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Novak Djokovic Can’t Play in U.S. Open Unless He Has COVID Vaccination, Tournament Organizers Confirm
The U.S. Open has confirmed that tennis star Novak Djokovic can’t play in the tournament because of his vaccination status. The reigning Wimbledon champion said publicly he is not vaccinated against COVID-19.
While the U.S. Open does not have a vaccine mandate for players, organizers said in a statement that it will “respect the U.S. government’s position regarding travel into the country for unvaccinated non-U.S. citizens.”
The U.S. currently requires non-citizens to be fully vaccinated against COVID in order to enter the country. If not, a person is not allowed to board a flight to the U.S. — unless certain criteria are met. However, there has been no indication Djokovic would fall under any of the categories of exemptions.
California School District’s Return to Masking Has Many Parents Outraged: ‘Insanity’
Parents are dismayed and even outraged to see that a California school district is bringing back indoor masking for its students.
Parents are already expressing outrage at it, especially given San Diego Unified School District board president Sharon Whitehurst-Payne’s comments that any student who doesn’t want to wear a mask should “just not return.”
Fox News Digital heard from an array of parents about the prospect of masking up children again or pushing them into remote learning, with one Massachusetts grandmother calling it a case of “delirium.”
“This is an insanity, a delirium,” said the grandmother of six, who requested anonymity, about the masking of students. “The loss of education in the last two years, added to the mental stresses of masking — my grandkids who are school-age said they never knew if someone was smiling at them or not — is already unacceptable.”
Fired Seattle-Area Detective Calls out ‘Hypocrisy’ of COVID Vaccine Mandates After Being Called Back to Court
Jenifer Eshom was fired from her position as a detective at the King County Sheriff’s Office in Washington State over her refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. She’s now calling out the hypocrisy of the system after she was ordered to return to testify in court in her old cases.
Eshom explained on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday that she was ordered to be physically present in court for her cases that were moving through the system when she was fired.
“Ironically, these were the exact same buildings, for instance, the courthouse and other King County buildings, that prior to my termination, I was actually ordered that I was forbidden to even enter these buildings because I was too much of a danger to my coworkers and the public for being unvaccinated,” she told host Ainsley Earhardt.
Eshom said her vaccine status is no longer a concern while inside the government buildings now that she is not an employee at the sheriff’s office.
Support for Vaccine Passport and Mask Mandates Waning in Canada
Many Canadians are still fearful about the risk of the COVID-19 virus and the BA.5 variant, but there is now only a fraction who support more government health measures, an Angus Reid Institute study shows.
Back during the fourth wave in September 2021, 70% of Canadians supported vaccine passports to prove inoculation to enter large public spaces.
Now, that concept is only supported by 25% of Canadians, even though masking indoors is still recommended by public health officials.
While vaccine passports are not particularly popular in any part of the country, 55% of people in Ontario and B.C. would accept a mandate in their province. In Atlantic Canada, 62% would accept a mandate. In Alberta, the percentage is 36% and in Saskatchewan, it is 38%.
Congress’ Push to Regulate Big Tech Is Fizzling out
Hopes for a congressional vote this summer on a major tech antitrust bill have all but fizzled out as the August recess quickly approaches.
It’s more likely than ever that this Congress will push efforts to pass Big Tech competition rules into the fall, where they will face slim chances with lawmakers distracted by midterm elections.
If an autumn push fails, competition regulation will have to wait for the new Congress — and if the GOP takes back congressional control, it’s unlikely to be a top priority.
Elite Universities Are Investing in China’s Surveillance State. A New Bill Would Tax Those Investments at 100%.
A bill proposed by Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) on Wednesday would tax university endowments at a 100% rate for investments into Chinese entities deemed a threat to national security.
Elite schools such as Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have invested in SenseTime, Megvii and other companies linked to the Chinese surveillance state, according to a 2019 investigation from BuzzFeed News, such as through facial recognition technology used to track racial minorities in the province of Xinjiang.
The Protecting Endowments from our Adversaries Act would tax investments in such entities and others on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s “Entity List” with 50% excise taxes upon acquisition and 100% capital gains taxes.
Apple Argues It’s Now a Major Force in the Healthcare World
Apple Inc. published a nearly 60-page report Wednesday outlining all its health features and partnerships with medical institutions, arguing that such offerings are key to the tech giant’s future.
The company pointed to its breadth of existing services — from sleep monitoring and fitness classes to atrial-fibrillation detection and cycle tracking — and promised to build on that foundation. Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who oversees Apple’s health endeavors, said in a statement attached to the report that the company will continue to innovate in “science-based technology.”
The report serves as a response to Apple critics, who have knocked the company for not doing as much as rivals in healthcare. Though the Apple Watch dominates the market, the device hasn’t always gotten novel health features as quickly as competitors’ products. And fellow tech titans such as Amazon.com Inc. and Google have made ambitious forays into the medical field — with mixed results.
Big Tech Builds AI With Bad Data. So Scientists Sought Better Data.
Yacine Jernite, 33, is trying to push artificial intelligence (AI) in a better direction. After leaving Facebook, he joined BigScience, a global effort by 1,000 researchers in 60 countries to build a more transparent, accountable AI, with less of the bias that infects so many Big Tech initiatives.
The largely volunteer effort trained a computer system with good data that was curated by humans from different cultures, rather than readily available data scraped from the internet, written mostly in English, and riddled with harmful speech on race, gender and religion. The resulting AI was released on July 12 for researchers to download and study.
Microsoft Teams Is Going After Facebook With Its Own Social Network
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced plans to take on the likes of Facebook with the company’s own social media platform, Viva Engage.
The new offering, part of Microsoft Teams, looks to enhance the experience of the outgoing Yammer Communities, bringing “new capabilities to connect people, find and share knowledge, express [oneself] and find belonging at work,” according to Yammer and Viva CVP Murali Sitaram in a company blog post.
Microsoft Viva Engage is primarily a business-oriented product, set to “help organizations build community, spark engagement with leadership, harness knowledge and answers and build personal networks,” in a model similar to LinkedIn.
