are under threat,” said
researchers inside the WIV became sick the report, these moves included failing to COVID-19 pandemic and to allow probes Engin Eroglu, a German MEP.
in autumn 2019, before the first identified acknowledge that the CCP virus was con- of the likelihood that it resulted from a lab
case of the outbreak, with symptoms con- tagious until Jan. 20, 2020, and the decision leak,” the report concluded. Reuters contributed to this report.

CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES

15,000 Evacuate as Shenzhen rising temperatures.

On May 19, SEG’s stock price had dropped

Skyscraper Wobbles in Fine Weather more than 7 percent on the Shenzhen Stock
Exchange, and closed 4.88 percent lower

Without Earthquake
than the opening price.

NICOLE HAO
A 70-plus-story skyscraper in China’s tech
hub of Shenzhen city swayed again on May
19, after it inexplicably wobbled and caused
15,000 people to evacuate the day before.
No earthquake had been reported in the
region, which was only experiencing light
winds.
The swaying of the 21-year-old building
started at approximately 12:31 p.m. local
time on May 18.
Videos circulating on social media showed
people running away from the building,
with some screaming, holding umbrellas,
and looking back over their shoulders.
Chinese media reported that all 15,000
evacuees escaped from the building within
90 minutes. Nobody was injured.
On May 19, local media reports said the
building had started to sway again, al-
though not as dramatically as it had on
May 18. The building remained closed for
investigation, although the property man-
ager—Shenzhen SEG Co. Ltd.—had allowed
shop owners from the major electronics
market into the first 10 levels of the building
to collect their goods.
Three floors of crypto-mining computers
in the electronics market—one of the main
crypto-mining markets in China—weren’t
accessible due to the incident.
Late May 19, the local government an-
nounced that investigating engineers had
been unable to determine the cause of the
swaying, while noting that  none of the
building’s movements since they started
monitoring late May 18 had exceeded
building code limits for skyscrapers.
Experts found “no safety abnormalities in
the main structure and surrounding envi-
ronment of the building,” the local govern-
The 300-meter SEG Plaza in Shenzhen,
Guangdong Province, China, on May 19, 2021.
ment said in a statement.
Local media reports on May 20 follow-
ing preliminary assessments noted that
the skyscraper didn’t have a tuned mass
damper—a large pendulum-like device
installed in high-rises to reduce excessive
swaying.
The  department of emergency man-
agement of Guangdong Province also
confirmed that the preliminary findings
pointed to vertical rather than horizontal
movement, which was said to be caused
by factors such as winds, underground
rail lines, and the expansion of steel with
Shenzhen Landmark
SEG Plaza is a landmark in Shenzhen. The
building is 1,167 feet (355.8 meters) high,
and the architectural height is 957 feet
(291.6 meters).
The building has 75 floors above ground
and four floors underground. The under-
ground floors are parking and equipment
levels. The first 10 floors above ground are
the electronic market, and the upper floors
are offices and a hotel, according to Shen-
zhen city government-run Shenzhen News.
According to the online database Council
on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, SEG
Plaza is the 18th-tallest building in Shen-
zhen and the 104th tallest in China.
Building collapses have been reported in
China. On March 7, 2020, 29 people were
killed as the five-story Xinjia Hotel, which
was being used for COVID-19 quarantine,
collapsed in Quanzhou in southern Chi-
na’s Fujian Province.
A10 | WORLD FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021

STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

among a family of 12 people who traveled

to Bayuquan District of Yingkou City in
Liaoning, which has reported clusters of
COVID-19 infections since last week.
The city of Yingkou alone has issued a
total of 14 official letters of assistance to
six provinces, five cities, and one autono-
mous region to track down close contacts
of infected patients.
As of May 19, other provinces and cities
have not reported any COVID-19 cases
related to Yingkou yet.
Officials in Liaoning and Anhui prov-
inces are still blaming each other for being
responsible for this round of COVID-19
outbreaks in China, as the name of “pa-
tient zero” has yet to be reported.
The unknown source of transmission
has caused panic among Chinese neti-
zens, who question the official story. One
posted, “Why other people who went to
Yingkou were fine, only the ones from
Shenyang were infected?”
Another asked, “How come they got in-
fected at a place where there have been no
cases reported for more than half a year.
This is the key question.”
Netizens have posted on Chinese so-
cial media images of neighborhoods be-
ing sealed off in Yingkou. Similar images
from Shenyang were also posted.
People lining up to be tested for COVID-19 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China, on Jan. 2, 2021. Mirroring reports from Shenyang, neti-
zens said that community epidemic pre-
vention personnel in the town of Xiongyue
in the Bayuquan District in Yingkou began
COVID-19 Outbreak in China to block off related residential commu-
nities, including sealing off building en-
trances and the doors to residents’ homes.

Extends to 6 Provinces; Source of On May 17, locks were put on community

doors and unit building doors. Some
building doors were even welded shut.

Infection Still Unknown
CONTINUED FROM A1
off residential communities, as well as bar-
ricading the entrances of some homes and
the windows of some buildings, which would
constitute a breach of basic human rights.
An employee of a supermarket near the
Yiyuan Community in the Heping District
of Shenyang, told NTD, a sister media of
The Epoch Times: “Yiyuan Community is
under lockdown, and people can only en-
ter and cannot exit. It’s just because some
residents there went to Yingkou for vaca-
tion during the May Day holiday.”
Wu Zunyou, the chief expert on epide-
miology in China, told Chinese media that
this round of outbreaks could be traced
back to the May Day holiday, when large
gatherings and travel led to a jump in cases
of virus transmission. Experts have also
said that there’s now an elevated risk of
spread in China.
Currently, confirmed COVID-19 cases
have only been officially reported in Lia-
Local officials oning and Anhui provinces. However, Chi-
were again nese contact tracing practices have been
seen sealing enacted in seven provinces and regions,
including Beijing, Hubei, Jiangsu, Gansu,
off residential and Shanxi.
communities, A notice from the ruling Chinese Com-
munist Party’s Health Commission said
as well as bar- that local cases were still being reported
ricading the on May 17 in Liaoning Province. Shenyang
entrances of designated three more regions as medium-
risk, bringing the total number of medi-
some homes um-risk areas in China up to 22. Local
and the win- officials also announced mass testing for
dows of some all residents in several Shenyang districts
with elevated risk.
buildings. The Shenyang government announced
that between May 15 and May 16, a 61-year-
old retired man and his 83-year-old moth-
er were infected by the virus. During the
May holiday week, these two cases were
After the May holiday week, official state
media Xinhua reported a suggestion from
China’s Center for Disease Control and
Prevention that people monitor their
health for CCP virus symptoms when
returning from travel. The news caused
people to suspect that the CCP has been
concealing the real situation of the CO-
VID-19 epidemic in China since the start
of the crisis in Wuhan, as very few cases
have been reported compared to other
countries.
Qin Peng, a U.S.-based current affairs
commentator, told The Epoch Times
that this round of COVID-19 infection
occurred after months of no local cases
being reported in China. Since informa-
tion released by the Chinese communist
regime is not transparent, he believes
that the COVID-19 epidemic never dis-
appeared in China and that the Chinese
regime just didn’t report on it. When there
were reports, officials would say the virus
cases came from abroad, he said.
Huang Yun and Xiao Lusheng
contributed to this report.

FADEL SENNA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Migrants Push for Spain’s Ceuta Again Greece Evacuates

After Border Security Tightened
CEUTA, Spain/FNIDEQ, Morocco—Hun-
dreds of migrants tried to force their way
past tightened security into Ceuta on May
19, as Spain pressed on with the expulsion
of thousands who had swum or climbed
into its North African enclave over the past
two days.
Around two-thirds of the roughly 8,000
migrants who made it to Ceuta, including
unaccompanied children, have been ex-
pelled, Spanish authorities say, though many
of those returned said they would again try
to reach Europe.
As thousands gathered in the Moroccan
border town of Fnideq, near the frontier with
Ceuta, hundreds of them clashed after dark
with Moroccan riot police, throwing stones
and setting on fire a motorbike and a trash
bin, a Reuters witness said.
The rush of migrants began on May 17
when Morocco appeared to loosen border
controls, a move widely interpreted as retali-
ation for Spain’s hosting of a Western Sahara
independence leader.
As dense afternoon fog descended on May
19, hundreds of young men tried to approach
the six-meter-high (20-foot-high) border
fence before being repelled by Moroccan
police, who later urged the crowd to disperse.
Others had entered the water and begun
swimming toward Ceuta’s beach a few hun-
dred meters (yards) away. Spanish televi-
sion showed the army meeting boys as they
reached the shore. Some 1,500 underage mi-
grants are now in reception centers in Ceuta
from this and previous waves, Spain said.
On the northern tip of Morocco across
from Gibraltar and with a population of
80,000, the enclave has periodically been
a magnet for refugees seeking a quick way
into Europe. But Rabat has cracked down
on border traffic in recent years.
‘Juice and a Cake’
“I am not losing hope. I have friends in
Ceuta where I can stay till I get a chance
to cross to Spain,” Souhail Abbadi, a man
in his 20s from Tangier in northwest Mo-
rocco, told Reuters.
Earlier, Spanish police and soldiers escort-
ed long lines of Moroccans and other mainly
sub-Saharan Africans through a gate back
into Morocco.
“We were given juice and a cake, that is all,”
said Mohamed, from Ait Melloul in south-
west Morocco, after Spanish soldiers sent
him back as soon as he arrived.
He and many other returnees gathered in
Fnideq, where they said they were receiving
no aid.
Rights group Amnesty International said
Spanish security forces had used violence,
including beating migrants or throwing
them into the sea. It also accused Morocco
of using migrants as pawns in its dispute
with Spain.
Migrants interviewed by Reuters said they
had been beaten by Spanish security forces
before being sent back to Morocco. A Reuters
journalist watching the arrivals in Ceuta on
May 19 didn’t see any beatings or people be-
ing thrown into the sea.
Many of the migrants still in Ceuta were
children, some as young as seven and some
without families, said Spain’s Social Rights
Minister Ione Belarre.
“Many of them did not know the conse-
quences of crossing the border. And many
of them want to go back,” she told broad-
caster TVE.
Reuters TV footage showed hundreds of
teenagers being processed at a warehouse
where Red Cross officials gave out food
and drink.
‘What Did Spain Expect?’
Morocco’s minister of state for human rights,
El Mustapha Ramid, suggested late on May
18 that Rabat was justified in relaxing bor-
der controls after Polisario Front rebel leader
Migants climb a sea wall in Fnideq after
attempting to cross the border from Morocco
to Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta on
May 19, 2021.
Brahim Ghali entered Spain.
“What did Spain expect from Morocco,
which sees its neighbor hosting the head of
a group that took up arms against the king-
dom?” he wrote in a Facebook post.
Madrid said it had made a humanitarian
decision to allow in Ghali, whose movement
seeks independence for Moroccan-run West-
ern Sahara.
In a further twist, Spain’s high court sum-
moned Ghali to appear on June 1 for a pre-
liminary hearing in a war crimes case against
him, but he declined to sign the papers, a
court document that was seen by Reuters
on May 19 showed.
A source close to the investigation said he
might seek diplomatic immunity under an
Algerian passport.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
didn’t link events in Ceuta to Ghali’s situ-
ation, calling Morocco a friend of Spain,
though Rabat recalled its ambassador to
Madrid for consultations.
Moroccan authorities didn’t respond to
requests for comment.
By Mariano Valladolid & Ahmed Eljechtimi
From Reuters
More Villages as
Forest Fire Spreads
to Attica Region
ATHENS—Greek authorities or-
dered the evacuation of more vil-
lages threatened by a forest fire on
May 20 as winds strengthened and
firefighters battled the blaze, which
had already scorched 20 square ki-
lometers of woodland.
No deaths were reported as a result
of the fire, which broke out during
the night of May 19 in a forest at a
small seaside holiday resort on the
Gulf of Corinth, about 55 miles west
of the capital, Athens.
Seven villages and two monas-
teries in the Geraneia mountains
have been evacuated since May 19
after the blaze moved eastward and
crossed into western Attica province.
Residents of four more villages re-
ceived a text message from the au-
thorities earlier on May 20, advising
them to leave their homes and move
toward the town of Megara.
“They were asked to move away as
wind speed strengthened to eight
on the Beaufort scale,” a fire brigade
official said.
The fire has burned mainly wood-
land and thick vegetation, another
fire brigade official said. State televi-
sion showed images of some vaca-
tion homes and transmission towers
damaged by the blaze.
In parts of Athens, the smell of
fire was suffocating and the sky had
turned gray from the smoke.
More than 200 firefighters were
battling the blaze, backed by more
than 80 fire trucks, 17 aircraft, and
one helicopter, the fire brigade said.
By Angeliki Koutantou
From Reuters
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021 WORLD | A11
ANTHONY DEVLIN/GETTY IMAGES FOR MSC CRUISES

