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Appeals Court Says U.S. Cannot Mandate Federal Contractor COVID Vaccines
A U.S. appeals court on Monday said the White House could not require federal contractors to ensure that their workers are vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of government contracts.
A panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to uphold a lower court decision that blocked President Joe Biden‘s September 2021 contractor vaccine executive order after Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi brought suit to seek invalidation of the mandate.
The court said Biden wanted it “to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would permit him to unilaterally impose a healthcare decision on one-fifth of all employees in the United States. We decline to do so.”
Rep. Kevin McCarthy Vows to ‘Change the Course of the FBI’ Following ‘Twitter Files’ Bombshell
As bombshell revelations from the “Twitter files” continue to come to light, concerns grow over the FBI utilizing private companies as a “political arm,” as well as its role in censoring the “truth” from Americans.
During his appearance on “Mornings with Maria” Monday, House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told FOX Business that House Republicans plan to hold individuals accountable as they dig deeper into the FBI’s “collusion” with social media.
“We’re going to do more than just subpoena them. We’re going to change the course of where the FBI is today,” the California lawmaker said. “Every day we learn something more,” he continued. Much has been revealed about the government’s relationship with Big Tech since Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover in October.
During the sixth and latest installment of the “Twitter files,” Substack writer Matt Taibbi revealed that Twitter employees had near-constant communication with FBI agents from 2020 to 2022.
FTC Fines Fortnite Maker Epic Games $520 Million Over Children’s Privacy and Item Shop Charges
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Monday morning it will charge Epic Games with a $520 million settlement over charges related to children’s privacy. Epic Games, which makes popular all-ages games like “Fortnite” and “Fall Guys,” allegedly violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by deploying “design tricks, known as dark patterns, to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases,” the FTC said in a press release.
The $520 million payment is divided into two settlements: The COPPA fine amounts to $275 million, which is the largest-ever penalty for violating an FTC rule. The FTC also fined Epic $245 million to refund customers for what it calls “dark patterns and billing practices.” Epic says it will pay both of these fines, the latter of which will be the FTC’s largest-ever refund amount in a gaming case.
In addition to making it too easy for children to make online purchases, the FTC also took issue with Epic’s live text and voice communication features, which were set to be turned on by default. The FTC claims that children were exposed to harassment and abuse because of these features, especially since Epic had no way of making sure that children and adults would not be matched together in online play. According to the FTC’s press release, children have been exposed to bullying, threats, harassment and “psychologically traumatizing issues such as suicide” while playing the game.
Alleged Lack of Transparency Renews Fears Over Vaccine Passports in Orange County
The controversy over vaccine passports has resurfaced in Orange County, California, as a new potential contract with the firm that was paid $4 million to develop a digital vaccination tracking program recently appeared on multiple Board of Supervisors public meeting agendas — but was then removed.
According to county documents, County Health Officer Dr. Clayton Chau submitted on Nov. 21 a written request to the board’s clerk to move an item under the subject “Contract for Disease Control and Preventative Health Technology Enabled Solution” from the Nov. 29 meeting agenda to the Dec. 6 meeting agenda. Then, he asked that the item be deleted from that agenda the next day.
The item included approving a $3.4 million contract with Composite Apps, the company behind the vaccination verification app Othena, from Jan. 2, 2023, through Dec. 31, 2024. The item does not appear to be listed on the Dec. 20 meeting agenda.
Nicole Pearson, an attorney who is involved in a lawsuit against the county over its COVID-19 response policies, has accused the board of trying to hide plans to proceed with a vaccine passport program despite widespread community opposition.
Cyberbullying Affects Almost Half of American Teens. Parents May Be Unaware.
A new survey about teens and social media shows that nearly half of teens say they have been cyberbullied. In a separate survey administered to a parent of each teen, the adults ranked cyberbullying as sixth out of eight concerns about social media. Their top concern was their child being exposed to explicit content.
The survey results, released by Pew this week, aren’t surprising to Devorah Heitner, author of “Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World.” “There’s just so much online aggression — aggression because of online disinhibition and the ways that we forget there’s another human being on the other end of the screen.”
