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Supreme Court Turns Away Challenge to Biden’s COVID Vaccine Mandate for Health Workers
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge from 10 mostly conservative states that sued the Biden administration over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare facilities that receive federal funding.
Back in January, the Supreme Court halted enforcement of a Biden administration vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers. But the court permitted a vaccine mandate imposed by the Department of Health and Human Services on people employed at healthcare facilities that receive federal funding through Medicare and Medicaid. That measure affects about 10 million workers.
The mandate, the states alleged, is “now devastating small, rural and community-based healthcare facilities and systems throughout the states” because of worker shortages caused by employees who decline to receive the vaccine. The Biden administration countered that the states are relying on out-of-date information about staffing and that the department may set requirements for facilities that receive federal money.
The St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit sided with the administration.
Amazon Is Always Watching
A TV that knows when you’re in and out of the room. A gadget that monitors your breathing pattern while you sleep. An enhanced voice assistant tool that highlights just how much it knows about your everyday life.
At an invite-only press event last week, Amazon unveiled a long list of product updates ahead of the holiday shopping season that appears designed to further insert its gadgets and services into every corner of our homes with the apparent goal of making everything a little easier. But the event was also another reminder of just how much Amazon’s many products are watching us.
During prior events, Amazon (AMZN) raised eyebrows with blatant examples of surveillance products, including drones and Astro, the dog-like robot that patrols the home. But this year, Amazon (AMZN)’s advancements in everyday tracking were a bit more subtle.
Newsom Signs Bill to Police California Doctors on COVID Misinformation
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will subject doctors to discipline and possible suspension of their licenses to practice for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic to patients, one of the most controversial pieces of pandemic legislation lawmakers sent to his desk.
AB 2098 by Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, was co-sponsored by the California Medical Association to tamp down COVID-19 misinformation, often spread through social media, promoting untested or ineffective treatments and cures and questioning the effectiveness of face masks and vaccines.
Vaccine skeptics and mandate critics were joined in opposition by a number of doctors, health officials and free speech advocates who argued the bill was counterproductive censorship that will further erode trust in health officials.
Once Known for Vaccine Skeptics, Marin Now Tells Them ‘You’re Not Welcome’
For more than a decade, few places in the nation were associated with anti-vaccine movements as much as Marin County, the bluff-lined peninsula of coastal redwoods and stunning views just north of San Francisco. But Marin is the anti-vaccine capital no more.
In the pandemic age, getting a COVID-19 shot has become the defining “vax” or “anti-vax” litmus test, and on that account, Marin County has embraced vaccines at rates that surpass the vast majority of communities in the nation. It comes after public health efforts to change parents’ opinions, as well as a strict state mandate that students get vaccinated for childhood diseases.
“It kind of became the cool thing to do to get vaccinated,” said Naveen Kumar, physician-in-chief for Kaiser Permanente San Rafael Medical Center.
Dr. Kumar said some Marin parents who were hesitant about the vaccines have been persuaded by their children’s enthusiasm, which he has witnessed among his teenage son and his friends. “I could hear him talking about, ‘Can you believe there’s this kid in my class and he’s not vaccinated?’ he said. “You almost become a little bit of an outcast if you’re not vaccinated.”
Among children 5 to 11, 80% in Marin County have both of their COVID shots, more than double the statewide or national rates. The rate among those under 5 is more than five times the nation’s.
LAUSD Agrees in Settlement to Not Appeal Ruling in Challenge to Student COVID Vaccine Mandate
Some two and a half months after a judge ruled in favor of the father of a 12-year-old who challenged the Los Angeles Unified School District’s student coronavirus vaccine mandate — finding that the resolution approving the directive clashes with state law — the parties have announced a settlement in which the district will not appeal the ruling.
On July 5, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff, who had taken the case under submission, reversed a tentative ruling he issued three months earlier in which he said he was initially inclined to find in favor of the LAUSD in the case brought by the father, who is identified in court papers only as G.F. and his son as D.F.
G.F. filed the case last Oct. 8 on behalf of himself and his son, a Science Academy STEM Magnet school student. G.F. maintained the state and not the LAUSD is authorized to issue vaccination mandates and that the district’s requirement that unvaccinated pupils 12 years old and over attend independent learning classes outside campus violates the state education code.
Beckloff wrote that while the Board of Education’s authority is “great,” it is not unlimited. He found that the student vaccine resolution approved on Sept. 9, 2021, conflicts with state law and clashes with the state Health and Safety Code by not allowing exemptions for personal beliefs.
Hackers Release 500 GB of Data Stolen in LA School District Ransomware Attack
The ransomware attack against the Los Angeles Unified School District just got worse. TechCrunch reports the group that took credit for the heist, Vice Society, has published a 500GB data cache from the early September breach. The collection includes extremely sensitive details like Social Security numbers, bank account info and health data that extends to students’ psychological profiles.
Vice Society had given LAUSD until October 4th to pay the ransom. It’s not clear what prompted the hackers to release the data a day early, but they alleged that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) “wasted our time” and was “wrong” to tell the district to reject the extortion attempt.
CISA, the FBI and other agencies have historically told ransomware victims to refuse payment as it simply encourages hackers to look for more targets, and doesn’t guarantee the data will be restored.
The school district is still recovering and hopes to achieve “full operational stability” for key technology services. The data leak could still pose a serious risk to students and their families through potential fraud and other privacy violations.
New Hampshire Attorney General Files Brief Opposing U.S. Air Force’s COVID Vaccine Mandate
Attorneys general in several states, including New Hampshire, have filed a brief opposing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. Air Force.
They argue that the Air Force violated the rights of 18 Air Force members by refusing to grant them religious exemptions.
