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DC Council Votes to Delay Students’ Coronavirus Vaccine Requirement
The DC Council voted Tuesday to delay its coronavirus vaccine mandate for students age 12 and older until next school year, despite reservations from some members.
In the meantime, lawmakers will review the requirement, which was passed in December. Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) indicated last month she would put forth emergency and temporary legislation to delay the plan, saying much has changed about the way health officials understand the virus since she introduced the legislation last year.
The mandate was set to take effect at the beginning of this school year. But to give more time for schools to prepare and students to get vaccinated, city officials extended the deadline for compliance to Jan. 3. Students who remained unvaccinated by then faced being barred from school. About 14,700 students in the required age group had not been vaccinated for the coronavirus as of Sept. 27.
The science around the coronavirus has also evolved, Henderson said. Recent guidance from DC Health, as well as other health agencies, has raised questions about whether policies surrounding the coronavirus should mirror guidance around the flu — meaning schools should strongly encourage, not require, students to get shots, Henderson said in October.
Officials Across United States Spread Misinformation on COVID Vaccines
Officials across the United States are continuing to spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, The Epoch Times has found. The claims include unsupported or misleading statements about vaccine effectiveness and safety.
The vast majority of officials responsible for the misinformation were unable or unwilling to provide evidence backing their claims.
The Louisiana Department of Health is among those exaggerating vaccine effectiveness. The agency claims in a promotional message that the vaccines “are 100% effective at preventing serious hospitalizations and deaths.”
South Dakota’s health department, meanwhile, says that “Nearly everyone in the United States who is getting severely ill, needing hospitalization and dying from COVID-19 is unvaccinated.” That’s not true and hasn’t been for months.
The Feds ‘Disinformation’ Fight Is Censorship, Pure and Simple
So it turns out the Department of Homeland Security gave up on creating its “Disinformation Governance Board” after the huge public outcry in April — but kept on quietly with its self-imposed “Ministry of Truth” mission. Heads must roll.
Documents obtained by The Intercept reveal that the feds are still cracking down on the unhindered exchange of ideas and information and seeking to strangle free speech in the name of combating “disinformation,” meaning opinions progressives dislike or information that embarrasses them.
How? One ugly method is via a still-operative portal that lets government and law-enforcement workers directly request content takedowns on Facebook and Instagram.
Plus cozy industry-government relationships such as regular meetings with the top brass of tech firms like Twitter’s just-axed chief censor Vijaya Gadde. (This gives the lie to Twitter’s claim that “We do not coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions.” Elon, you’ve got a lot of cleanup to do.)
You Really Don’t Want the Government to Be Your Content Moderator
“All governments lie,” the leftist journalist I.F. Stone once said. Stone wasn’t trying to be provocative, merely pointing out that there’s a pretty basic reason we have a free press in the United States: typically, the government is not a reliable narrator. Governments aren’t inherent liars; they just don’t always have a good reason to tell the public the truth. Sometimes they feel the need to deceive and cover-up.
That’s what makes a new report from The Intercept, “Truth Cops,” so distressing. The outlet reveals a concerted effort on the part of the federal government to increasingly collaborate with private tech platforms and other major corporations to police the kinds of content and information that Americans consume.
In particular, the Department of Homeland Security has increasingly pivoted from its “War on Terror” mission to an internally focused agenda that sees online speech as a target to be monitored, assessed and, in some cases, combatted and quashed.
Working together with other elements of the U.S. intelligence community, DHS has spawned a variety of programs involving “burgeoning social media monitoring authorities” on a constant mission to “expand the scope of the agency’s tools to foil disinformation,” according to The Intercept.
Iowa Must Permit School Districts to Require Masks in Some Cases, Federal Court Rules
Iowa school districts must consider medically sensitive students’ requests to require mask-wearing of those around them, notwithstanding a state law that banned school mask mandates, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
The decision by Judge Robert Pratt comes in a suit filed by several families challenging Iowa’s pandemic-era law, which Gov. Kim Reynolds signed in May 2021, banning school districts and local governments from mandating mask-wearing.
The plaintiffs are parents of children with chronic health conditions or disabilities rendering them particularly at risk for complications from the coronavirus. They sued, arguing that the state was violating federal disability rights law by denying reasonable accommodations for their children.
The decision, released when COVID-19 cases have been far fewer than they had been for years, rekindles the bitter battles over mask requirements, which colored recent years. The debates over mask requirements led to contentious school board meetings, slid into local elections and resulted in the state law banning mask mandates.
