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A 7-Foot-Tall Robot at Dallas Love Field Is Watching for Unmasked Travelers and Curbside Loiterers

The Dallas Morning News via MSN reported:

Yes, those 7-foot-tall machines at Dallas Love Field are watching you. They want to make sure you’re wearing a mask if you’re boarding a flight or not parking too long at the curb if you’re picking up a returning traveler.

Love Field is testing two Security Control Observation Towers at the airport, one near baggage claim and another near security checkpoints, to figure out whether robotic assistants can both help customers get around and warn passengers who are breaking rules. The robots can also call airport security and operations in case more help is needed.

Airports have been at the forefront of technology, including facial recognition and other biometrics, for years, a trend that worries privacy advocates who say there are few, if any, laws or guidelines about how emerging technology should be used. Amazon took criticism in 2019 after testing its Rekognition technology with police departments before deciding to ban law enforcement from using it two years later.

Dr. Saphier: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Should Be Removed From Office for ‘Negligent’ Toddler Mask Mandate

Fox News reported:

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier argued on “America Reports” Monday that New York City Mayor Eric Adams should be removed from office for continuing to push an indoor mask mandate on young children with “no strong evidence” behind it.

“It’s important to remember that the World Health Organization has never recommended masking children 2 to 5 years of age,” said Saphier.

“There is no magic number when it comes to an age a child can or cannot transmit the virus, that there is no strong evidence to show school mask mandates of children wearing masks actually has any effect on transmission.

“Children should not be masked and the New York City mayor who is continuing to mask toddlers — it is upsetting and negligent and he should be removed from office at this point because he’s making these points without any data to back it up. It will only cause harm.”

76ers’ Matisse Thybulle to Miss Some Playoff Games Over Vaccine Status

The Washington Post reported:

Because he is not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, Philadelphia 76ers guard Matisse Thybulle will be unable to play first-round playoff games in Toronto against the Raptors. Canada does not allow unvaccinated foreign visitors to enter without special exemptions, and athletes are not exempt.

Thybulle said Sunday that he had received only one dose of the Pfizer vaccine, choosing to go no further with vaccination because he was “raised in a holistic household” and vaccination did not guarantee that a person would not spread the virus. “This was a decision I made a long time ago,” he said.

“It got to the point last year during the playoffs where I did actually consider getting vaccinated and went through with getting the first shot, the first dose. At that point, I was under the impression that getting vaccinated meant that I could not get the disease and transmit it to other people. And I felt like if I’m going to be a part of society, in the position I’m in, I need to do what’s right for the greater good. That argument of the greater good held a lot of weight for me.

“As things progressed, as this virus has changed many different ways, it just showed through the science that wasn’t the case anymore — that even while being vaccinated, you could still spread the disease.”

Philadelphia to Reimpose Indoor Mask Mandate in Public Spaces

Reuters reported:

Philadelphia will again require masks in indoor public settings such as restaurants, schools and businesses starting next week, the city said on Monday, responding to what appears to be a fresh wave of coronavirus transmissions.

The new rule, which is set to take effect on April 18, will make Philadelphia the first major city in the United States to reimpose such a mandate.

New infections in Philadelphia are rising quickly, up 50% from the start of April, prompting the city to step up prevention measures, city Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said at a news briefing. COVID hospitalizations, a lagging metric, remain stable, she said.

U.S. Seeks to Resume Enforcing Federal Employee Vaccine Mandate

Reuters reported:

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal appeals court to allow the Biden administration to resume enforcing a federal employee vaccine mandate that had been blocked by a lower-court judge in January.

A 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Thursday reinstated President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating that federal civilian employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.

On Monday, the Justice Department asked the appeals court to take “appropriate steps so that the government may resume implementation and enforcement” of President Joe Biden’s executive order.

It said the appeals court should issue its order immediately to allow the ruling to take effect, arguing it is “justified by the serious ongoing harm to the public interest and to the government.”

Mask Mandates Return as COVID Cases Rise Across U.S.

CBS News reported:

Columbia University is again requiring its students to mask up in classrooms, with public health experts urging caution as COVID-19 case numbers climb across the U.S. As of Monday, Columbia is requiring that students wear non-cloth masks in classrooms, according to a student-run news site. The mask mandate, which will remain in place through the remainder of the spring semester, applies to all students, but not to professors, for whom masks are optional.

Columbia and Barnard aren’t alone in reimposing coronavirus precautions. At least two other universities — Georgetown in Washington, DC, and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland — are asking students to mask up again. Georgetown announced the reinstatement of a temporary indoor mask mandate beginning April 7 in response to a significant rise in cases on campus. The requirement will remain in effect for the foreseeable future, according to Georgetown.

17 Port Authority Workers Fired Over COVID Vaccine; Service Improves as Others Return to Work

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported:

Seventeen Port Authority employees have been terminated so far as disciplinary hearings continue for more than 300 employees who refuse to comply with the agency’s mandatory vaccination policy against the COVID-19 virus.

Authority spokesman Adam Brandolph said 100 employees have returned to work on 30 days of probation after they received the first dose of the vaccination. Nine employees have retired, and 127 remain suspended with pay pending their hearings.

A Modern City Starves

Axios reported:

Many of Shanghai’s 26 million residents are facing food shortages as the Chinese government’s strict COVID lockdowns have ground one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world to a halt. Scenes of residents rationing vegetables and begging local officials to allow them to search for food have cast a shadow on the Chinese government’s COVID response.

Shanghai residents across the city are scrambling for food, as empty grocery shelves, unreliable government provisions, and strained food delivery services make it hard to secure enough to eat.

Extreme lockdown conditions and censorship mean journalists can’t easily report from the ground, so many Shanghai residents have turned to social media for support, posting photos of their few remaining vegetables and videos of residents demanding that local health authorities allow them to leave their building to look for food.

There Are No Laws Protecting Kids From Being Exploited on YouTube — One Teen Wants to Change That

TechCrunch reported:

At just 17, Chris McCarty is taking matters into her own hands to protect children from being exploited for cash in family vlogs. As part of their project for the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the highest honor in the program, the Seattle teenager spent months researching child influencers: kids who rake in serious cash for their appearances in YouTube vlogs, which are often run by their parents.

They were so fascinated and appalled by the lack of regulation around child labor and social media that they utilized their high school’s senior independent study program to phone-bank their neighbors to gauge community interest in the issue.

In January, McCarty cold-emailed a number of local lawmakers, including Washington State Representative Emily Wicks, who serves on the Children, Youth & Families Committee. McCarty presented their research, convincing the representative why she should work with a teenager to draft a new bill at the very end of the legislative session.

The Metaverse Holds Great Promise — and Great Risk

CNN Business reported:

It’s been about six months since we first heard about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s fever dream for a beautiful metaverse. But the metaverse could be so much more than one man’s quest for control over our virtual lives.

Most would agree that the metaverse could be a series of connected virtual environments that resemble and function similar to our physical world; or, a three-dimensional immersive version of the Web. And we have a sense of what it will be because many of its components already exist: social interactions and economic interactions are all features of a future metaverse that are not new.

The dream is very much alive — if a dream is a herd of tech companies stampeding to cash in. For Meta, Microsoft and other Big Tech players, this vision of the metaverse represents an enormous opportunity, specifically, the chance to be a platform not just for gaming or social media, but for life itself — a place where we work, learn, earn and spend; sort of an operating system for our digital lives.