The brief asks a U.S. Court of Appeals to uphold an injunction that prevents the Air Force from taking any disciplinary measures against the members.
Coast Guard Hero Praised by Biden for Saving Lives After Ian Facing Discharge Over COVID Jab Refusal
President Joe Biden personally thanked a Coast Guardsman for saving a 94-year-old woman in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, but the hero expects to be fired within days for rejecting the COVID vaccine.
Aviation Survival Technician Second Class Zach Loesch earned praise in a Friday phone call from the commander in chief for kicking in a wall to save a trapped, wheelchair-bound woman and her husband. The guardsman hoisted the woman in her wheelchair to a waiting helicopter, according to Breitbart, which interviewed him.
“I told him how proud of him I was and thanked him for all the work he and his Coasties are doing to save lives,” Biden said in a press release from the White House that thanked Loesch and Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hooper “for the heroic work that they and their Coast Guard colleagues have performed during search and rescue operations in response to Hurricane Ian.”
But the next time Loesch hears from a federal official, it could be to learn his career is over. Loesch told the news outlet he had applied for a religious exemption to avoid taking the COVID vaccine but does not expect it to be honored.
New York’s Private Schools Are Gaming Vaccine Exemptions in ‘Obvious’ Fraud
After moving to curb abuses of a school vaccine policy following an extraordinary measles outbreak in the New York City area, the state Legislature nixed religious and philosophical exemptions in 2019. It was a move that left a vocal group of parents and vaccine critics to seek the narrow carve-out for medical reasons.
And like clockwork, medical exemptions skyrocketed in 2020 at some private schools in what one lawmaker called “obvious” fraud.
When religious exemptions were allowed, few schools reported more than a fraction of a percent of students had obtained a special dispensation for medical concerns. A year after the religious considerations were scrapped, the rate of medical exemptions shot up to double digits at some schools. In one school, the figure climbed to more than 36%.
Leading the way in exemptions are religious and private schools, which have come under fresh scrutiny after a sweeping New York Times investigation into the quality of education provided at some Jewish religious schools.
Supreme Court Will Take up a Case Challenging Legal Immunity for Tech Sites Like Facebook, Twitter and Google
The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will take up a case challenging legal immunity for tech sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google.
The case — Gonzalez v. Google — seeks to hold Google legally liable for a deadly 2015 Paris terrorist attack, alleging the tech giant recommended ISIS videos to users and boosted the terrorist group’s recruitment.
In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which prevents people from knowingly distributing obscene content to minors under the age of 18. But they buried a small section within the law called Section 230. It effectively protects tech companies from being liable for third-party content that is reposted on their platforms.
The law essentially frees tech companies like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube from the responsibility for content posted on their platforms.
Court Finds Meta, Pinterest Culpable in Suicide of U.K. Teen Molly Russell
Meta, Pinterest and other social media platforms are legally to blame for the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, according to the senior coroner at the coroner’s court of North London. The ruling concerning Russell, who died as a result of self-harm in November 2017, came on Friday, Sept. 30.
A British coroner is a figure with broad authority to investigate and determine a person’s cause of death. This was not a criminal or civil trial, and Pinterest and Meta do not face penalties as a result. Russell’s family pursued the case against the two tech giants to raise awareness of the dangers of social media content accessible to young people.
Mr. Russell went public with his daughter’s story in January 2019 in an interview with the BBC. Meta eventually agreed to provide more than 16,000 pages from Molly Russell’s Instagram, which took more than 1,000 hours for the family’s legal team to review before being presented in court. About 2,100 of those posts were related to suicide, self-harm and depression, according to data that Meta disclosed to her family. Many of those posts used hashtags that linked to other explicit content and encouraged hiding mental emotional distress.
The New York Times reports that the material was so disturbing that a courtroom worker left the room to avoid viewing a set of Instagram videos depicting suicide. A child psychologist who served as an expert witness said that reviewing the material that Russell viewed was so “disturbing” and “distressing” that he lost sleep for weeks.
The High Cost of Living Your Life Online
To be online is to be constantly exposed. While it may seem normal, it’s a level of exposure we’ve never dealt with before as human beings. We’re posting on Twitter, and people we’ve never met are responding with their thoughts and criticisms. People are looking at your latest Instagram selfie. They’re literally swiping on your face. Messages are piling up. It can sometimes feel like the whole world has its eyes on you.
Being observed by so many people appears to have significant psychological effects. There are, of course, good things about this ability to connect with others. It was crucial during the height of the pandemic when we couldn’t be close to our loved ones, for example. However, experts say there are also numerous downsides, and these may be more complex and persistent than we realize.
Studies have found that high levels of social media use are connected with an increased risk of symptoms of anxiety and depression. There appears to be substantial evidence connecting people’s mental health and online habits. Furthermore, many psychologists believe people may be dealing with psychological effects that are pervasive but not always obvious.
“What we’re finding is people are spending way more time on screens than previously reported or than they believe they are,” says Larry Rosen, professor emeritus of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. “It’s become somewhat of an epidemic.”
Police Taking Photos and Fingerprints of Lone Children Arriving in U.K.
Thousands of unaccompanied children, including one aged two years old, have been subjected to police fingerprinting and photographing soon after arriving in the U.K. as part of a little-known immigration enforcement operation.
Operation Innerste is a multi-agency initiative that was rolled out in 2018 and is designed to protect children newly arrived in the U.K. from falling into the hands of traffickers.
However, child protection advocates say the Children Act already provides the powers to protect unaccompanied child asylum seekers and expressed concern about the early involvement of police rather than social workers.
Ahmed Aydeed, of Duncan Lewis solicitors, said: “Our clients have had their biometric data taken, without consenting and without an appropriate adult present. It’s a safeguarding operation that overreaches its authority, purpose and lacks safeguards.”
