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With Vaccine Skeptics in Charge, Covid-Era Lawsuits Are Nowhere Near Over + More
With Vaccine Skeptics in Charge, Covid-Era Lawsuits Are Nowhere Near Over
A wave of COVID-19 pandemic-era lawsuits that previously faced steep odds of success are gaining momentum under the Trump administration. Some courts have become friendlier environments as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overhauls federal health care policies and brings vaccine skepticism into the mainstream.
The outcome could look like restricted access to vaccines, a brand-new approach to the monitoring of side effects, or even poking holes in vaccine makers’ legal protections.
Vaccine-injury attorneys are excitedly discussing how to build new legal strategies that could further shape policy in their favor.
Using a novel approach, lawyers are also creating opportunities for the Trump administration to publicly pick a side in court — and possibly influence legal precedent for years to come.
NYC Workers Fired Over COVID Vaccine Mandate Say They Would Consider Coming Back
John Macari struggled to find work after he lost his job as a lieutenant with the NYPD in early 2022 over his refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccine. After he opted to retire early instead of taking the shot, Macari moved his family from Staten Island to Florida and started a transportation business. He also launched a podcast, “New York’s Finest: Retired and Unfiltered,” which eventually gained enough of a following to allow him to focus on it full time.
Now, Macari is one of nearly 2,000 city workers who were either fired or left their jobs over the 2021 mandate who could have the opportunity to get their old jobs back after the Adams administration announced a tentative plan to reinstate them. Some of those workers will be speaking at a public hearing on the proposal being held by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services Wednesday.
Macari, who had 18 years on the job when he left, said he doesn’t regret his decision to refuse the vaccine. But he dreams of coming back, even if it means splitting his time between New York and Florida, where he has two children in school. “I would ideally like to finish my career up,” Macari said. “I would like to go out on my own terms.”
VA to Restore Education Benefits Eligibility to Veterans Ousted Under Biden-Era COVID Vaccine Mandate
A major policy shift could restore education benefits to thousands of veterans who were separated from military service for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine during the Biden administration, according to The Department of Veterans Affairs.
The move follows President Donald Trump’s January executive order — Executive Order 14184 — Reinstating Service Members Discharged Under the Military’s COVID Vaccination Mandate. This directed federal agencies to identify service members affected by the former vaccine requirement and to take steps to reinstate or restore certain benefits.
In response, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth went on to instruct military departments to facilitate discharge upgrades for those who were involuntarily separated because they declined the COVID-19 vaccine and received a characterization of service that affected their benefits.
Making Sense of the Religious Exemption Dispute in West Virginia
News From The States reported:
At least five lawsuits are underway in West Virginia challenging the state mandate requiring vaccination of schoolchildren, which permits no religious exemptions. Protection of religion from government intrusion is a fundamentally serious matter, not a culture war issue. But so is the protection of our children against serious and sometimes fatal diseases. What is the way out of this?
School attendance is mandatory for all children aged six to 17, but they must first be immunized against chickenpox, measles, mumps, polio and six other diseases. Medical exemptions are available, but West Virginia is the only state that has never allowed religious exemptions. Four other states have joined West Virginia in the last decade by eliminating religious exemptions. Public polling that shows large bipartisan majorities of West Virginians oppose religious exemptions.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 3-15 of the West Virginia Constitution prohibit government action that infringes the free exercise of religion. A claim pending in West Virginia federal court alleges that the vaccine mandate violates the Free Exercise Clause. But the U.S. Supreme Court held as early as 1905 that vaccine mandates are constitutional, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond has specifically upheld the West Virginia vaccine mandate against a Free Exercise Clause challenge.
Roblox Begins Asking Tens of Millions of Children to Verify Their Age With a Selfie
Roblox is starting to roll out the mandatory age checks that will require all of its users to submit an ID or scan their face in order to access the platform’s chat features. The updated policy, which the company announced earlier this year, will be enforced first in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands and will expand to all other markets by early next year.
The company also detailed a new “age-based chat” system, which will limit users’ ability to interact with people outside of their age group. After verifying or estimating a user’s age, Roblox will assign them to an age group ranging from nine years and younger to 21 years and older (there are six total age groups). Teens and children will then be limited from connecting with people that aren’t in or close to their estimated age group in in-game chats.
Unlike most social media apps which have a minimum age of 13, Roblox permits much younger children to use its platform. Since most children and many teens don’t have IDs, the company uses “age estimation” tech provided by identity company Persona. The checks, which use video selfies, are conducted within Roblox’s app and the company says that images of users’ faces are immediately deleted after completing the process.