Father Blames China’s COVID Policy for Son’s Death That Sparked Online Anger
The father of a 3-year-old boy who died on Tuesday from carbon monoxide poisoning in northwest China said strict COVID-19 policies “indirectly killed” his son by causing delays in obtaining treatment, in a case that has sparked social media outrage.
The boy’s death is the latest incident to trigger blowback over China’s strict zero-COVID policy, with one critical hashtag racking up 380 million reads on Wednesday on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.
At around midday on Tuesday, after Tuo Shilei’s wife slipped and fell after being affected by gas fumes while cooking, Tuo noticed that his son, Wenxuan, was also unwell. Tuo said he tried desperately to call for an ambulance or police, but could not get through.
After about 30 minutes Wenxuan’s condition worsened, and Tuo said he performed CPR, which helped briefly. He rushed with his son to the entrance of their community compound, under strict lockdown, but the staff at the gate would not let him past, telling him to call neighborhood authorities or an ambulance.
China Imposes Fresh Lockdown Around Major Apple iPhone Plant
China ordered an industrial park that houses an iPhone factory belonging to Foxconn (2317.TW) to enter a seven-day lockdown on Wednesday, in a move set to intensify pressure on the Apple supplier as it scrambles to quell worker discontent at the base.
The Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone in central China said it would impose “silent management” measures with immediate effect, including barring all residents from going out and only allowing approved vehicles on roads within that area.
The curbs will last until Nov. 9, it said. The lockdown marks a re-tightening of measures in Zhengzhou, which unexpectedly lifted a quasi-lockdown on its nearly 13 million residents the day before. The city reported 358 locally transmitted cases for Tuesday, up from 95 the day before.
FCC Commissioner Says Government Should Ban TikTok
The Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) should take action to ban TikTok, Brendan Carr, one of five commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, told Axios in an interview.
Why it matters: It’s the strongest language Carr has used to date to urge action on TikTok. With more than 200 million downloads in the U.S. alone, the popular app is becoming a form of critical information infrastructure — making the app’s ownership by a Chinese parent company a target of growing national security concern.
Washington’s Inaction on TikTok Is Beijing’s Gain
Recent reporting exposing the nefarious nature of TikTok’s data harvesting operation — which is almost certainly funneling Americans’ personal data right back to Beijing — has missed the point on what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is really up to. They’re creating a predictive model for how to defeat the West … and we’re helping them do it.
In the last few months, we have learned that at least 300 employees at TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, previously worked for Chinese-controlled media — and some still do. Leaked audio from internal meetings showed that U.S. user data had been repeatedly accessed from CCP-controlled mainland China. And scarier still, a Chinese-based team planned to use TikTok to monitor the personal locations of certain American citizens.
TikTok is designed to allow users to consume and share culturally relevant videos and memes from their phones. The difference between TikTok and other popular apps like Instagram and Facebook, however, is that TikTok is owned by a Chinese internet conglomerate called ByteDance, a company with a cozy relationship with the Chinese state government.
It’s no secret that any business operating in China, Chinese-owned or otherwise, is required to acquiesce to Chinese surveillance and technology stealing, which makes the trove of data that TikTok is collecting a ripe, low-hanging target for the Chinese government.
CZ, the CEO of Binance, Has Bet Big on Musk’s Twitter Buyout With a $500 Million Investment, Saying He Is ‘Extremely Supportive’ of the Freedom of Speech
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the CEO of Binance, said the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume has invested $500 million in Elon Musk‘s acquisition of Twitter, which was worth $44 billion. His investment was driven by a love of free speech.
“Number one, we want to be extremely supportive of free speech. As a business, we are helping to increase the freedom of money, and free speech comes before freedom of money, so we need to help maintain free speech,” Zhao said. He made the comments at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon on Tuesday.
Zhao also cited other “very strong reasons” why he invested in the social media platform — such as Twitter being the “global town square” where people from crypto enthusiasts to politicians can voice their opinions.
Banned Twitter Accounts Will Not Be Reinstated Until After U.S. Midterms
Banned Twitter accounts including Donald Trump’s will not be reinstated until after the U.S. midterm elections at least, the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, has said.
Musk said anyone barred from the social media platform for violating content rules would not be allowed back on until a process for doing so has been put in place, which would “take at least a few more weeks.”
Twitter’s new owner added that the recently announced Twitter content moderation council, which will adjudicate on reinstatements and content decisions, will include members of the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence.
