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Biden Admin Asks Supreme Court to Intervene in Navy Seal Vaccine Mandate Case

Axios reported:

The Biden administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to allow the Department of Defense to enforce its COVID-19 vaccination requirement for a group of unvaccinated Navy Seals.

A federal judge in January upheld a lawsuit from 35 Navy Seals and filed the preliminary injunction on religious freedom grounds, saying the service members had a right to refuse the vaccine because of their beliefs.

The Biden administration has appealed the decision to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but it filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on Monday to let it enforce the mandate so it can avoid possibly deploying unvaccinated Navy Seals.

Wichita Airmen Join Lawsuit in Face of Discharge for COVID Vaccine Mandates

WIBW 13 reported:

As some face discharge for their choice to not get vaccinated against COVID-19, 36 airmen have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration.

On Tuesday, March 8, Alliance for Free Citizens says 36 airmen currently on active duty in the Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Omaha, Neb.

The suit challenges the legality of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on service members. Alliance For Free Citizens said this is the largest lawsuit filed to date against the proposed mandates.

Court documents indicate all 36 airmen applied for a religious exemption to the mandate due to the vaccine violating their sincerely held religious beliefs. Currently, most have had their request rejected while several are on the verge of discharge.

Students Sue Santa Clara University Over COVID Vaccine Booster Mandate

East Bay Times reported:

Two students sued Santa Clara University over its COVID-19 vaccine booster shot requirement Monday.

The lawsuit said sophomore Harlow Glenn, 20, agreed to get her first Pfizer COVID-19 shot last year to comply with the university’s vaccine mandate, but alleges she suffered numbing in her legs, severe headaches, menstrual cycle disruptions, bloody urine, body pains and hair loss. The university, she said, denied her requests for religious and medical exemptions from the shots.

Another sophomore, Jackson Druker, 19, agreed to comply with the initial vaccination requirement and hasn’t suffered a bad reaction, but does not want to take the additional risk of a booster shot, the lawsuit said.

Both students face disenrollment under university policy if they have not received the required initial and booster shots by March 17, the lawsuit said.

Tolerating COVID Misinformation Is Better Than the Alternative

The Atlantic reported:

The First Amendment hasn’t kept public officials from calling upon Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other tech platforms to restrict false or misleading claims about vaccination and other COVID-related issues. The White House has urged tech companies to censor individuals engaged in protected speech. Senator Amy Klobuchar introduced legislation in hopes of pressuring social-media companies to do more “to prevent the spread of deadly vaccine misinformation.”

And the government can apply pressure on private speech in other ways: The Department of Homeland Security, for example, is characterizing misinformation as a terrorism threat. All of these efforts reflect a judgment that, at least on pandemic matters, the liberal approach to dissent has greater costs than benefits.

I can think of at least four reasons why neither government officials nor corporate bosses should try to protect the public by newly restricting the expression of ideas, even during a pandemic.

Days After Mandate Eases, LA County Urges Masks to Fend off COVID

Los Angeles Daily News reported:

Los Angeles County’s health director continued urging residents on Monday, March 7, to wear masks, even though they’re no longer required in most indoor settings, saying they still offer strong protection against COVID-19 transmission.

The county lifted its indoor mask mandate for most locations on Friday, following the state’s lead. But the masks are still “strongly recommended” by the state and the county.

Masking is still required in higher-risk settings, including healthcare facilities, transit centers, airports, aboard public transit, in correctional facilities and at homeless shelters and long-term care facilities.

Indoor masks also continue to be required on K-12 school campuses, although the county and state will lift that requirement on Saturday. The policy, however, is expected to remain in place in the Los Angeles Unified School District until the end of the school year.

Chicago Public Schools to Drop Mask Mandate March 14; Teachers Union Vows to Fight the Change Without Collective Bargaining

Chicago Tribune reported:

Chicago Public Schools announced Monday masks will be optional for staff and students at schools and on school buses beginning March 14, setting up another showdown with the Chicago Teachers Union over COVID-19 safety protocols.