Digital IDs Are Officially Coming to Illinois. Here’s When It Starts, and What’s Changing
Illinois residents will soon be able to use digital IDs and digital driver’s licenses, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias’s office confirmed to NBC Chicago’s Kye Martin ahead of an planned announcement from Giannoulias’ office. As the announcement began Tuesday, Giannoulias stood in front of a screen that said “Your ID, now on your iPhone.”
Giannoulias teased the announcement Monday, saying “something big” was coming to Illinois and that it would mark a milestone for residents. A source Monday told Martin that the news would “affect every driver in Illinois.” The announcement comes days after Apple unveiled its new “Digital ID” system for users to add their U.S. passport information to Apple Wallet, which can be scanned at airport readers.
iPhone users will be able to add their driver’s license or state IDs to their Apple Wallet, Martin said, and the IDs will be valid at TSA checkpoints at O’Hare and Midway.
They’ll also be accepted at restaurants and bars, Martin said.
Will the Supreme Court Reenter the Vaccine Wars? + More
Will the Supreme Court Reenter the Vaccine Wars?
It’s been more than five years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but legal disputes from the pandemic continue to arise. And the Supreme Court may not be done weighing in. At least three petitions related to COVID-19 vaccine mandates are currently awaiting the justices’ review for the 2025-26 term, including two focused on access to religious exemptions.
Does 1-2 v. Hochul centers on a New York state mandate issued in 2021 – but since repealed – that required employees at hospitals and nursing homes to be vaccinated against COVID-19 if they could expose patients, residents, or other employees to the virus if infected.
The case was brought by a group of unnamed workers who, for religious reasons, refused to comply with the mandate and were then terminated. According to them, their former employers’ implementation of the mandate violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which requires employers to make religious accommodations unless doing so would create “undue hardship” on the business.
WV Charter Schools Will Accept Religious Exemptions to Vaccines, Siding With Morrisey
West Virginia’s public charter school system will advise its schools to accept religious exemptions to the state’s mandatory vaccination policies if the student’s request is approved by state health officials.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey and the state’s public school system are at odds over the issue. The Republican governor issued an executive order in January requiring the state to allow religious exemptions to its school vaccination laws. He based the order on the 2023 Equal Protection for Religion Act.
The state’s school immunization law hasn’t changed, and the state school board said earlier this summer that they wouldn’t comply with Morrisey’s executive order. They instructed county boards of education to require all vaccines and allow only medical exemptions.
EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Puts Nail in Coffin of Biden-Era Vaccine Discrimination
The Trump administration is putting the final nail in the coffin of a Biden-era policy, directing federal agencies to scrub employees’ records of their COVID-19 vaccine status, according to a memo exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is expected to send a memo Friday instructing agencies to wipe federal worker’s files of their COVID-vaccine status, including their non-compliance with previous vaccine mandates, or any exemption requests, the Caller first learned. The agency is also officially instructing federal branches to stop considering employees’ COVID-19 vaccine status in the hiring process, the memo states.
“Things got out of hand during the pandemic, and federal workers were fired, punished, or sidelined for simply making a personal medical decision. That should never have happened,” OPM Director Scott Kupor told the Caller in a statement. “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we’re making sure the excesses of that era do not have lingering effects on federal workers.”
Philadelphia Students Can Get Free School Supplies, Vaccines, and More at These Back-to-School Events
It’s back-to-school season in Philadelphia and the school district and community organizations across the city are hosting free school supply giveaways and medical clinics to help students prepare to return to classrooms.
This year, advocates say access to free resources is vital for Philly families because of the federal government’s deep cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, coupled with delays in Pennsylvania’s state budget process.
“It’s really important this year because with the state of the government right now, a lot of people will be losing their health insurance,” said Portia Ackridge, who runs DentMed Inc., a nonprofit that’s partnering with Remote Area Medical to bring a free medical clinic to the School of the Future. The clinic will offer free dental care, eyeglasses made onsite, school vaccines, physicals and other services for children and adults.
Court Upholds $7.8 Million Verdict for Transit Workers Fired for Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine + More
Court Upholds $7.8 Million Verdict for Transit Workers Fired for Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine
A federal judge in California has rejected an effort by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to overturn a jury verdict that awarded $7.8 million to six former employees who were fired for refusing to comply with the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds.
In a Dec. 30, 2024 order, Judge William A. Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California acknowledged minor “imperfections” in the jury trial — including flawed instructions to the jurors — and determined they were not severe enough to invalidate the jury’s October 2024 decision requiring BART to pay each of the six former workers between $1.2 million and $1.5 million.
Alsup denied BART’s post-trial motions to overturn the verdict and seek a new trial, saying that the agency failed to demonstrate that accommodating the employees’ religious objections would have posed an undue hardship.