UK Holidaymakers,
Travel Companies
Urged to Be ‘Patient’
and ‘Flexible’
LILY ZHOU

UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps Shapps said

is asking for “patience” from vacation-
ers who are eager to go to destinations
on the government’s “amber list.”
The appeal follows Prime Minister
Boris Johnson’s comment a day ear-
lier that people shouldn’t go to am-
ber list countries except in extreme
circumstances.
“The amber list and the red list are
not for holidaymakers, that’s not the
purpose of those lists at this time,”
Shapps told BBC Radio 4 on May 20,
as he spoke to a number of broad-
casters to start the government’s rail
reform plan.
“We just think that after a year of
lockdowns in this country, of people
coming forward in record numbers
to get their vaccines, we do not want
to be in a position of taking risks at
this stage about our unlock,” he said.
Shapps said the government is “ just
asking people to be a little bit patient”
as other countries catch up with their
vaccination programs.
Under the UK government’s traffic
light system for international travel,
people returning from “red list”
countries have to pay for a 10-day-
quarantine in a managed hotel and
two CCP (Chinese Communist Party)
virus tests; “amber list” arrivals have
to pay for tests and self-isolate for 10
days, while “green list” arrivals only
have to take two tests—before travel-
ing and two days after returning.
“There’s an awful lot that you have
to do, and clearly most people are
not going to want to go through all of
that,” Shapps told the BBC.
When asked why there are still
the govern-
ment is ‘just
asking people
to be a little
bit patient’ as
other coun-
tries catch up
with their vac- Two men photograph the LED sky dome on the promenade during the first sailing of brand new ship MSC Virtuosa, the first cruise
to depart the UK since lockdowns began, in Southampton, England, on May 20, 2021.
cination pro-
grams.
direct flights from red list coun-
tries such as India, Shapps told Sky
News: “You cannot prevent British
citizens from returning home; no
country can ban its own citizens.”
People on the flights were only Brit-
ish or Irish citizens or those with per-
manent residence, and “it’s illegal to
come here as a holidaymaker from a
red list country,” Shapps said, adding
that it was simpler to send people to
quarantine hotels from a direct flight.
If there were no direct flights, “you
would be forcing a situation where
people end up spread amongst many
other flights and making it harder to
carry out the mandatory hotel quar-
antine,” he said.
EasyJet Chief Executive Johan Lund-
gren on May 20 confirmed that people
UK Transport had been booking flights to amber
Secretary Grant countries for leisure.
Shapps. “There’s a lot of people out there who
have as a top priority coming through
this pandemic to go on that holiday
break,” Lundgren said. “That is what
people are doing.”
Asked why holidays in amber list
countries were being sold, Shapps
told Sky News that the government
had moved away from a system where
things were “banned and illegal” to a
situation where people were expected
to “apply a bit of common sense.”
He urged travel companies to help
people rebook their holidays.
Speaking to Times Radio, Shapps
said because there’s “not free and
open travel” to amber list countries,
“travel companies who stick to that
and refuse to rebook, I would suggest
are not in the right place.”
“I just appeal to the holiday compa-
nies, and there is protection in place for
particularly package holidays through
the Atol system, to be as flexible as pos-
sible and as helpful as possible,” he told
ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
“It is, I know, a frustrating situation
as we all sit here, frankly, and wait to
see what the virus does next.”
He acknowledged that “there’s no
doubt at all” that the CCP virus “has
made life impossibly difficult not just
for holidaymakers but for travel com-
panies as well.”
But Lundgren argued that the UK
is “falling behind” other European
countries in terms of reopening travel.
“We have looked at the data that is
available and the scientific evidence
shows that you have a number of
countries in Europe that are now on
the amber list that should go into the
green list,” Lundgren said. “You can
see that that is happening in Europe as
we speak. European travel is opening
up at [a] large scale. This is not about
whether the UK is risking falling be-
hind. It is falling behind as we speak.”
EU ambassadors on May 19 rec-
ommended during a meeting that
rules should be changed to allow
fully vaccinated people into the EU
for nonessential visits.
“We urge the government to look at
this data again and make sure that
they also are following the rules and
the conditions that they set up them-
selves,” Lundgren said.
Shapps told BBC Radio 4 that the
government is reviewing the list every
three weeks, with the next review in
the first week of June.

Israel, Hamas Agree to Ceasefire Over Gaza
Conflict: Netanyahu’s Office
CONTINUED FROM A1
Joe Biden spoke to Netanyahu
over the phone and urged for
a ceasefire with Hamas earlier
this week, according to a White
House readout.
White House press secretary
Jen Psaki told reporters on May
20 that reports about a possible
ceasefire were “encouraging.”
The United States is trying “to
do everything we can to bring
an end to the conflict.”
U.N. Secretary-General  An-
tónio Guterres on May 20 also
ramped up his calls for a cease-
fire and said that “there is no
justification, including counter-
terrorism or self-defense, for the
abdication by the parties to the
conflict of their obligations under
international humanitarian law.”
Biden, during his May 19 call
with Netanyahu, said Israel
should engage in a “significant
de-escalation today on the path
to a cease-fire.” Netanyahu
pushed back and told media out-
lets that he was instead “deter-
mined to continue this operation
until its aim is met.”
During the conflict, Hamas
fired thousands of rockets into
Israeli civilian areas beginning
Netanyahu’s secu- on May 10. Israel responded with
rity cabinet agreed hundreds of airstrikes and sev-
to ‘accept the eral ground strikes.
The Israeli military, mean-
Egyptian initiative while, reported that between 7
for a mutual cease- a.m. and 2 a.m. local time, 300
rockets were fired from Gaza,
fire without any with 299 of them entering Isra-
conditions.’ el, although about 90 percent of
them were intercepted, reported
Haaretz.
At least 230 Palestinians have
been killed and 1,710 people
were wounded, according to
the Gaza Health Ministry, al-
though it doesn’t separate the
numbers into civilians and
fighters. Hamas and fellow ter-
ror group Islamic Jihad stated
that at least 20 of their members
were killed, while Israeli officials
have placed that number as be-
ing much higher.
Twelve people in Israel, includ-
ing a 5-year-old boy, a 16-year-
old girl, and a soldier, have been
killed. The military said an anti-
tank missile fired from Gaza hit
an empty bus near the frontier
on May 20, lightly wounding an
Israeli soldier.

