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NYC Employee Unions Bash Mayor Adams’ Plan to Roll Back COVID Vaccine Mandates for Athletes but Not Cops, Teachers
It’s a slam dunk for Kyrie Irving — and still a potential pink slip for city workers. The NYPD’s biggest union slammed Mayor Adams’ plan to lift the city’s private-sector vaccine mandate for athletes and performers, charging the city created a double-standard to clear the Brooklyn Nets unvaccinated star for action inside the Barclays Center even as nine police officers who declined to get jabbed were fired.
“If the mandate isn’t necessary for famous people, then it’s not necessary for the cops who are protecting our city in the middle of a crime crisis,” fumed Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch in a Thursday statement.
“I’m not surprised,” said Lieutenants Benevolent Association head Lou Turco. “It is hypocritical to allow an athlete not to get vaccinated while forcing police officers to get vaccinated to keep their jobs. We’re told the vaccination mandate is necessary because they’re following the science. Where is the science that supports immunity if you’re able to make free throws or throw a baseball 95 miles an hour?”
A United Federation of Teachers spokeswoman echoed the police unions’ opposition. “The city should not create exceptions to its vaccination requirements without compelling reason,” the spokeswoman said.
Biden Demands Dr. Oz, Herschel Walker Step Down Amid Senate Runs
President Biden requested that two members of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, who were appointed by former President Trump, either step down or face termination amid their U.S. Senate runs in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Clearly, Joe Biden can’t be around anyone who doesn’t completely fall in line with his fear-mongering authoritarian one-size-fits-all COVID handling,” tweeted Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania.”I am proud of my service and will not resign.”
“It’s sad that he would politicize such an important issue like health,” Oz said. “The doctor he should ask to resign is Dr. Fauci, for a multitude of obvious reasons.”
NYC Mayor Officially Exempts Athletes, Performers From COVID Vax Mandate
New York City Mayor Eric Adams officially exempted athletes and performers from the city’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate on Thursday.
The vaccination mandate affected New York City sports teams. Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving was among those and had been defiant against getting the jab since the start of the 2021-22 season. The mandate would have blocked some New York Yankees and New York Mets baseball players from taking the field to start the season too.
Since taking office, Adams has been relaxing COVID-19 policies put in place by former Mayor Bill de Blasio. Last week, Adams said he expected to eventually roll back the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandate for private-sector employers.
Airline CEOs Urge Biden to End Mask Mandate, Testing Requirements
The CEOs of 10 airlines and cargo carriers have signed a letter to President Joe Biden saying he should end the transportation mask mandate and testing requirements for international travelers.
In a new letter, industry group Airlines for America wrote, “now is the time for the Administration to sunset federal transportation travel restrictions — including the international predeparture testing requirement and the federal mask mandate — that are no longer aligned with the realities of the current epidemiological environment.”
The CEOs of Alaska Airlines, American Airlines (AAL), Atlas Air Worldwide, Delta Air Lines (DAL), FedEx Express, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways (JBLU), Southwest Airlines (LUV), United Airlines (UAL) and UPS Airlines signed the letter.
LA Says It Has Terminated 24 City Employees Over COVID Vaccination Requirements
Months after Los Angeles rolled out requirements for city workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the city said that as of last week, it had terminated 24 employees for violating those rules.
The terminated employees include a dozen workers at the Los Angeles Fire Department, as well as smaller numbers of employees in the city attorney’s office, the Los Angeles Police Department, the parks department and Los Angeles World Airports, according to the city personnel department.
As of last week, an additional 53 L.A. city employees had received formal paperwork that precedes possible discipline or termination for violating the rules, and seven more LAPD employees were awaiting action by a disciplinary panel, according to personnel department spokesman Bruce Whidden.
Judge Rules That a Dozen Virginia Students Can Ask for Mask Mandates — but No More
A federal judge in Charlottesville ruled Wednesday that a handful of schools in Virginia could require face masks if necessary to protect a dozen immunocompromised children whose families sued over mask-optional policies.
