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New York Mandate Requires Kids Over 2 to Wear Face Masks at Daycare, Camp

Newsweek via MSN reported:

New York lifted its indoor mask mandate for fully vaccinated adults on Wednesday, while Governor Andrew Cuomo also announced that children ages 2 to 11 will be required to wear face coverings at day care and summer camps.

New York lifted its indoor mask mandate for fully vaccinated adults on Wednesday, while Governor Andrew Cuomo also announced that children ages 2 to 11 will be required to wear face coverings at day care and summer camps.

Cuomo and the state Office of Children and Family Services defended the mandate, saying it was in compliance with federal guidelines.

“I understand the science, and I understand the data. And that’s what drove the federal government to those guidelines,” Cuomo said in a press conference on Thursday.

California Won’t Create a Vaccine Passport, but Large Events Will Be Screened

Los Angeles Daily News reported:

California will not require an official vaccine passport for residents when all social distancing requirements and capacity limits are lifted on June 15, Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly said Friday.

But the state will mandate that indoor events with at least 5,000 people, such as Golden State Warriors and San Jose Sharks games, verify vaccination or a negative COVID test. That will require fans to obtain some sort of proof — whatever the venue decides to require — before they can attend.

As Employees Return to the Office, Banks Explore Surveillance Tech

Venture Beat reported:

Reservation systems for seats. Algorithms that say whether a location is crowded or not. Cameras to show what’s happening in real-time. Trackers that let others know you are there.

Technology that has swept the world for convenience, curiosity, and accountability is arriving at workstations of U.S. bank employees, as they prepare to return to offices in coming months because of the pandemic easing, industry sources and outside vendors said.

Big Tech Uses ‘Socially Awkward’ and ‘the Spectrum’ to Cover Their Sins

New York Post reported:

It’s understandable America fell for the well-crafted image of Bill Gates, the cuddly nerd in a V-neck and khakis, BFFs with Warren Buffett, most interested in climate change, global health initiatives, education, and, like Oprah, loving nothing more than recommending a good book …

The seeming lack of morality or empathy has traditionally been explained away as a politically incorrect third rail: These men might be on the spectrum, a bit autistic, we’ve been told.

It’s a defense that’s always somehow in the ether, as is the excuse that these men are such geniuses that their greed, ruthlessness and meanness is something closer to eccentricity.

Once Tech’s Favorite Economist, Now a Thorn in Its Side

The New York Times reported:

Paul Romer was once Silicon Valley’s favorite economist. The theory that helped him win a Nobel prize — that ideas are the turbocharged fuel of the modern economy — resonated deeply in the global capital of wealth-generating ideas. In the 1990s, Wired magazine called him “an economist for the technological age.” The Wall Street Journal said the tech industry treated him “like a rock star.”

Not anymore.

Today, Mr. Romer, 65, remains a believer in science and technology as engines of progress. But he has also become a fierce critic of the tech industry’s largest companies, saying that they stifle the flow of new ideas. He has championed new state taxes on the digital ads sold by companies like Facebook and Google, an idea that Maryland adopted this year.