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Republican Lawmakers Sue CDC to End Airplane Mask Mandate
Republican lawmakers have sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to force an end to the requirement that face masks be worn on airplanes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Monday, a group of 16 House members led by Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and joined by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) filed a lawsuit to end what they described as an “illegal mask mandate for individuals traveling on commercial airlines.”
The lawsuit argues that Congress did not approve the mandate and that the CDC did not have the “authority” to issue it. The requirement was extended through April 18 by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) following a CDC recommendation last week and also applies to trains, buses and transit hubs.
Instagram, TikTok Could Get Sued for Addicting Kids Under California Proposal
Big Tech companies could face a slew of lawsuits for harming children under a new California proposal that takes the toughest industry-accountability stance yet on the mental health toll of intense social media use.
The bipartisan measure from Assemblymembers Jordan Cunningham (R-Templeton) and Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), which rolls out on Tuesday, would hold social media companies legally liable for deploying features and apps that addict children to their detriment.
Significantly, the legislation is retroactive, which would put the companies at legal risk for any past damage their products caused for teens and younger children. In an exclusive interview about the bill, Cunningham compared its potential effect to the landmark legislation against Big Tobacco’s marketing to kids.
Nets Fined $50,000 for Allowing Kyrie Irving to Enter Locker Room During Home Game vs. Knicks
The Brooklyn Nets picked up another victory on Sunday afternoon, holding off the New York Knicks, 110-107, to extend their winning streak to three games. Kevin Durant led the way, pouring in a season-high 53 points, but his brilliant performance was not the only headline.
That’s because Kyrie Irving, who is still not allowed to play in home games at Barclays Center, was in attendance for the first time all season. He showed up late in the first half and took a courtside seat as a fan. During halftime, however, he made his way to the locker room, and as a result, the Nets have been fined $50,000.
From a health perspective, it does not make much sense that Irving can enter the building without a mask and watch the game from a courtside seat, but cannot play. The Nets and Irving seemingly tried to make that point by having him show up to a national TV game, and stars such as LeBron James and Kevin Durant both voiced their displeasure with the rule.
COVID Mask and Vaccine Mandates Have Ruined the World Forever
COVID-19 mask restrictions have been lifted for New Yorkers, including for schoolchildren above the age of 5. It should be a happy, liberating moment. It’s what many of us have waited for. But it hasn’t been that easy. There’s much that isn’t as straightforward any more, thanks to the pandemic.
Not everybody wants to take their masks off. Some kids want to keep them on. They still feel in danger from the virus. They could face peer pressure in school if all the other kids want to take their masks off. Some parents may not agree with lifting the mandate and will want their kids to keep their masks on. The kids may disagree with mom and dad. Parents themselves may disagree with each other over whether their kids should keep their masks on.
We’re seeing these differences in the larger world as well. Many people are choosing to keep their masks on in the supermarket, in the park, while driving their cars.
Police Divert ‘People’s Convoy’ Away From Downtown DC
District police blocked a key interstate highway ramp to divert a group of protesting truckers away from downtown DC Tuesday, redirecting them instead onto the Anacostia Freeway rather than allowing them to cross the Anacostia River and head on roads closer to center of the city.
Participants in the “People’s Convoy,” who have been driving around the District to protest the government’s response to the pandemic, were greeted with a dump truck blocking their route from Interstate 295 toward Interstate 695. Once on the Anacostia Freeway, off-ramps, including one toward Pennsylvania Ave., were blocked by police.
On Monday afternoon, hundreds of trucks, cars and SUVs that were part of the convoy converged with thousands of other motorists on I-395 and encountered severe backups. They had said earlier that they planned to take the same route on Tuesday.
Axios-Ipsos Poll: Americans Ditch Masks, Gain Confidence
Americans’ emotional and physical health is bouncing back, along with record confidence about life returning to “normal” as mask mandates are abandoned, according to the latest installment of the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index.
Sixty-four percent of survey respondents now favor federal, state and local governments lifting all COVID-19 restrictions, up 20 percentage points since early February.
“As the mandates ended, behaviors changed across the board,” said Cliff Young, president of Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs. “The mandate itself was signaling risk, and as the mandate went down that signal went dormant.”
Travelers to U.K. Will No Longer Face COVID Restrictions Beginning Friday
Travelers entering the United Kingdom will no longer face COVID-19 restrictions starting this week, according to the transportation secretary.
Due to the vaccine rollout, all travel measures will be suspended for those entering the U.K. starting on Friday at 4 a.m. which will make travel easier for the upcoming holidays, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps posted on Twitter.
Those traveling to the U.K. were previously required to fill out a passenger locator form including their travel details such as where they were staying and their vaccination status. Additionally, people who were unvaccinated had to take a PCR test prior to departure and two days after arriving in the U.K. These restrictions will no longer be in effect beginning this week.
Vaccine Skeptics Fear Communist Party as Much as Side Effects in Hong Kong
Cases, growing by tens of thousands a day, have already spilled into mainland China. There has been an alarming outbreak in the manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, home to assembly plants run by iPhone manufacturer Foxxcon, among other production lines. Shenzhen’s 12.6 million residents are in lockdown in one of several cities experiencing their worst spikes since the early days of the pandemic.
According to Hong Kong’s official figures, just over 72% of its 7.5 million residents had been fully vaccinated as of Tuesday — three weeks after the peak of its Omicron wave.
Analysts have put vaccine skepticism down to both psychological and political reasons. Like in the United States, the fear of side effects is real, a sentiment that creates panic among the elderly due to amplification by the media. However, the low vaccination rate also reflects a deep mistrust in Hong Kong’s authorities, which have spent the past two years executing the Chinese Communist Party‘s heavy-handed crackdown on democratic freedoms.
Dutch to Drop Last Remaining COVID Restrictions Next Week
The Dutch government will drop its last remaining COVID-19 restrictions on March 23, despite a recent rise in infections, as the nation learns to live with coronavirus.
The country already has already ended a nationwide lockdown and scrapped most virus measures. As of March 23, wearing a face mask on public transport will no longer be obligatory. Facemasks will still have to be worn on airplanes and behind security screening at airports.
The government also is halting the use of a digital COVID pass to get into nightclubs and other large-scale events, the only place where they were still required.
The FTC Is Probing How Amazon Allegedly Tricks People Into Signing Up for Prime
Someone at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has had it with free trials that turn out not to be so free months later. The federal agency thought that the online signup for Amazon Prime was so shady it conducted an official inquiry into it.
The ecommerce giant is facing the FTC’s scrutiny over its use of “dark patterns” — manipulative online interface tricks — that supposedly lured users into signing up for costly Prime memberships without their overt knowledge.
Amazon has been persuasive in promoting Prime, perhaps too much so. Manipulative, even. Federal investigators have spent the past several years looking into the tech giant’s UX/UI choices in response to ongoing reports that consumers have felt tricked into Prime enrollment via the company’s design choices.
Facebook Fined $18.6M Over String of 2018 Breaches of EU’s GDPR
Facebook‘s parent company, Meta, has been fined €17 million (~$18.6M) by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) over a string of historical data breaches.
The security lapses in question, which appear to have affected up to 30 million Facebook users, date back several years — and had been disclosed by Facebook to the Irish regulator in 2018.
The DPC, which is Meta/Facebook’s lead privacy regulator in the European Union, opened this security-related inquiry in late 2018 after it received no less than 12 data breach notifications from the tech giant in the six-month period between June 7, 2018 and Dec. 4, 2018.