The ruling includes schools in the state’s largest districts, Loudoun and Fairfax. Judge Norman K. Moon emphasized repeatedly, though, that he is not undoing state law and an executive order that makes masks optional.
His order is limited to the 12 families who sued in Charlottesville federal court, whose children attend 10 different school districts in Virginia and range in age from preschool to 11th grade. Those children, he ruled, can ask their schools to require masks as an accommodation for their disabilities.
Erika Donalds Blasts Jill Biden Reception COVID Restrictions: ‘I Don’t Care What Jen Psaki Says’
Erika Donalds, wife of Rep. Byron Donalds, R-FL, blasted the White House’s COVID-19 policies for unvaccinated attendees of a reception hosted by First Lady Jill Biden on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Wednesday.
Donalds tweeted a screenshot from an email she received from the White House, which said, “Guests who are not fully vaccinated must wear a mask at all times, including abstaining from eating and drinking, and maintain at least 6 feet distance from others while on the White House grounds.”
Donalds told host Tucker Carlson that she did not believe the White House guidance was based on science, and the restrictions for the unvaccinated were not “very inviting, to say the least.”
Zimbabwe Renews COVID Vaccination Drive, Targets School Kids
Zimbabwe has launched a new COVID-19 vaccination campaign that includes jabbing children aged 12 and above to rescue a drive faltering due to vaccine hesitancy and complacency.
This week schools in the southern African country have become vaccination zones with children in school uniforms lining up to get the injections.
Many parents say they support the vaccination drive to prevent schools from becoming centers of infection, although others remain skeptical.
Kenya, Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria have also launched mass vaccination campaigns.
Clearview AI’s Dystopian Face Rec Tech Now Being Used to Identify Dead Russian Troops
Notorious U.S. facial recognition technology from Clearview AI is now being used to identify deceased soldiers fallen on the battlefield.
In a recent interview with Reuters, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the military uses the tech to identify dead soldiers and then sends alerts to the fallen combatant’s family.
As a reminder, Clearview’s facial recognition system works by comparing images of a subject against its database of billions of photos scraped from the public web, including social media networks. Specifically, Fedorov said the military uses the app to find a soldier’s social media account.
Blackrock’s Fink Says Russia-Ukraine War Could Accelerate Use of Cryptocurrencies
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could accelerate the adoption of digital currencies by central banks, according to BlackRock’s Larry Fink. The CEO of the $10 trillion-asset money manager called it one of the “less discussed” outcomes of the war, which began one month ago, in his annual letter to shareholders Thursday.
Fink cited the U.S. Federal Reserve as an example, which recently published a white paper examining the pros and cons of a potential U.S. central bank digital currency.
The BlackRock CEO has previously spoken with optimism about the future of “digital currencies” but has remained cautious about bitcoin and its volatility.
EU’s Faster, Harder Stick Will Whack U.S. Big Tech
Regulators around the world have been trying to crack into the dominance that big technology firms like Apple (AAPL.O) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O) have created. So far, they have been too slow and toothless to prevent them from growing.
Europe’s Digital Markets Act, which might be agreed upon this month according to European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager, gets closer to changing that.
So far attempts to dent tech firms’ dominance haven’t worked. Take Alphabet’s fight with the European Commission, which started in 2010. It resulted in nearly $10 billion in fines, but the firm’s operating profit grew seven-fold since that period, to over $300 billion. Moreover, Alphabet has yet to actually pay those fines, and Google retains about 90% of the European search market.
6 Tech Giants That Have Been Breached by a Nefarious New Hacker Gang
A new hacker gang has been stealing code from some of the world’s biggest tech companies and dumping it all over the internet. The culprit is LAPSUS$, a criminal outfit whose trademark is taking on the biggest, shiniest target it can find, breaching it, then slyly bragging about the conquest. LAPSUS$ boosts victims’ data, then threatens to dump it if the price is not paid.
While it’s not totally clear who is involved in the gang, researchers told Bloomberg that one of its main hackers may be a 16-year-old boy living with his mom in England.
As more information comes in about the gang itself, here’s a run-through of the biggest targets LAPSUS$ has hacked so far.