The union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state labor board Monday, asking for the CPS mask mandate to continue until CTU’s complaint is resolved. Universal masking is one of the tenets of the COVID-19 safety agreement the teachers union forged with CPS in January after an acrimonious battle led to five days of canceled classes during the Omicron surge. In a letter Friday to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, CTU President Jesse Sharkey warned that moving to a mask-optional policy would be a “clear violation” of the agreement.

Ohio’s Capital City Drops Mask Mandate as COVID Cases Fall

Associated Press reported:

Ohio’s capital and largest city has dropped its mask mandate amid a continuing fall in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

Columbus City Schools, the state’s largest district, on Tuesday also dropped its mask mandate.

South Dakota House Rewrites Noem’s Vaccine Exemption Bill

Associated Press reported:

South Dakota House Republicans on Monday passed a completely rewritten version of a bill from Gov. Kristi Noem to allow employees to gain exemptions from their employer’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates, setting up a statehouse clash over the proposal.

House lawmakers, in a snub to the governor’s bill, rewrote it to allow employees to cite any objection of their conscience. Noem’s initial bill, which had passed the Senate, would allow employees to avoid mandates by citing either a medical exemption, religious grounds for refusal or a test showing antibodies against COVID-19 in the last six months.

COVID Vaccine Mandate for Health Professionals Pushed Back Again

CBC News reported:

British Columbia’s long-promised COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all regulated health professionals will not come into effect later this month as planned, despite earlier statements from the provincial health officer.

Instead of making the shot mandatory for health professionals who work in private practice — including everyone from dentists and doctors to chiropractors and massage therapists — a new public health order will require them to report their vaccination status to their professional colleges.

The order, posted online Monday, states that B.C.’s 19 professional regulatory colleges were informed on March 4 that they would have to collect their members’ vaccination information.

As Virus Cases Go From 1 to 24,000, New Zealand Changes Tack

Associated Press reported:

Back in August, New Zealand’s government put the entire nation on lockdown after a single community case of the coronavirus was detected.

On Tuesday, when new daily cases hit a record of nearly 24,000, officials told hospital workers they could help out on understaffed COVID-19 wards even if they were mildly sick themselves.

It was the latest sign of just how radically New Zealand’s approach to the virus has shifted, moving from elimination to suppression and now to something approaching acceptance as the Omicron variant has taken hold.

Twitter Is Looking for Younger Users. It’s Turning to the Tech World’s Teen Savant to Help Find Them.

The Washington Post reported:

Teenagers have flocked to TikTok in recent years, abandoning apps like Facebook and Instagram. Twitter is stuck somewhere in the middle.

Despite its large cultural relevance, Twitter has repeatedly failed to gain mass adoption, and its forays into new formats like short-form video and live-streaming have flopped. But cultivating a young, hyper-engaged user base could be a key step toward becoming a platform as influential as its power users believe it to be.

To lead these efforts, Twitter has tapped Michael Sayman. Sayman is known as a prodigy in Silicon Valley when it comes to building products for young people. He dropped out of high school at age 17 after being recruited by Mark Zuckerberg to work for Facebook.

In 2017, Sayman left Facebook for Google, where he once again was tapped with helping a tech giant grow and retain young users.

Alphabet to Acquire Mandiant for $5.4 Billion

The Hill reported:

Google parent company Alphabet plans to acquire Mandiant, the cybersecurity firm that uncovered the SolarWinds hack, for $5.4 billion, the tech giant announced Tuesday. Mandiant will join Google’s Cloud business following the close of the acquisition, according to the announcement.

Bloomberg reported Microsoft had reportedly also been interested in Mandiant, but the company pulled out of talks more than a week ago.

“Organizations around the world are facing unprecedented cybersecurity challenges as the sophistication and severity of attacks that were previously used to target major governments are now being used to target companies in every industry,” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said in a statement.

TikTok Children’s Privacy Lawsuit Can Proceed, Says UK High Court

TechCrunch reported:

A UK High Court judge has granted permission for a class-action style privacy lawsuit to proceed against TikTok over its handling of children’s data.

The lawsuit was filed back in December 2020 by a then 12-year-old girl who has been granted anonymity by the court to bring the claim that the social networking site is processing children’s data unlawfully.

The suit is seeking damages on behalf of millions of children for alleged abuse of their information — and if the legal action succeeds TikTok could be on the hook to pay billions of dollars in compensation.