“Simply put, on the instructions given and evidence received, a reasonable jury could have found that BART had not carried its burden of proving its affirmative defense,” Alsup wrote, referring to the fact that, in order to prevail in the case, BART had to prove that granting accommodations such as masking, testing, or remote work in lieu of vaccination would have imposed an undue burden on the agency.
Federal Judge Rules for Pfizer in Lawsuit Over Company’s COVID-19 Vaccine
A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by Texas against Pfizer, finding that U.S. law protects Pfizer due to the emergency declared over the COVID-19 pandemic. Several laws shield Pfizer from claims that it misrepresented the efficacy of its vaccine, U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings said in the Dec. 30, 2024 ruling.
“The Court finds that as a matter of law under the circumstances of this case, the Defendant is entitled to immunity under the Public Readiness and Emergency Act (PREP Act),” Cummings wrote.
He also said that both the PREP Act and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, preempt the allegations from Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2023 brought the suit in county court, alleging Pfizer misrepresented the results of the clinical trial that tested its COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer and its partner promoted the vaccine as 95% effective against COVID-19 infection, but the companies relied on just two months of trial data.
Faces and Fingers Are the New Car Keys
In today’s market, new car buyers want technologies and conveniences that save them time and lend themselves to personalization. These technologies can be as simple as keyless access to their locked car or as complex as phone-as-key technology that allows drivers to just get in their vehicle and go, without having to turn a key or touch a stop-start button.
The next frontier in car customization is biometrics. Systems with technology, that use measurable physical characteristics or personal behavior traits to identify a user, allow a car owner to unlock, open, customize and/or start their vehicle just by using their face or fingerprints. It can be used for access and ignition, and to load a driver’s personal profile.
Analysis by Global Industry Analysis, a market research company, estimated in 2022 that the global market for biometric technology will reach $44.1 billion by 2026.
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Biometric Ticketing for Sports and Live Events Set To Explode in 2025
2024 was arguably the year in which sports finally became a major market for biometrics. While experiments with biometric ticketing and event entry have been run for years, this year saw league-wide deployments of facial biometrics for credentialing, and new use cases in concession, merchandise and biometric alcohol sales. European football loves biometrics; so does its American counterpart in the National Football League, or NFL.
Wicket, Veridas, Clear and NEC are among the firms leading the biometric charge. But with the global live events industry pegged to be worth $754.04 billion by 2030, there is plenty of room for growth and innovation. Recent survey results show almost half of venues (47%) consider biometrics a top initiative for 2025.
A new market intelligence report from PYMNTS looks at how “Novel ID Verification Technologies in Stadiums Can Change the Game Beyond Sports.”
TSA Targets 400 US Airports for Biometrics Rollout
America’s network of airport biometric systems now includes hundreds of airports but is slated to reach hundreds more in the years ahead.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, has deployed its Biometric Facial Comparison system to 238 airports, including all 14 CBP Preclearance and 49 international departure locations. A list of airports provided by CBP shows that 14 of the 238 airports are outside of the country.
CBP says more airport partners are joining its Biometric Exit program every month, and passenger responses have “been overwhelmingly positive.”
The Transportation Security Administration, meanwhile, has now deployed second-generation Credential Authentication Technology (CAT-2) scanners from Idemia I&S with face biometrics to “nearly 84 airports” across the country. TSA plans to bring CAT-2s to more than 400 U.S. airports in the years ahead. The figures are included in a fact sheet prepared by the TSA as part of its public awareness drive.
Berlin: Thousands March in COVID Pandemic Skeptic Protest + More
Berlin: Thousands March in COVID Pandemic Skeptic Protest
Several thousand people on Saturday joined a street demonstration and rally in Berlin organized by Germany’s “Lateral Thinking” protest movement.
The protest faction, best known for staging demonstrations against COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, was calling for a reassessment of government measures and “consequences for those responsible.” However, a large contingent also protested against the German government’s push to rebuild the country’s military.
A preliminary estimate by police put the crowd at the demonstration at around 9,000 people.
The movement began in Stuttgart and eventually spread across Germany during the coronavirus pandemic. Supporters repeatedly protested against lockdown measures and vaccine requirements as measures to contain the virus.
Illinois Governor Approves Business-Friendly Overhaul of Biometric Privacy Law
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has signed a bill into law that will significantly curb the penalties companies could face for improperly collecting and using fingerprints and other biometric data from workers and consumers.
The Bill passed by the legislature in May and signed by Pritzker, a Democrat, on Friday amends the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) so that companies can be held liable only for a single violation per person, rather than for each time biometric data is allegedly misused.