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TRUTH AND TRADITION


Israel’s Iron Dome aerial defense system is activated to intercept a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Palestinian Hamas group, above the southern Israeli city of Ashdod on May 12, 2021.
Why Does the Left
Seemingly Hate Israel?
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
With more than 3,000
rockets having been fired
into Israel by Hamas
recently, the Democratic
Party seems paralyzed
over how to respond to
the latest Middle East war.
It’s not just that they fear that “The
Squad,” Black Lives Matter, the shock
troops of Antifa, and woke institutions
such as academia and the media are now
unapologetically anti-Israel. They are also
terrified that anti-Israelism is becoming
synonymous with rank anti-Semitism.
And soon, the Democratic Party will end
up as disdained as the British Labour
Party under Jeremy Corbyn.
The new core of the Democrats, as em-
blemized by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Min-
nesota, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan,
has in the past questioned the patriotism
of American Jews who support Israel,
and occasionally has had to apologize for
puerile anti-Semitic rants.
For the left, Israel’s current
strength, confidence, and success
mean it cannot be seen as a
victim, but only as a victimizer.
The left in general believes we should
judge harshly even the distant past with-
out exemptions. Why then, in venom-
ous, knee-jerk fashion, does it fixate on
a nation born from the Holocaust while
favoring Israel’s enemies, who were on
the side of the Nazis in World War II?
It wasn’t just that the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, was a Nazi
sympathizer. Egypt, for example, wel-
comed ex-Nazis for their hatred of Jews and
their military expertise, including infa-
mous death camp doctor Aribert Ferdi-
nand Heim and Waffen-SS henchman Otto
Skorzeny. The Hamas charter still reads like
it is cribbed from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
The left claims it champions consen-
sual government and believes the United
States must use its soft-power clout to
isolate autocracies. But the Palestinian
OPINION
FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021 • A13
Authority and Hamas refuse to hold free
and regularly scheduled elections. If an
Israeli strongman ever suspended free
elections and ruled through brutality,
U.S. aid would be severed within days.
If history and democratic values can’t
fully explain the apparent hatred of Israel
on the left, perhaps human rights viola-
tions do. But here, too, there is another ex-
ample of radical asymmetry. Arab citizens
of Israel enjoy far greater constitutional
protections than do Arabs living under
either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.
Is the left bothered by the allies of
Hamas? After all, most are autocracies
such as Iran and North Korea.
We return, then, to other reasons for the
woke contempt directed toward Israel.
In part, the Western left always de-
spises the unapologetically successful—
as if they are inevitably beneficiaries of
unfair privilege. Underdog Israel was not
so hated from 1947 to 1967. Then, it was
poorer, more socialist, and in danger of
being extinguished by its many neigh-
boring enemies.
But after the victories in the 1967 and
1973 wars, the Israeli military proved
unconquerable in the region, no mat-
ter how large the numbers, wealth, and
armaments of its many enemies.
For the left, Israel’s current strength,
confidence, and success mean it cannot
be seen as a victim, but only as a victim-
izer. As its Iron Dome missile defenses
knock down the flurry of Hamas rockets,
and as its planes take out the military
installations that launched those rockets,
the left bizarrely believes Israel wins too
easily and acts “disproportionately.”
The left also has a strange idea of cur-
rent “imperialism” and “colonialism.”
The general rule is that Westerners can-
not settle in numbers in the non-West.
But the reversal is certainly not true.
Millions of Middle Easterners are wel-
comed into Belgium, France, Germany,
the UK, and the United States. Yet, Jews
have been in what is now Israel since
nearly the dawn of civilization. And their
1947 borders only grew after they were
attacked and threatened with extinction.
The left claims that its anti-Israelism
has had nothing to do with anti-Sem-
itism. But it is almost impossible now
to make that distinction, when woke
Smoke billows above
buildings during an
Israeli air strike on Gaza
City on May 20, 2021.
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EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/TNS
MOHAMMED ABED/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
criticism obsesses over democratic Israel
and ignores far greater oppressors and
oppressed elsewhere.
Why are there no demonstrations in
major Western cities damning the Chi-
nese government for putting 1 million
Muslim Uyghurs in camps? Why are the
world’s millions of former refugees—the
Volga Germans, the East Prussians, the
Cypriot Greeks—long forgotten, and yet
the Palestinians alone are deified for be-
ing perpetually displaced?
Our formal NATO ally, Turkey, received
little global pushback for its treatment
of the Kurds, or its frequent intolerance
of religious minorities. Why does Israel
alone always earn such venom?
Hating democratic Israel while it’s
under attack is not just a reflection of the
new woke and ethically bankrupt left. It
is also a symptom of a deeper pathology
in the West, one of moral equivalence,
amoral relativism, and self-loathing.
Hating Israel has become the surrogate
Western way of hating oneself.
Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative
commentator, classicist, and military
historian. He is a professor of classics
emeritus at California State University,
a senior fellow in classics and military
history at Stanford University, a fellow of
Hillsdale College, and a distinguished fel-
low of the Center for American Greatness.
Hanson has written 16 books, including
“The Western Way of War,” “Fields With-
out Dreams,” and “The Case for Trump.”
A14 | OPINION
Following
‘the Science’
and Rejecting
Common Sense
STEPHEN MOORE
Every time I hear Democrats
sermonize about following “the
science,” I feel as though I’m
listening to members of the Flat
Earth Society. Science is what
the left wants to believe to be
true. It has become a way to shut off
debate, not advance it. Remember: These
were the fools who told us to shut down
our schools for a year.
We are seeing the debasement of
common sense in full bloom now on
the economic front. When the latest
disappointing jobs report was released
with unemployment rising, the Demo-
crats refused to acknowledge that their
high welfare benefits kept workers from
coming back to work. President Joe
Biden made the laughable observation
that he saw “no measurable evidence”
that the super-generous unemployment
program is a deterrent to working. He
needs to get out more.
My colleague, Casey Mulligan of the
University of Chicago, and I predicted in
The Wall Street Journal three months ago
that the $300 per week extra unemploy-
ment benefits would mean 5 million to
6 million people not going back to work
because the government was paying
them more not to work. The left laughed
at this prediction. Now, we see record
jobs going unfilled, 8.1 million, even
when there are 9 million unemployed.
“Help wanted” signs at construction
DILBERT
PEANUTS
RED AND ROVER
GRAND AVENUE
MUTT & JEFF
sites, factories, stores, and restaurant
windows are omnipresent from Maine
to California. All the Biden folks needed
to do was stop gazing into their cracked
crystal ball and go outside and ask
business owners if they can find work-
ers. They would have heard an earful.
Instead, the liberals paid attention to
some cockamamie econometric model
saying you can pay people more not to
work and it won’t change their behav-
ior. Brilliant.
It gets worse. Sens. Ron Wyden of
Oregon, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and
Michael Bennet of Colorado have spon-
sored a bill to make the lucrative CO-
VID-19 unemployment benefits perma-
nent and preserve benefits even if people
quit their job “for a good reason.” Would
“I couldn’t get up for work in the morn-
ing” be a “good reason”?
The real victims of this madness are
the workers who have been on the job
for the past year and earn less than the
couch-sitters collecting government
checks and watching Netflix.
Or consider the surge of inflation that
was recorded by the government last
week. It was the most significant in-
crease in consumer prices in a decade
at 0.8 percent, and if this pace were to
continue on an annualized basis, we
would have about 9 percent inflation.
COMICS
GARFIELD
GINGER MEGGS
BIG NATE
DRABBLE
FRANK AND ERNEST
TASOS KATOPODIS/GETTY IMAGES
Signs reading “Help Still
Wanted” sit on the east
front lawn outside the U.S.
Capitol in Washington on
Jan. 5, 2021.
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FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
Biden and Democrats were shocked by
these developments. That makes sense
as Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman
Jerome Powell kept reassuring us of “no
signs of inflation.”
Perhaps they don’t buy gas at the pump
or go to the grocery store or try to hire
an electrician, because ordinary people
outside the Washington, D.C., bubble
saw and felt inflation every day.
Why are the Democrats so surprised
that prices are rising? We have a fed-
eral government that has borrowed $5
trillion in two years. We have a Federal
Reserve purchasing trillions of dollars of
bonds and other assets with the money
it prints. We have the Biden administra-
tion giving people “free money.” Biden
now wants to spend and borrow $4
trillion more. Corn prices have nearly
doubled. At some point, people will have
to fill wheelbarrows with dollars when
they head to the grocery store to pay the
higher costs for rice, corn, chicken, and
ice cream.
Yet the experts in Washington told
us not to worry. These people joyously
said that they have invented “modern
monetary theory,” which allows the gov-
ernment to spend and borrow forever
with no cost to anyone, the ultimate free
lunch.
Now, they tell us the inflation they said
wouldn’t happen is temporary. And we
are supposed to trust them.
Here is a simple, ironclad law of eco-
nomics for the “science” mob on the left.
If you tax something, you get less of it. If
you subsidize something, you get more of
it. This may not be science, but it is street
smarts, i.e., common sense.
If Biden wants to be a successful
president, he better get some of it, and
soon—before his mysticism bankrupts
our country.
Stephen Moore is an economics journal-
ist, author, and columnist. The latest of
many books he co-authored is “Trumpo-
nomics: Inside the America First Plan to
Revive Our Economy.” Currently, Moore
is also the chief economist for the Institute
for Economic Freedom and Opportunity.
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021 OPINION | A15

Stephen Gregory, Publisher

SPECIAL SERIES
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Jasper Fakkert, Editor-in-Chief
Channaly Philipp, Life & Tradition,

How the Specter YOUR

Travel Editor
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COPY Crystal Shi, Home, Food Editor

HERE
Sharon Kilarski, Arts & Culture Editor

of Communism EPOCHSHOP.COM
ABOUT US

The Epoch Times is a media

Is Ruling Our World organization dedicated to seek-

ing the truth through insightful
and independent journalism.

The Epoch Times here serializes an adaptation from the Chinese of “How the Specter of Communism Is
Ruling Our World,” a new book by the editorial team of the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.”
3. Communism:
INTRODUCTION
The Devil’s Ideology
The divine established a rich culture
for human society based on universal
values, paving the way for humans to
return to heaven. Communism and
the traditional culture of the divine are
irreconcilable.
At the core of the evil specter are
atheism and materialism—a conflu-
ence of elements from German phi-
losophy, French social revolution, and
British political economics, assembled
as a secular religion meant to replace
the position previously occupied by the
divine and orthodox beliefs.
Communism turns the world into its
church, bringing all aspects of social
life under its purview. The devil occu-
pies people’s thoughts, causing them
to revolt against the divine and discard
tradition. This is how the devil leads
man to his own destruction.
The devil chose Marx and others as
its agents to oppose and destroy the
principles laid down by the divine for
human society. In the East, it launched
a violent revolution and established a
totalitarian state that united politics
and secular religion. In the West, it es-
tablishes progressive, nonviolent com-
munism through high levels of taxa-
tion and wealth redistribution. On a
global scale, it seeks to spread commu-
nist ideology to political systems every-
where, with the goal of undermining
nation-states and establishing a global
ruling body. This is the “paradise on
earth” promised in communism, a
supposed collective society without
classes, nations, or government, based
on the principle of “from each accord-
ing to his ability and to each according
to his need.”
Communism uses its program of cre-
ating a “paradise” on earth to promote
an atheistic conception of “social prog-
ress.” It uses materialism to undermine
the spiritual pursuits of mankind in
order to enable communist ideology
to spread to every sphere, including
not only social studies and philosophy
but even natural sciences and religious
teaching. Like a malignant tumor,
communism metastasizes, eliminat-
ing other beliefs—including the belief
in the divine—as it spreads. In turn,
it destroys national sovereignty and
identity, and humanity’s moral and
SPECIAL SERIES
rupture with traditional ideas.” Marx
thus accurately summarized the prac-
tice of communism over the past two
centuries.
The divine is the source of moral or-
der, and the divine’s morality is eternal
and unchanging. Moral standards are
not for man to determine for himself,
nor can they be changed by man. Com-
munism sentences morality to death
and attempts to have the communist
New Man establish a fake revolution-
ary morality. It uses negative methods
to expel all the positive factors from
human traditions, with the goal of hav-
ing negative factors occupy the world.
The divine is the
source of moral order,
and the divine’s
morality is eternal and
unchanging. Moral
standards are not for
man to determine for
himself, nor can they
be changed by man.
Traditional laws come from morality
and are intended to uphold it. Commu-
nism tries to separate morality from the
law, then destroy morality by concoct-
ing malicious new laws and subjecting
existing law to twisted interpretations.
The divine calls upon man to be kind;
communism incites class struggle and
advocates violence and killing.
The divine established the family as
the basic social unit; communism be-
lieves that the family is a manifestation
of private property and capitalism, and
aims to eliminate it.
The divine gives man the freedom
to obtain wealth and the right to im-
prove his lot in life; communism seeks
to control all aspects of economic life
by eliminating private property, ex-
propriating assets, raising taxes, and
monopolizing credit and capital. The
divine established the forms that mo-
rality, government, law, society, and
culture should take; communism
seeks the violent overthrow of exist-
tue. Communism, on the other hand,
would have man worship warped
modern creations—artistic produc-
tions that stifle our divine nature,
give full rein to the demonic impulse
toward chaos and disorder, and ma-
nipulate the art world by spreading
base, ugly, malformed, evil, and deca-
dent ideas.
The divine wants man to be humble
and full of reverence and wonder at
heavenly creation. Communism con-
nives at the demonic and arrogant
side in man, encouraging him to re-
volt against the divine. By amplifying
the evil inherent and inescapable in
human nature, it exploits the idea of
“freedom” to encourage conduct that
is unrestrained by morality and unfet-
tered by a sense of duty or honor. The
slogan of “equality” is used to stir up
envy and vanity, stoking man’s desire
for fame and material interests.
After World War II, the communists
expanded their military and economic
empire, and the communist bloc and
the free world contended for decades.
In countries ruled by overt commu-
nist regimes, its doctrine became a
secular religion—an unchallenge-
able dogma written into textbooks.
But elsewhere, communism took root
under other guises.
4. A Metaphysical
Understanding of the Devil
The idea of the devil referred to in this
text is that of a supernatural power.
To understand the chaos sown by the
devil throughout the world, one must
come to fully grasp the true nature of
communism.
Simply put, the specter of commu-
nism is composed of hate; it draws its
energy from the hatred that wells up
in the human heart.
The communist specter is tied to Sa-
tan. Often the two are indistinguish-
able, thus we will not make an effort to
consider them separately.
The devil’s arrangements are pres-
ent in both the East and the West, in
every profession, and in every walk of
life. Sometimes its power is divided,
sometimes integrated; sometimes
it uses this tactic, sometimes that. It
follows no simple pattern. The com-
munist specter is the initiator of an
unrestricted war on mankind that
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and uplift minds. We believe that
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for fostering a healthy democ-
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As an independent media out-
let, we use our freedom to inves-
tigate issues overlooked—or
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We seek to highlight solutions
and what’s good in society rather
than what divides us.
We report respectfully, compas-
sionately, and rigorously.
We stand against the destruc-
tion wrought by communism,
including the harm done to cul-
tures around the world.
We are inspired in this by our
own experience. The Epoch
Times was founded in 2000 to
bring honest and uncensored
news to people oppressed
by the lies and violence in
communist China.
We still believe journalism is a
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genuinely seeks to serve its com-
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cultural traditions, thus leading man
to destruction. In “The Communist
Manifesto,” Marx proclaimed, “The
communist revolution is the most
radical rupture with traditional prop-
erty relations; no wonder that its de-
velopment involves the most radical
ing social structures. has created battlefields out of every
The divine transmitted to man the conceivable sphere, from academia to
unique form of traditional art as a popular culture, from social affairs to
means of passing on the divine im- international relations.
age. Traditional art recalls to mankind
the beauty of heaven, reinforces faith, See next edition for the next
elevates morality, and nurtures vir- installment.
ASTRID VELLGUTH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