Parents might be more aware of the fact that pornography is widely available online than of the explicit harassment that some kids are facing, she said, which could account for the fact that only 29% said they were extremely or very concerned about their child being harassed or bullied.
The teen survey found that 46% of kids ages 13 to 17 had experienced at least one of six cyberbullying behaviors, while 28% have experienced multiple types.
Musk’s Poll Results: Elon Should Step Down as Twitter CEO
Twitter users voted decisively in a poll for Elon Musk to step down as chief executive of the social media platform, a backlash against the billionaire less than two months after he took over in what has been a chaotic and controversial reign.
Musk said on Sunday he would abide by the results of the poll, but did not give details on when he would step down if results said he should. He had said that there is no successor yet.
About 57.5% votes were for “Yes”, while 42.5% were against the idea of Musk stepping down as the head of Twitter, according to the poll the billionaire launched on Sunday evening. Over 17.5 million people voted.
Youngkin Joins GOP Governors in Banning TikTok on State Devices, Wireless Networks
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has become the latest in a series of Republican governors in banning TikTok on state government devices and wireless networks.
Youngkin issued an executive order on Friday to ban applications owned by the Chinese internet companies ByteDance Limited or Tencent Holdings Limited — like TikTok and WeChat — on those devices and networks. The order also requires businesses that contract with the state government to prohibit the use of those apps on state-owned devices and information technology infrastructure.
GOP governors in at least seven other states have issued similar orders recently, including in Utah, Maryland and Texas. A TikTok spokesperson told The Hill after Alabama, North Dakota and Iowa banned it on state devices that it is “disappointed” that many states are “jumping on the bandwagon.”
Up to 254,000 Medicare Beneficiaries Are Getting New ID Cards Due to Data Breach at Subcontractor. What They Need to Know
Up to 254,000 Medicare beneficiaries’ personal information may have been compromised in an online ransomware attack at a government subcontractor, officials warned this week.
Letters are being sent to the beneficiaries who were impacted by the potential data breach, said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Those affected — who represent less than 0.4% of Medicare’s 64.5 million beneficiaries — will also receive a replacement Medicare card with a new identification number in the next few weeks.
The personal information that could have been compromised includes name, address, date of birth, phone number, Social Security number, Medicare beneficiary identifier, banking information (including routing and account numbers) and Medicare entitlement, enrollment and premium information.
China’s COVID Case ‘Explosion’ Not Due to Relaxed Rules, WHO Says, as 1st Deaths Reported Since Easing
China is facing its biggest public health challenge since the start of the coronavirus pandemic more than three years ago. Nine days after the government abruptly abandoned its draconian “zero-COVID” policy, halting mandatory mass testing and forcible quarantines, COVID-19 is once again spreading like wildfire across the vast country.
But the World Health Organization says the strict policy of the last three years had stopped working anyway. “The explosion of cases in China is not due to the lifting of COVID restrictions,” said the WHO’s head of emergency programs, Dr. Mike Ryan. “The explosion of cases in China had started long before any easing of the zero-COVID policy.” If so, no one had told the Chinese public.
For three years, Chinese officials had drilled the message into people’s minds that COVID-19 was a killer. As of nine days ago, the official message suddenly changed, telling people that, unless they’re really sick, they should just stay at home and get better.
‘What Was It for?’: The Mental Toll of China’s Three Years in COVID Lockdowns
After China’s abrupt scaling back of its zero-COVID restrictions, many ordinary Chinese people are struggling to cope with the mental trauma from three years of frequent lockdowns and are demanding answers for the heavy price they have paid.
On Friday, one of the top shared posts on Sina Weibo — China’s Twitter-like platform — was an article citing medical experts as saying depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by the population would probably take between 10 and 20 years to recover from.
Lu Lin, a fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at a forum on Friday that as many as 20% of health workers, patients and members of the public may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and nearly one-third of those quarantined at home have displayed symptoms of depression, anxiety and insomnia. Other experts called for emergency services to support the community’s mental health.
Many are cynical about the policy reversal. “Yesterday they said the virus was lethal and today they say the virus is milder than flu. What can you do?” said a post. Many questioned whether the heavy human price over the past three years had been worth it.