The amendments will dramatically limit companies’ exposure in BIPA cases and could discourage plaintiffs’ lawyers from filing many lawsuits in the first place, management-side lawyers said.
BIPA, a 2008 law, requires companies to obtain permission before collecting fingerprints, retinal scans and other biometric information from workers and consumers. The law imposes penalties of $1,000 per violation and $5,000 for reckless or intentional violations.
Companies have faced massive verdicts and settlements in BIPA cases. In 2020, Facebook agreed to pay $650 million to settle a class action accusing it of violating BIPA by using facial recognition technology to allow users to “tag” photos of their friends.
Millions of Voter Documents Leaked Online — Fears of Election Interference Rise Following Breach
The voter documents of 4.6 million Americans have been leaked online after being stolen from 13 non-password-protected databases.
The information contained within the databases included voter records, ballots, and election-related records that include personally identifiable information (PII), social security numbers (SSN), driver’s license and voter ID numbers.
There are fears the information could be used maliciously to commit identity theft, data theft, voter fraud and intimidation, and even election disruption.
‘Dystopian Surveillance, Suspicionless Seizures’: Wall Street Market Monitor Under Attack
Washington regulators have been bracing for legal challenges ever since the Supreme Court upended decades of precedent by ruling that agencies no longer have broad leeway to interpret the law. For Wall Street’s top cop, that day has arrived.
Conservatives and financial groups are using the high court’s landmark June ruling on what’s known as Chevron deference to boost their campaign to dismantle a massive surveillance system that the Securities and Exchange Commission recently brought fully online to closely monitor the nation’s stock markets.
The system collects billions of records each day on trades and allows the agency to analyze data across the markets to spot any abuses. But critics say it violates privacy rights and is vulnerable to hacking, given the sheer amount of information — including investors’ personal data — housed within it. Former Attorney General Bill Barr wrote earlier this year that the database “would take us far down the road toward an Orwellian surveillance state.”
Federal Court Blocks Net Neutrality Rules in Blow to Biden and Internet Activists
A federal appeals court on Thursday issued a temporary injunction against the Federal Communications Commission’s reinstatement of net neutrality rules.
Net neutrality rules are proposed regulations that would permit the FCC to regulate broadband internet access as a telecommunications service. The rules were first adopted under the Obama administration in 2015 but later rescinded by then-President Trump when he flipped control of the FCC to Republican hands.
Under President Biden, the FCC returned to a majority of Democratic appointees, and the commission voted along party lines in April to resurrect the rules. However, in a blow to the Biden administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Thursday said that broadband providers are likely to prevail in a legal challenge and temporarily paused the net neutrality regulations pending these challenges.
TikTok Agrees to Pull Rewards Feature From E.U. Amid Concerns Over ‘Addictive Effect’
TikTok has committed to “permanently withdraw” a rewards program from the European Union after the 27-member bloc raised concerns about the feature’s potential “addictive effect,” the European Commission announced Monday.
The move means TikTok is now in compliance with the E.U.’s Digital Services Act, a sweeping regulation that aims in part to “create a safer digital space in which the fundamental rights of all users of digital services are protected.”
The European Commission raised concerns that the reward feature had been “launched without a prior diligent assessment of the risks it entails, particularly in relation to [its] addictive effect.” It could “potentially have negative effects on the physical and mental health of users,” the commission added.
Neuralink Implanted Second Trial Patient With Brain Chip, Musk Says
Neuralink has successfully implanted in a second patient its device designed to give paralyzed patients the ability to use digital devices by thinking alone, according to the startup’s owner Elon Musk.
Neuralink is in the process of testing its device, which is intended to help people with spinal cord injuries. The device has allowed the first patient to play video games, browse the internet, post on social media and move a cursor on his laptop.
Musk did not disclose when Neuralink performed the second patient’s surgery. Musk said he expects Neuralink to provide the implants to eight more patients this year as part of its clinical trials.
Big Tech Fails to Convince Wall Street That AI Is Paying Off
Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc. had one job heading into this earnings season: show that the billions of dollars they’ve each sunk into the infrastructure propelling the artificial intelligence boom is translating into real sales.
In the eyes of Wall Street, they disappointed. Shares in Google owner Alphabet have fallen 6.1% since it reported last week. Microsoft has declined in the two days since its own results. Amazon — the latest to drop its earnings on Thursday — slid in premarket trading.
Silicon Valley hailed 2024 as the year that companies would begin to deploy generative AI, the type of technology that can create text, images and videos from simple prompts.
This mass adoption is meant to finally bring about meaningful profits from the likes of Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot. The fact that those returns have yet to meaningfully materialize is stoking broader concerns about how worthwhile AI will really prove to be.