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A16 | OPINION FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021

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happily enacting roles in the latter.

A large group They’re the new fascists “sans le
of pro-Trump savoir” and are busy giving quarter to
protesters their brother and sister totalitarians
stand on the around the world while claiming the
east steps of greatest danger to our country comes
the U.S. Cap- from the people they call “white ex-
itol in Wash- tremists,” such as the misbegotten guy
ington on with the horns or the other “must-be-
Jan. 6, 2021. worse-than-a-serial-killer” goofball
who had the temerity to put his feet up
on Nancy Pelosi’s desk.
Never mind the genuinely violent
maniacs running around Portland and
Seattle, damaging as much as they can of
persons and property for over a year and
making those once-beautiful cities virtu-
ally unlivable. No one pays attention to
them—especially Democrats. No one
locks them up without bail for months.
In actuality, said maniacs as well as the
Jan. 6 accusers; the Biden administra-
tion, whoever runs it; and their ever-
so-willing cohorts in what we formerly
might have called the Department of Jus-
tice are doing many things far worse for
our country than those hapless clowns
who entered the Capitol could have even
conceived.
Now the administration—the same

Democrats, Not Trump

progressive thinkers who killed the
Keystone pipeline from Canada minutes
after inauguration, throwing tons of
people out of work, dissing our Northern

Supporters, Are the True

neighbor, and helping cause our recent
gas shortages—announced they are lift-
ing the sanctions on Russia’s controver-
sial gas pipeline to Europe. This is a form

Jan. 6 Insurrectionists
ROGER L. SIMON
UPDATE: Since I wrote
this article, an astonish-
ing 35 House Republi-
cans broke with leader
Kevin McCarthy and
voted for a 9/11-style
commission to investigate
the events of Jan. 6—this even though
the bill didn’t include or even so much as
reference the ongoing violence of Antifa
and Black Lives Matter that has dwarfed
The Book You’ve Been
Waiting for...
“Extremely well “The Truth, as horrifying as it is,
researched and true.” shall set us free. This should be
on this country’s academia’s
list of required reading.”
HOW THE
anything that happened at the U.S.
The real Capitol that day. The hypocrisy of this
vote stinks of Banana Republic politics.
insurrectionists The Republicans who voted for this mon-
are the people strosity all deserve a rhino-plasty—that’s
accusing them my new catchphrase for being primaried
and kicked out of Republican politics.
of insurrection. (They can keep their noses, just not their
seats in Congress.)
If you were to stage an insurrection on
the United States government, would
you (a.) simultaneously attack the
power grid at multiple points, turning
out the lights across the country, or (b.)
dress up like a horned Star Wars char-
acter at a comic book convention and
enter the Capitol building—unarmed—
as if it were Halloween?
You don’t have to be an experienced
insurrectionist like the late Moammar
Gadhafi—who was armed to the teeth
during his, needless to say—to know
the answer.
What occurred in Washington on
Jan. 6 was about as far from an insur-
NOW rection as I am from being a spaceman
living on Mars.
BIGGER SIZE, Were those people stupid? Sure.
EASIER TO READ Were they juvenile? Rather.
FORMAT But were they insurrectionists? You’ve
got to be kidding.
And that’s leaving out the obvious
detail. that the only person who got
killed in this so-called insurrection was
a Trump supporter shot by a Capitol
policeman—we still don’t know who.
Then there are the videos that show
other Capitol police waving the dem-
onstrators—including that “dangerous”
Chewbacca guy—into the building as if
it were a national holiday and they were
rubbernecking tourists from Kansas.
In fact, these people were the true
patriots, trying, in their clumsy way, to
get their country back—or what they
thought was their country.
The real insurrectionists are the
of treason compounding utter stupidity.
Of course, these are the same repellent,
tedious ideologues, such as Reps. Schiff
and Nadler, who were nattering on end-
lessly—more accurately lying endlessly,
as it turned out—about Trump’s sup-
posed collusion with that same Russian
government.
But there’s no sense rehashing that,
because it’s already clear no one impor-
tant will be prosecuted for this incredibly
undemocratic crime against our nation
and its people—government spying on a
presidential campaign and then on the
president, all based on fraudulent, forged
documents out of Russian intelligence—
the kind of thing Stalin’s NKVD would
do, only our FBI is led by dreary, self-
interested bureaucrats nowhere near as
interesting or clever as Comrade Beria.
The Department of Justice and the FBI
are bad enough, but things have gotten
far worse. These same people are gut-
ting our military in the pursuit of these
“extremists,” opening the door wide for
the renewed Axis of Evil—China, Russia,
and Iran.
Xi Jinping—easily the most power-
ful man in the world at this point, with
expansionist goals across the globe and
out into space—must be laughing as
the U.S. military continues its slide into
“wokeness” in a most astonishingly self-
destructive manner, as if the real prob-
lem for the United States was internal,
not Communist China.
From Revolver: “On February 3, 2021,
in the wake of the ‘deadly events’ of 1/6,
Biden’s new Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin ordered a 60-day stand-down
and total purge of the U.S. military’s
rampant, undefined ‘extremism’ prob-
lem. Though the details of this purge
were always kept vague and framed in
apolitical terms, it was immediately ob-
vious the target would be MAGA—with
the buzzword ‘extremism’ tagged onto
various proxies for Trump supporters,
conservatives, and opponents of global-
ism of all stripes.”
The man in charge of this “extra-gov-
ernmental”—to avoid First Amendment
conflicts—jihad is Bishop Garrison,
senior adviser to the secretary of defense
for diversity and inclusion, no less. Oh,
mighty Orwell, where are you now?

SPECTER OF COMMUNISM
people accusing them of insurrection. So what exactly is a “white extrem-
They, the accusers who are demanding ist,” this seditious prey they’re hunt-
a “commission” be formed to study this ing? Someone should ask our attorney

IS RULING OUR WORLD

non-existent insurrection, are the ones
taking over our country and imposing
their will on the people.
And they’re doing this after an elec-
tion that has never had its fairness
The specter of communism did not investigated and about which no one
can say—other than pronouncing an
opinion as fact—who was victorious.
disappear with the disintegration of the They have, as the courts would say, no
standing.
Communist Party in Eastern Europe So calling these demonstrators insur-
rectionists is projection taken to the nth
power by our contemporary “liberals”
general to define what he meant when he
said they were the greatest present threat
to our country. But I’m sure no one will.
If you think I’m hard on the Democratic
Party, well, I am. I can’t stand them. And
I was once a Democrat.
Unfortunately, today’s Republican
Party isn’t much better, as Tal Bachman
tells us succinctly on American Great-
ness in his article “The Republican Party
Sucks”.
With the exceptions of Sens. Josh Haw-
ley and Ted Cruz, none of them stood up

ORDER NOW!
and “progressives”—terms wrapped in
scare quotes in this instance to prevent
the continued desecration of the Eng-
lish language.
Speaking of the deliberate misuse of our
language, these same modern liberals
for the Constitution and electoral fair-
ness on Jan. 6.
And now these same cowards have to
oppose the calls for this phony “commis-
sion.” It’s up to us to put as much pres-
sure as possible to make sure they do.

EpochShop.com
are people who likely grew up praising
George Orwell’s prescience in “1984” and
“Animal Farm,” but are now unaware
that they have become true avatars of the
former’s “Ministry of Truth,” all the while
Roger L. Simon is an award-winning
novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter,
co-founder of PJ Media, and now a col-
umnist of The Epoch Times.
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021 OPINION | A17

US Visa Denial of Chinese Student With

Law Enforcement Link Is the Right Strategy
ALEXANDER F. YUAN/AP PHOTO

ANDERS CORR vate” entities, including a range of private,

A student applicant from
China, who was admit-
ted to nearly 10 U.S.
universities to study
computer science, was
denied a visa recently,
according to the South
China Morning Post. The U.S. embassy in
Beijing wrote a letter saying the student’s
father’s employment with Chinese law
enforcement, and the failure of China to
accept repatriation of Chinese citizens
in the United States subject to orders of
removal, caused the visa denial.
Former President Donald Trump’s
policies, which make it more difficult for
China’s science, technology, engineer-
ing, math (STEM), and military-linked
academics to obtain visas, apparently
remain largely in place under President
Joe Biden, and could even be expanded.
A senior U.S. official recently told
the Post that Chinese nationals with a
“high-tech” background continue to be
restricted.
Following a ruling last year, the United
States revoked the visas of more than
1,000 Chinese academics with ties to the
military. The most recent “temporary”
visa denial on grounds of ties to China’s
law enforcement, is a shot across China’s
bow. The message to Beijing is that cur-
rent limits on Chinese national academ-
ics with military ties could be extended
more permanently to those with law
enforcement ties.
While U.S. policies against military-
linked and STEM students from China
are the right policy, they have implica-
tions for both countries, as Chinese
students are big business for universi-
ties in the United States. In 2020, about
35 percent of international students in
the United States hailed from China,
and Chinese students and their families
spent approximately $13 billion in the
United States in 2018.
International scientific freedom,
like free trade, is a wonderful
principle for friendly countries to
follow. But everything changes
when one country starts to take
advantage of other countries and
such freedoms in an aggressive
manner, as China has done.
Approximately 16 percent of STEM
graduate students in the United States,
and 2 percent of STEM undergraduate
Were a professor to support limits on
Chinese nationals admitted to STEM
programs, the academic could be tar-
geted and lose his or her job for violating
academic beliefs about political correct-
ness. The safer approach for academics
is to remain silent on the matter—which
most do—or to publicly protest against
any such restrictions, which could be a
virtue-signaling strategy to optimize the
chances of promotion within university
administrations.
U.S. government officials are less
frequently under such mutually reinforc-
ing academic illusions and strictures on
China issues. The recent letter from the
U.S. embassy in Beijing to an education
consulting company in the same city
listed four leading Chinese law enforce-
ment agencies for which visas would be
denied to senior officials, their spouses,
and their children under the age of 21.
These visa applications would be “tem-
porarily discontinued” per the U.S. Im-
migration and Nationality Act, according
to the letter.
The Post wrote that the letter “said Chi-
na had denied or unreasonably delayed
accepting the return of its citizens who
were subject to final orders of removal
from the United States, and that normal
visa issuance would resume if China com-
plied with US requests on the matter.”
The affected agencies include China’s
National Immigration Administration,
the National Supervisory Commission
(an anti-corruption agency), the Ministry
of State Security (an intelligence agency),
and the Ministry of Public Security (a law
enforcement agency). For the last of these
agencies, visa application cancellations
would include children under age 30.
According to the Post, “Chinese foreign
ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying
said it was ‘good proof’ that the United
States had disrupted normal personnel
exchanges between the two countries for
Chinese stu-
dents wait
outside the
U.S. Embassy
for their visa
application
interviews in
Beijing, in this
file photo.
thinking in STEM subjects, especially in
the field of mathematics, is done during
the undergraduate years. Such insights,
if enabled by Western science, will be
brought back to China and could be used
against the United States and allies to
devastating effect.
China’s totalitarian system means that
STEM academics, as long as they remain
Chinese nationals, or have significant
family or financial assets in China, will be
subject to Chinese government pressure
to provide STEM knowledge to the au-
thorities or Chinese companies, who can
then proliferate such knowledge through-
out China’s massive economy and its
military-industrial complex. A bigger and
stronger Chinese economy means a big-
ger and stronger Chinese military.
Given China’s aggression in places such
as the South and East China Seas, and
against India, Bhutan, and Burma (Myan-
mar), it would be irresponsible to collabo-
rate scientifically with China at this time.
Unlike in the United States, where
scientific knowledge and discoveries are
often closely held corporate secrets, in
China, their power is multiplied through
sharing between government and “pri-
public, and state-owned Chinese corpo-
rations. Given China’s totalitarian system,
the notion of anything being “private”
or even publicly held, when nearly all
Chinese corporations must have Chinese
Communist Party cells embedded in
their management structures, is inaccu-
rate. In China, all corporations and indi-
viduals are much more closely linked to
the state than they are in free economies.
International scientific freedom, like
free trade, is a wonderful principle for
friendly countries to follow. But every-
thing changes when one country starts
to take advantage of other countries and
such freedoms in an aggressive man-
ner, as China has done. Likewise, a serial
human rights violator, to the point of
genocide, shouldn’t be further empow-
ered through continued STEM exchange
and free trade. At this point in China’s
history, other countries would be unstra-
tegic, ethically at fault, and potentially
greedy or compromised to allow scientif-
ic cooperation to continue with Chinese
nationals.
But limits on such cooperation will be
ineffective if only imposed by the United
States. All leading scientific nations that
value freedom and democracy, including
South Korea, Japan, and countries in Eu-
rope, must act in a unified manner to ef-
fectively pressure China to reform. Piece-
meal strictures will just shift the problem
to those countries without restrictions.
International allied action is required.
Anders Corr has a B.A./M.A. in political
science from Yale University (2001) and
a Ph.D. in government from Harvard
University (2008). He is a principal at Corr
Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of
Political Risk, and has conducted exten-
sive research in North America, Europe,
and Asia. He authored “The Concentra-
tion of Power” (forthcoming 2021) and
“No Trespassing,” and edited “Great Pow-
ers, Grand Strategies.”

students in the United States, are Chi-
nese nationals, according to a George-
town University study. Across the six
main STEM fields, “there are around
46,000 Chinese undergraduates, an
Behind the
political reasons, which was not conducive
to good China-US relations.” Hua’s use of
the term “personnel” is telling. The term
has been defined as “a noun describing a
group of people who follow orders ...”

estimated 40,000 master’s students, and
an estimated 36,000 Ph.D. students,” ac-
cording to the study.
“At the undergraduate level, around
one-third of all Chinese students at U.S.
universities are in STEM fields, compared
to more than half at the graduate level.”
U.S. universities and professors are
typically against limits on Chinese na-
tional students, I would argue, because
their institutions get significant revenue
from the full tuition that these students
typically pay. Academic reliance on
China financially creates a soft-on-China
academic atmosphere.
Academics frequently wrap their op-
position to limits on Chinese national
STEM students in ethical claims of the
good of an open scientific commu-
nity, although they also typically fail
to acknowledge the threat that China’s
expanding economy and military—both
dependent upon STEM fields of study—
to the long-term viability of democracy,
upon which truly open science and
academic freedom depends.
Legitimate concerns about anti-Asian
racism may also affect public academic
views on limiting China’s STEM, as anti-
racist commentators sometimes falsely
conflate science-related strategies to
limit the Chinese regime’s power with
racism against Asian Americans or Chi-
nese Americans. Nobody is suggesting
that Asian Americans should be limited.
In fact, limits on Chinese nationals could
increase the STEM positions available for
Americans of all types, including Asian
Americans, in U.S. academia.
Subscription
That’s precisely the worry with Chi-
nese national STEM students when they
return to China.
And it’s China, not the United States,
that disrupted good relations between
the two countries, most notably through
its genocide of the Uyghurs, but also Your subscription will not only provide you with
through as much as $600 billion in intel- accurate news and features, but also contribute
lectual property theft annually. The list of to the revival of American journalism and help
grievances is vast, but for the present pur-
poses, either of these crimes is enough to safeguard our freedoms for future generations.
justify a limitation of STEM cooperation.
The U.S. embassy’s letter added a new We aim to tell you what we see, not how to think; we
grievance, that China didn’t accept the
return of its citizens subject to final U.S. strive to deliver you a factual picture of reality that
orders of repatriation back to China. In lets you form your own opinions.
other words, Chinese nationals are ap-
parently violating U.S. immigration law
at the behest of their own government. We believe that we live in truly epochal times, where
I won’t call that an invasion by state- the faithful representation of our current events
directed foot draggers, but it is a truly won’t just be important for the people of today, but
shocking move by the Chinese govern-
ment that should be further investigated also for the generations to come. The records we
and publicized. Republicans don’t take keep now will directly inform the foundations of the
too kindly to that sort of law-breaking. history they’ll learn and the values they’ll cherish—
Nobody is proposing that Chinese na-
tionals who are majoring in art, history, and this knowledge is what drives us.
literature, or social sciences, should be
excluded from U.S. and allied academic Learn more at
institutions. Indeed, we should welcome
such students with the hope that they will EpochSubscription.com
bring back respect for freedom, human
rights, and democracy to their home
country. We might also learn something
from them about China.
However, China’s STEM academics, TRUTH AND TRADITION
including undergraduate and gradu-
ate students, are another matter. Youth
is no excuse. Some of the most brilliant
A18 | PUZZLES FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021

CROSSWORD CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF 20. Blvd. 4NUMBERS CONSTRUCTED BY C. CHANG
AT 4NUMS.COM DAILY BRIDGE CLUB
24. Transported Cy’s extras
Use the four numbers in the corners, and
25. Coffee order the operands (+, - X, and ÷) to build an BY FRANK STEWART, TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY

26. Publicity equation to get the solution in the middle.

There may be more than one “unique” so- ©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
27. Swell place? lution but, there may also be “equivalent”
28. Staff note solutions. For example: 6 + (7 X 3) +1 = 28 Cy the Cynic and I went to lunch at a
and 1+ (7 X 3) + 6 = 28 hamburger place, and he got a triple burger
29. N.L. Central team with cheese. Cy is overweight but doesn’ t
inits. seem concerned about it.
“Y ou need some exercise,” I told the
30. First word of the Cynic — whereupon he got up and headed
“Aeneid” back to the counter.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
31. Lounge “To get some extra fries,” Cy said, “like
35. Seward Peninsula city you said.”
Back at the club, Cy became declarer at
36. Kind of test seven spades. When West led the queen
37. Snake in the grass of diamonds, Cy counted 12 tricks and
38. Chilling wanted every chance for one more. He
played a low diamond from dummy, ruffed
39. Nervous habit in his hand and drew trumps. Cy next
42. ‘Conscience: self- cashed the A-K of clubs. When the queen
Hard 1 - 1 Solution fell, he claimed 13 tricks.
esteem with a ___’: Irving
Layton 3-3 BREAK
If instead East-West had followed with low
44. Pogonip clubs, Cy would lead a heart to dummy,
45. CD follower discard his jack of clubs on the ace of
46. Saturn model diamonds and ruff a club, hoping for a 3-3
break.
47. Antiquity, in antiquity If that didn’t work, Cy would cash his
48. The “I” in IV last trump. He would succeed in many
cases: for instance, if the jack of hearts fell
49. Curved molding or if a defender succumbed to a squeeze.
50. Any of three Norse
DAILY QUESTION
goddesses of fate You hold: { K 9 4 AK4 A 9 6
54. Children’s game y 9 7 3 2. Your partner opens one club.
Hard 2 - 1 Solution The next player passes. What do you say?
55. Without interest ANSWER: In “Standard,” bid 2NT to show
Across 43. Redress policy? 83. Back-to-school pur- 56. Comebacks 13 to 15 points, balanced, with the unbid
1. Early feminist Elizabeth 51. Cedar Rapids college chases 57. John, Paul and suits stopped. Some pairs treat 2NT as
invitational, showing about 11 points. That
8. Ice fisherman’s hole- 52. Select 84. Sen. Gillibrand’s st. George: Abbr. approach is awkward. Opener won’ t want
maker 53. The International 85. Bar in court 58. Fundraising gp. to pass 2NT with a shapely hand, and
13. Friend in France Committee of the Red 86. Dry then the partnership must deal with what
59. Colo. clock setting continuations are forcing.
16. River to the Atlantic Cross e.g. 60. Want-ad letters
17. Actress Amanda 54. Sheik’s bevy Down 62. Odyssey’s Keeper of North dealer
57. Next to the tachom- 1. “Help!” N-S vulnerable
18. Suffix with free the Winds
19. Quiet investor eter 2. Angular head?
65. Lasso loop
21. Alley ___ 61. Hebrew leader 3. Bother
66. Open
22. Gutter site 62. “Now ___ theater 4. Austin-to-Dallas dir.
67. “Fiddlesticks!” Easy 1 - 2 Solutions
23. Reddish brown near you!” 5. Heavy weight
63. Theologian Kierkeg- 6. Largish combo 68. Plains tribe
25. Maydays
30. Coeur d’___ aard 7. Kind of stock 69. Plant life
32. Tiebreakers, briefly 64. Unappealing 8. ___-ski 74. “Silent Spring” sub-
33. “How the Other Half 70. Baby talk 9. Final: Abbr. ject
Lives” author 71. Abbr. in many org. 10. “Have ___, Will Travel” 75. Angel’s favorite let-
34. Kiss’s Hall of Fame names 11. Puke ters
39. Flavor 72. Producer: Abbr. 12. Hoist again, as a sail 76. “Well, ___-di-dah!”
40. Plaintive cry 73. College fraternity 13. Keats, to Shelley 77. Screener’s org.
41. “Chestnuts roasting alumni bonds 14. Like a romantic eve- 78. Suffix with cash
___ open fire” 81. Cockpit abbr. ning, maybe 79. Chapter in history
42. Tuned in 82. Jewish headdress 15. Stalemate 80. Common ID Easy 2 - 1 Solution

WORDSEARCH CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF SUPER KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

Help with Today’s Crossword Puzzle? Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers
1-9 so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete.

ADONAIS ERASERS NO-PAR ROLL

AEOLUS ESTOP OCTET SAHARAN
AFFIRMATIVE FLORA OLD SCHOOL SIENNA
ACTION GOO-GOO TIES SOREN
ALENE HANGMAN ON-ICE SPEEDOMETER
ALOOFLY HAREM ORINOCO STANTON
APRES ICE FOG OTOES SUDRA
AUGER IMPASSE PLUME TASTE
DECAF INTRA RERIG UNCAP
EMESIS MOONLIT RETORTS
ENRAPT NOOSE ROCK-AND-

SOLUTIONS
CROSSWORD SUPER KAKURO
4 NUMBERS
HARD 1

HARD 2

EASY 1

EASY 2
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021 PUZZLES | A19
SUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN SUPERSUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN WORK SPACE
Fill in the boxes using numbers between 1 and 9 so that each column, each Fill in the boxes using numbers from 0 to 9 and letters from A to F so that each column,
row, and each 3x3 square contain all nine numbers only once. each row, and each 4x4 square contain all ten numbers and six letters only once.
Hard

Easy

CRYPTIC QUOTE

EPOCH DOKU CONSTRUCTED

BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

WORK SPACE

KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF JUMBLE BY DAVID L. HOYT
& JEFF KNUREK

Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME
is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek
1-9 so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits Unscramble these Jumbles,
Get the free JUST JUMBLEDSS‡)ROORZXVRQ7ZLWWHU@PlayJumble

in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete. one letter to each square,
to form four ordinary words.
Easy WADAR
EPOCH ESCAPE MAZE
MRYMU

SAGNIS

GDLEEP
Now arrange the circled letters
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC to form the surprise answer, as
All Rights Reserved. suggested by the above cartoon.

WORK SPACE

SOLUTIONS
SUPERSUDOKU SUDOKU: EASY JUMBLE EASY KAKURO
— MIND WAS MADE UP
be stubborn because his WORK SPACE

fictional character to
It was easy for the
Answers:
PLEDGE
ASSIGN
RUMMY
AWARD
Jumbles:
SUDOKU: HARD EPOCH DOKU

CRYPTIC QUOTE
the preparation for it.
the more rudimentary
and powerful the job,
The more complicated
A20 | FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021

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MORE THAN A GAME FAMILY TRAVEL

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DESTINATIONS | TRENDS | TIPS FRIDAy, MAy 21, 2021 B1

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Red hot lava

enters the ocean
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Hawaii.

The Thurston lava Tube in Hawaii volcanoes national

Park on the Big island.

Soak Up

Hawaii
the Island of

VIcTOR BLOck

S
ome vacationers soak up sun on
beaches with white or black sand.
Not far away, divers suit up for a
deep dive to get up close and per-
sonal with a variety of denizens
of the deep. Other people check out a sur-
real moonscape of hardened pitch-black
lava, then hike through a lush tropical
rainforest.
If this sounds like a continent-wide choice
of activities, that’s because the island of Ha-
waii in ways resembles a miniature conti-
nent. It’s almost twice the size of the other
Hawaiian Islands combined.
Visitors find a miniature world that
encompasses virtually every kind of
landscape. Dry cactus-dotted desert lies
near lush rainforests. Barren lava fields
contrast with waterfalls plunging into
verdant valleys.
People in Hawaii Volcanoes National
Park come face to face with the world’s
most active volcano, Kilauea, and the larg-
est active subaerial volcano, Mauna Loa. It
has erupted a total of 33 times in the past
75 years, most recently in 1984.
In recent times, Kilauea erupted from
1983 to 2018, and last December, there was
a new eruption at its summit. During the
2018 blow, lava flows added more than 875
acres to the island and created a black sand
and pebble beach. Visitors can view the
newest eruption’s billowing plume of gas
and steam by day and bask in the reflec- (Below left) an ancient
tion of glowing lava deep within the crater Hawaiian village at Pu’uhonua
after dark. o Honaunau national Historic People in Hawaii Volcanoes
Hawaii Island’s massive mountains also Park.
have another claim to fame. From its base National Park come face to face with
(Below) Hiking in Hawaii
on the ocean floor to the summit at more
than 13,800 feet, Mauna Kea is taller than volcanoes national Park. the world’s most active volcano,
Mount Everest. (Below right) lava from the Kilauea, and the largest active
Kilauea volcano flows into the
Continued on B2 sea on Hawaii’s Big island. subaerial volcano, Mauna Loa.
Pung/SHuTTeRSTOcK Pung/SHuTTeRSTOcK cOuRTeSy Of alOHaiSland/dReamSTime.cOm
B2
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New ferns grow amidst an old lava pattern in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Big Island, Hawaii.
Soak Up
Hawaii
the Island of
Continued from B1
Because of their heights, the peaks of
both Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are
blanketed by snow at times during win-
ter.
Several attractions greet people tak-
ing the Crater Rim Drive through the
national park. The Kilauea Overlook
provides awe-inspiring views of the
Kilauea caldera—the collapsed center
of the volcano—and the Halemaumau
Crater. Ha’akulamanu is a thermal area
where volcanic gasses deposit colorful
sulfur crystals and other minerals. The
aptly named Devastation Trail leads
through an area that was buried be-
neath a covering of cinders during a
volcanic eruption in 1959.
Visitors driving in the park are cau-
tioned to be on the lookout for the nene,
which is designated as the state bird of
Hawaii. This is the rarest species of geese
in the world, found only in Hawaii and
designated as threatened.
Along with volcanoes and the usual
Hot lava flows into the ocean.
FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
sun-and-sand vacation activities, there
are plenty of other reasons to visit Ha-
waii Island. For fishermen, waters off
its Kona Coast are known as the best in
the world for catching giant blue marlin.
An annual International Billfish Tour-
nament attracts anglers from around
the world.
Much bigger sea life drops by during
whale-watching season, from Decem-
ber through May. While humpbacks
have top billing, it’s also possible to spot
sperm and melon-headed whales.
Those who prefer to keep their feet on
firm ground find a wide choice of hik-
ing opportunities, ranging from easy
nature walks to advanced treks. Hawaii
Volcanoes National Park alone offers 150
miles of trails.
For history buffs, the story of the is-
land’s past is as intriguing as what greets
visitors today. The earliest settlements
were established by Polynesians who ar-
rived after a long and treacherous ocean
voyage in large double-hulled canoes.
Estimated dates of their arrival span
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021   B3
ALL PHOTO BY SHUTTERSTOCK UNLESS NOTED OTHERWISE

hundreds of years, from the fourth to

the eighth centuries.
Clues to the lifestyle of the ancient Visitors find
Hawaiian civilization abound. They
include remnants of villages, temples,
a miniature
agricultural mounds, and other archeo- world that
logical structures. Some relics, such as
royal fish ponds constructed to satisfy encompasses
noble palates, and petroglyph lava rock
carvings have been preserved and in-
virtually
corporated into the grounds of hotels. every kind of
The etched images depict humans,
birds, and other recognizable forms as landscape.
well as undecipherable lines and dots.
Their precise meanings are unknown,
but scientists believe they record births,
deaths, and other major events and per-
haps include astronomical symbols.
One of the more intriguing sites is
the Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National
Historic Park, a reconstructed royal
compound. Known as the “Place of Ref- 1
uge,” it served as a sanctuary for people
who broke the sacred law. Transgres- COURTESY OF VICTOR BLOCK

sors who were able to reach this sacred 1. A couple of hikers on

place could seek refuge and forgiveness. the Kilauea Iki Crater
The compound encompasses temples, trail.
sacred burial places, petroglyphs, and 2. The entrance to
other reminders of ancient times. Thurston Lava Tube
Another chapter of island history in Hawaii Volcanoes
comes alive in the Waipi’o Valley, National Park.
a 6-mile by 1-mile gash in the land
3. Visitors to Hawaii Vol-
rimmed by 2,000-foot-high cliffs over canoes National Park
which numerous waterfalls cascade. The take in the view.
meandering river they create gave the
valley its name, which means “curved 4. The view from Waipi’o
waters.” Also known as the “Valley of Valley.
the Kings,” it once was home to many
rulers of Hawaii and contains remains
2 3
of important temples. Visitors can view
the valley from a small overlook.
In contrast with the panoramic view
over a deep valley is the opportunity
for a look at the stars as few people have
seen them. Because of the clear skies
and without impairment of city lights,
the stars resemble sparkling glitter that
has been scattered overhead. Tour op-
erators offer star-gazing opportunities
from a 9,200-foot elevation on Maunak-
ea with warm parkas and snacks—just
one of Hawaii Island’s many attractions.

Victor Block is a freelance writer. To

read features by other Creators Syndi- WHEN YOU GO
cate writers and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate website at Creators. For more information: 4
com. Copyright 2021 Creators.com GoHawaii.com

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B4 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021

South Carolina’s
Grand Strand:
A Popular Family
Destination
JANNA GRABER lies with children. Kid-friend-

S
ly activities are plentiful:
tretched out on the warm sand of from larger-than-life mini-
Myrtle Beach, it’s easy to unwind. golf parks to water parks,
During a recent trip to there, I an aquarium, an interac- Families
watched a little boy launching a tive science museum, a appreciate
kite nearby, his little legs running pirate show, the 187-foot the region’s
as fast as they can. On the shore, my fam- Myrtle Beach Skywheel, affordability as a
ily shrieked with laughter as they tossed and more. There’s a wide ar- vacation spot.
a Frisbee in the waves. Overhead, the sky ray of restaurants to suit just
was a clear bright blue. It was the perfect about everyone, but the town
day for making family memories. also has an abundance of family-
For many, vacation means spending time friendly establishments, including a large A heron in
at the beach, with beach towns ranking assortment of popular pancake houses. mid-flight over
among America’s top vacation destina- a salt marsh.
tions. A recent survey by Vacasa found that The Grand Strand JOE HERLONG/SHUTTERSTOCK

57 percent of Americans are planning a
beach vacation this year.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, has long
been a top American beach destination.
Known for its golden-sand beaches and
world-class golf courses, it draws thou-
sands of visitors each year. It’s especially
popular with families.
One reason is that the region offers an af-
fordable beach vacation. During our visit, I
found that the prices for dining, hotels, and
attractions were about one-third cheaper
than similar prices would be at beach desti-
The sun rises nations in Hawaii or California. That really
over the Atlan- helps when you’re trying to stretch a family
tic in Myrtle vacation budget.
Beach, S.C. Bustling Myrtle Beach is made for fami-
Yet Myrtle Beach is only part of the story.
The town is one of 14 distinct communi-
ties that line the Grand Strand, a 60-mile
stretch of beach that bends along the
southern coastline of South Carolina from
the small town of Little River to Pawleys
Island.
While the Grand Strand has been draw-
ing travelers for decades, it hasn’t always
been a beach destination. Until the 1900s,
the beaches along this part of the South
Carolina coast were sparsely inhabited due
to geographical inaccessibility and a poor
economy. It wasn’t until 1901 that a timber
firm built the region’s first beach hotel, the
Seaside Inn. A contest was held to name the
new beach community, and Myrtle Beach
was selected for the many myrtle trees that
grow along the shore.
The region slowly grew through the de-
cades. There was even an Air Force Base
established for training and coastal pa-
trols during World War II. Though that
base eventually closed, Myrtle Beach grew
enough to become a city in 1957.
By the 1970s, Myrtle Beach and the sur-
rounding communities had been discov-
ered. The city’s population tripled during
that decade, and there was another boom
in the 1990s. Today, the Grand Strand at-
tracts more than 14 million visitors per year
and has become one of the top beach des-
tinations in the country.
The golden-sand beaches along the Grand
Strand are undoubtedly the main attrac-
During our tion. They’re clean and well-maintained,
and there’s ample paid parking on many
visit, I found lots right along the coastline, complete with
that the prices easily accessible facilities.
While it would be easy to stay in Myrtle
for dining, Beach during your whole trip, you’d be
hotels, and missing out if you didn’t explore more along
the Grand Strand. Each of its 14 communi-
attractions ties have their own vibe and feel.
were about Surfside Beach
one-third Surfside Beach is one of those communi-
ties. Though the region has many excellent
cheaper than hotels and resorts, my family and I chose
to stay in a four-bedroom vacation rental
similar prices in Surfside Beach, which has a slightly
would be at slower, quieter pace. This little town of
4,500 is nicknamed “the family beach,” and
beach destina- they take that mission seriously. In 2016,
tions in Hawaii the town became the first autism-friendly
travel destination.
or California. The town’s pristine beaches are cleaned
daily, and they were uncrowded during
our stay. We rented a few beach umbrellas,
chairs, and a cooler from a local beach sup-
ply store, spending many long, lazy days
on the sand.

More Than a Game: Seeing the World Through Sport JULIO CESAR AGUILAR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

TIM JOHNSON is an American tradition—and, mostly,

a rather leisurely affair. Fans on this side
They moved in unison. Thousands of hands of the ocean cheer strikeouts and home
clapping, precise and crisp, augmented by runs and jeer the umpire, but during those
the bang of drums and cadence of hollow typically long stretches when little is hap-
kung fu bats. Arm motions well-timed, ev- pening out there on the diamond, people
eryone together. Huge flags in the super-fan sit back and chat, lazily following the ac-
section, waved in a carefully prescribed tion. But in highly collectivist (and often
motion, each flutter seeming to flap at the conformist) Japan, where this is the most
same moment. And the chants? Everybody popular sport, everyone is expected to do
knew them, and when to shout them out— their part for the win.
every single word—raising the roof with the Starting with the oendan, the dedicated
sing-song sounds of full-throated passion. cheer squad. Every team has one, and you
With the “oendan” leading the legions as- must actually apply and be admitted in or-
sembled here at the Tokyo Dome, I sipped der to join. Seated in special sections of the
my Asahi as my tiny seat rumbled. stadium, they create and lead chants spe-
Watching Japanese baseball isn’t for ama- cialized for each player of the team, often
teurs. A lifelong fan of the sport, and sometime adapted from Japanese pop hits, singing
player, I found everything down there on the and banging them out when their side is
field looking familiar, if, like everything else batting. Some teams coordinate with props,
in Japan, a bit smaller. And while the base- such as balloons, or even mini-umbrellas.
lines and the pitcher’s mound were all in all In a trademark display of decorum and
the right places, when I came to this Nippon politeness, the other team’s oendan remains Santos Laguna’s Ronaldo Prieto (C, bottom) celebrates with teammates after scoring against
Professional Baseball matchup between the silent when their guys are in the field. The Monterrey in injury-time during their Mexican Clausura football tournament match in Monter-
rey, Mexico, on May 16, 2021.
hometown Yomiuri Giants and the visiting sound is pervasive and never-ending—even
Yokohama DeNA BayStars, I hadn’t expected when your team is down several runs, you’re
a highly rehearsed spectacle from up here expected to keep on cheering, until the seated in a completely separate section of “Is this a big rivalry? A lot of bad blood
R S O N /G E T T Y
in the cheap seats. A LV E
A G players have made the last out of the stadium, divided by a tall fence, and two between these teams?” I asked.
T H IM
AN ES
In my experience traveling GR the game. That spirit of togeth- lines of police. (While that was a shocking “No,” she responded, a little confused.
around the world, a visitor erness extends to the squad. sight, it was still a bit less extreme than some “This is normal, for every game.”
has three main ways to Players make sacrifices, soccer pitches I’ve visited. For example, the Soccer is a serious affair all over the
access a foreign culture. such as accepting lower infamous Bombonera in Buenos Aires, home world, with fans attaching personal value
Language, which is tough, pay so that management to Boca Juniors, where visiting fans weren’t and national pride to their team.
unless you already know can field a balanced and allowed to attend at all.) Rival squads have hired witches to curse
it. Food, always a favorite. well-rounded team. their opponent. During a World Cup quali-
And, sport. What people fying match in Mozambique in 1969, the
play, and how they cheer it, Soccer Australian national team employed a witch
tells you a lot about the locals, It’s a long way from the agony What people play, and doctor to curse their opponents, Zimba-
what they enjoy and value, and and ecstasy of a soccer game, bwe (then called Rhodesia)—and when
attending a live sporting event in some parts of the world. how they cheer it, tells you they refused to pay him for his services,
is a perfect way to see sponta- When I arrived at a matchup a lot about the locals, what he reversed the curse. The national foot-
Fans brave the rain and
neous joy, anger, and life on cold weather to watch between Fluminense FC and ball federation in Rwanda had to formally
display. the North Carolina Tar Sao Paulo FC in Rio de Janei- they enjoy and value. ban witchcraft (complete with penalties for
Heels play in the spring ro, the atmosphere was tense. teams that didn’t comply) after an on-field
Baseball game at Kenan Memorial Riot police on horseback kept incident where the goal was cursed.
For example, baseball. Of Stadium on April 24, the two sides apart, outside. My local guide had insisted on accompa- Riots have occurred and, on multiple oc-
course, going to a ball game 2021, in Chapel Hill, N.C. And inside, visiting fans were nying me to the match, and now I saw why. casions, armed fans have charged the field,
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
MARGARET.WIKTOR/SHUTTERSTOCK
North Myrtle Beach
North Myrtle Beach is a
nine-mile-long community
on the Grand Strand that’s es-
pecially known for its shopping and
dining. The town’s Barefoot Landing is a
shopping and entertainment complex on
the Intracoastal Waterway, making it my
family’s prime destination for dining dur-
ing our stay.
Our favorite restaurant at Barefoot Land-
ing was Lucy Buffett’s Lulu’s, where we
enjoyed heaping plates of fresh seafood.
On one evening, we boarded the Barefoot
Queen Riverboat, a paddleboat dinner
cruise that glides along the Intracoastal
Waterway at sunset.
North Myrtle Beach is the birthplace of
the Shag, a partner dance with smooth,
fancy footwork performed to Beach Mu-
sic. Beach Music is unique to the Caroli-
nas. Popular songs include I Love Beach
Music, Carolina’s Calling Me, and Myrtle
Beach Days.
The Shag became the official state dance
of South Carolina in 1984. It’s said that if
you drive along Ocean Drive at night, you
can hear the sound of beach music as those
who love the Shag dance the night away.
Murrells Inlet
For those with teens and older children,
Murrells Inlet is a good choice. This little
fishing village was once the lair of the pirate
Blackbeard. Now, visitors and locals alike
head there for outdoor adventure.
If you want to play on the water, Murrells
for example in Egypt, Greece, and England.
El Salvador and Honduras even fought the
Football War in 1969 when tensions over a
World Cup qualifying match boiled over
into a 100-hour armed conflict.
And in Brazil, soccer is a religion, played
with passion from the beach to tiny, fenced-
in pitches in the favelas. Although some of
the world’s finest players have hailed from
this country—from Pelé to Ronaldo to Ney-
mar—the best of the best almost always go
abroad to play in Europe’s top echelon. More
Brazilians play abroad than any other na-
tionality—some 1,600 at last count, across 93
countries, with about 65 percent in Europe.
So while the level of play before me now
may not have risen to the level of the Eng-
lish Premier League or the Bundesliga, the
passion of the fans was no less intense.
The game did not go well for the home
side, with Sao Paulo banging in two quick
goals. My guide dutifully translated the
shouts of Portuguese around me, provid-
ing, I assume, a bit of a filter—“he is saying
that the coach is not very good,” that kind of
thing. But after Fluminense went down 3-0,
a fan behind us let loose with what sounds
like a particularly nasty tirade. My guide
blushed, shaking her head.
“No translation,” she said, simply, and
conclusively.
I’ve seen this passion in many other
countries, and sports. The restrained in-
tensity of Indian cricket fans, as they fol-
low a multi-day test match. The uproarious
celebration after a winning goal in a Czech
hockey game. The joy of cheering a touch-
down with Hawaii football fans at Aloha
Stadium in Honolulu.
Rugby
But perhaps no nation is so closely identi-
fied with a single sport as New Zealand,
and rugby. It’s a game that powerfully
brings together the cultures of this coun-
try. Before European settlement, the Maori
people played a somewhat similar sport,
with a ball made of thatch. “Rugby foot-
ball” migrated from England to this island
nation in 1870, and a touring team from
B5
JANNA GRABER
Inlet is the place to go. You can rent kayaks,
pontoons, and other boats. Or you could
take a sunset cruise, rent jet skis, or go out
on a deep-sea fishing excursion—all from
Murrells Inlet. Some of our family went on
a fishing excursion with Voyager Deep Sea
fishing and came back with suntans and
a cooler of fish.
At night, Murrells Inlet comes to life along
the popular Marshwalk, with many water-
front dining establishments offering live
music and beautiful views of the sunset.
Our favorite dining experience there was
at Wicked Tuna, which prepares tasty sea-
food dishes using fish caught locally on
their own boats. It doesn’t get any fresher
than that.
The popular
Pawleys Island Marshwalk at
Those who want a quiet, unhurried vaca- Murrells Inlet.
tion experience might want to head to Paw-
leys Island, located at the southernmost JANNA GRABER
end of the Grand Strand. Its residents are snakes—all the ones we saw were harm-
known for their appreciation of the “arro- less—birds, and more. Though we were
gantly shabby,” reveling in simple charms hoping to see alligators, they were shy and
and natural beauty. That’s evident in the elusive. There were grins on my family’s
community’s unique shops and restau- faces as we paddled through the water.
rants, as well as their obvious love for That—at least for me—makes any trip
lounging in rope hammocks. worthwhile.
The island was once the summer home of
wealthy pre-Civil War rice planters. Today, Janna Graber has covered travel in more
there are 12 residences dating from the than 55 countries. She is the editor of
late 1700s to the mid-1800s in the historic three travel anthologies, including “A Pink
district. Suitcase: 22 Tales of Women’s Travel,” and
Many visitors come to Pawleys Island for is the managing editor of Go World Travel
golf, and it’s home to three of the country’s Magazine. A kayaking
top 100 public golf courses. The day’s catch. tour on the
Waccamaw
Conway River.
On our last day, we visited the town of Con-
way—one of South Carolina’s oldest towns.
Walking along the oak-lined avenues of
this historic southern community was like
stepping back in time. After asking one of
the locals for their favorite place to eat in
town, we stumbled into the Pickled Cu-
cumber, a local diner that was obviously
popular with the locals. After getting our
simple but delicious meals—we got heap-
ing plates of one meat and two sides for
$8.25 each—it was easy to see why.
Later, we went on a guided kayaking
tour on the Waccamaw River with
Black River Outdoors. Our guide,
Mike, shared his deep knowledge
of the area as we paddled through
the beautiful creeks and Cypress
swamps. We were the only ones
on the water, and it was serenely
quiet as we listened to the war-
bling of nearby birds. The water
was still, and it was an easy pad-
dle under the shade of cypress
trees draped with Spanish moss.
JANNA GRABER
Mike pointed out turtles, water
------------/SHUTTERSTOCK
JULIO AGUILAR/GETTY IMAGES
Australia arrived in 1882 to play the
first international matches.
Now, pride in the All Blacks, the nation-
al team, is almost universal. Their “haka,”
a traditional Maori dance of intimidation,
has been performed before international
matches since 1888, the stomping and
shouts challenging their opponents. I’ve
never seen it on the field, but having wit- Tom Brady of the Tampa
nessed a haka performed by Maori as part Bay Buccaneers waves to
of a cultural experience in the geothermal fans during the Tampa Bay
town of Rotorua, I can tell you, it hits you Buccaneers Super Bowl
Victory Boat Parade on
right in the middle of the chest, a primal
the Hillsborough River in
and wonderful and visceral experience. Tampa, Fla., on Feb. 10,
It’s something I would fear, were I about to 2021.
face off, on the pitch.
But I have attended two regional rugby CAMERON SPENCER/GETTY IMAGES
matches, both in Auckland. The second
took place on the rainiest night imaginable,
sheets of soaking precipitation pouring
down. It was an impromptu invite—I was
getting my hair cut, and the barber men-
tioned he had an extra ticket—that I imme-
diately accepted. Arriving at the stadium, Kieran Read of the All
we sloshed through ankle-deep puddles, Blacks and teammates per-
but found the stands still relatively full, form the Haka during the
despite the truly awful weather. Rugby Championship Ble-
Fans sat in slickers, unfazed by the down- disloe Cup match between
pour, cheering on the home side. They the Australian Wallabies
happily explained the rules to me, and and the New Zealand All
answered all of my many questions. Why Blacks at ANZ Stadium in
did the referee blow the whistle? How the Sydney, Australia, on Aug.
18, 2018.
team gets those points? Their patience and
joy was indefatigable. Soaked to the skin, I
STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
walked back to the car smiling, knowing
I had just gotten a sneak peek at a culture,
a moment of national candor, a chance to
root for the home team and come away en-
riched. Definitely, more than just a game.
Toronto-based writer Tim Johnson is al-
ways traveling, in search of the next great
story. Having visited 140 countries across
all seven continents, he’s tracked lions on
Fans of Hanshin Tigers cel-
foot in Botswana, dug for dinosaur bones ebrate as the team clinched
in Mongolia, and walked among a half- their first league champi-
million penguins on South Georgia Island. onship in 18 years at the
He contributes to some of North America’s Koshien Stadium in Nishi-
largest publications, including CNN Trav- nomiya, near Osaka, Japan,
el, Bloomberg, and The Globe and Mail. on Sept. 15, 2003.
B6
COURTESY OF MARY KATHERINE WYNN/DREAMSTIME.COM
Lucy the Elephant is a National Historic Landmark in Margate, N.J.
COURTESY OF LGOKAPIL/DREAMSTIME.COM
Examples of the
weird and wonderful
are scattered around
the country.
A geodesic dome billed as “the
world’s largest blueberry” and giant
blueberries in a field welcome vis-
itors to the bakery and theme park
at Wild Blueberry Land in Columbia
Falls, Maine.
Original artworks, canvas wraps,
art posters, and framed prints of
Award-winning oil paintings
now available for purchase at
I nspiredOr iginal.Org
FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
Roadside
Kitsch
Helps Tell
America’s
Story
VICTOR BLOCK
A
65-foot-tall elephant named Lucy
stands near the sea in New Jersey,
as she has for 140 years. Giant
blueberries are scattered about
a field in Maine. Visitors to
Long Beach, Washington, come face to face
with a two-headed calf, cycloptic lamb,
and mummified half man-half alligator.
If the thought of catching a bit of kitsch
as you travel has appeal, read on. As for
what kitsch is, well, you’ll know it when
you see it. Those who seek out attractions
that fit the theme are in luck. Examples
of the weird and wonderful are scattered
around the country.
Residents of Margate, New Jersey, are
used to seeing a six-story-high, 90-ton el-
ephant gazing over the setting. The wood-
and-tin pachyderm was constructed in
1881 to attract tourists and promote real
estate sales. In 1976, Lucy was designated
as a National Historic Landmark.
In Maine, it’s the statue of an oversize
baker offering a blueberry pie and large
ersatz berries scattered around a field
that attract the attention of passersby.
Wild Blueberry Land is a family-run farm,
bakery, and mini theme park in Columbia
Falls that is devoted to this native North
American fruit. Visitors enter a geodesic
dome, which is billed as “the world’s larg-
est blueberry,” to check out offerings at the
bakery and receive a lecture touting the
benefits of wild berries over the cultivated
versions found in most supermarkets.
Other large figures dot the landscape
elsewhere. In Atlanta, Illinois, a 20-foot-
tall “Hot Dog Muffler Man” clutches a
frankfurter in one hand. Muffler Men were
sculptures based upon the character of
Paul Bunyan and traditionally holding an
 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
ax that in the past were placed as roadside
attractions and advertising icons. When
the owner of a drive-in restaurant in Ci-
cero, Illinois, purchased one, he had the
ax replaced with a hot dog. In 2003, the
sculpture was moved 150 miles to its new
Illinois home in Atlanta.
What could better represent the self-
proclaimed “coldest spot in the nation”
than a 27-foot-tall penguin? That five-ton
bird greets people as they enter Cut Bank,
Montana, where winter highs hover around
the freezing mark and the wind chill in
one recent year plummeted to 64 degrees
below zero.
The droll penguin sports giant feet and a
curiously small peaked cap. At times, when
it was working, a speaker has intoned “Wel-
come to Cut Bank,” followed by the town’s
self-styled claim to fame.
Speaking of size, the proprietor of the
tongue-twisting World’s Largest Collec-
tion of the World’s Smallest Versions of the
World’s Largest Things thinks big—and
small. Picture a giant ball of yarn, a huge
wad of chewing gum, and a miniature golf
course, which Erika Nelson has encoun-
tered around the country and reproduced
in minuscule scale.
Those are among undersized replicas
of much larger things that are on display
at a permanent home in Lucas, Kansas.
Nelson also tools around the country in a
brightly decorated mobile museum that
gives new meaning to the words “roadside
attraction.”
An equally unusual collection has been
gathered at Marsh’s Free Museum in Long
Beach, Washington. The big attraction
is Jake the Alligator Man, a mummified
half-man half-reptile that is honored as the
town mascot. But the kooky, in some cases
creepy, displays don’t end there. Among
stuffed mounted animals are a two-headed
calf and eight-legged lamb that share space
with exhibits ranging from a self-playing
violin to a shrunken head from South
America.
A shopping stop in Ishpeming, Michi-
gan, makes no bones about what it offers
browsers and buyers. Da Yoopers Tourist
Trap gets its name from the word applied
to residents of the state’s isolated Upper
Peninsula. In addition to the usual gifts for
travelers, it stocks merchandise related to
Big Foot, oil-filled key chains, Elvis playing
cards, and other paraphernalia suited to
the store’s offbeat theme. There’s also an
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NAAMAN ABREU/SHUTTERSTOCK
area devoted to minerals and mining and a
comic collection that includes Big Gus (an
oversize chain saw), Big Ernie (a large rifle), What could
and Da Two-holer, which is described as a
very special kind of outhouse. better
An even more unconventional bathroom represent
is a pair of see-through toilets perched in
the middle of a Texas town. The all-glass the self-
structure in the square of Sulphur Springs
has one-way mirror walls that allow those
proclaimed
inside to see people on the sidewalks going ‘coldest spot
about their business while no one can see
those inside doing theirs. The transparent in the nation’
lavatories were finalists in the America’s than a 27-foot-
Best Restroom contest.
Then there are entire destinations that tall penguin?
some might label as kitsch communities.
When a rancher came upon unidentifi-
able debris in a field outside Roswell, New
Mexico, in 1947, little did he realize the
lasting impact his discovery would have.
Even after the U.S. Air Force reported that
the fragments were from a crashed weather
balloon, a number of people believed—and
some continue to—that they were the re-
mains of an extraterrestrial flying saucer.
That incident spawned a UFO theory that
entrepreneurial folks in Roswell seized
upon as a business opportunity sent from
heaven. Alien-related gift shops, UFO ex-
hibits, and other out-of-this-world com-
mercial enterprises line the streets, turning (Top) The giant penguin COURTESY OF TIAGO LOPES FERNANDEZ/DREAMSTIME.COM
Roswell into a virtual kingpin of kitsch. in Cut Bank, Mont.
Victor Block is a freelance writer. To read (Right) Hot Dog Muffler
features by other Creators Syndicate writ- Man grips a giant frank-
ers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syn- furter in Atlanta, Ill.
dicate website at Creators.com. Copyright (Below) A sign welcomes
2021 Creators.com visitors to Roswell, N.M.
CHERI ALGUIRE/SHUTTERSTOCK
WHEN YOU GO
The RoadsideAmerica.com website is a treasure-trove of
information about offbeat attractions around the country.
LucyTheElephant.org; WildBlueberryLand.com;
CutBankChamber.com; MarshsFreeMuseum.com;
WorldsLargestThings.com; DaYoopers.com;
VisitSulphurSpringsTX.org; SeeRoswell.com
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B8 FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021

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