Schumer calling for a federal crackdown on fake vaccine cards
NEW YORK — The Senate’s top Democrat says federal law enforcement officials need to crack down on fake COVID-19 vaccination cards being sold online.
Sen. Chuck Schumer’s announcement Sunday comes after The Associated Press reported how people are cheating the system and buying counterfeit COVID19 vaccination cards online, worrying officials at colleges and universities across the country that are requiring proof students received the vaccine to attend in-person classes.
Schumer is demanding U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the FBI team up with officials from the Department of Health and Human Services to launch a crackdown on the counterfeit cards and start a campaign to make clear that forging the cards could land people in federal prison.
He also wants the Justice Department to immediately prioritize cases involving fake vaccine cards and is pushing for Customs and Border Protection to work harder to find counterfeit cards being sent from overseas.
Federal agents have already seized thousands of fake vaccine cards this year. Customs and Border Protection officers working in Memphis seized another shipment earlier this week — sent from Shenzhen, China and headed to New Orleans — that contained dozens of fake cards, officials said.
The FBI had issued a joint statement with the Department of Health and Human Services in March urging people not to buy, create or sell fabricated vaccine cards. The unauthorized use of the seal of an official government agency is a federal crime that carries a possible fine and a up to five years in prison.
US vaccine boosters: Warning of tough days ahead with surging COVID-19 infections, the director of the National Institutes of Health said Sunday that the U.S. could decide in the next couple of weeks whether to offer booster shots to more Americans this fall.
Dr. Francis Collins also pleaded anew for unvaccinated Americans to get their shots, calling them “sitting ducks” for a delta variant that is ravaging the country.
“This is going very steeply upward with no signs of having peaked out,” he said.
Federal health officials have been looking at whether extra shots for the vaccinated may be needed as early as this fall, reviewing case numbers in the U.S. “almost daily” as well as the situation in other countries such as Israel, where preliminary studies suggest the vaccine’s protection against serious illness dropped among those vaccinated in January.
Israel has been offering a booster to people over 60 who have already been vaccinated.
No U.S. decision has been made because cases here still indicate that people remain highly protected from COVID-19, including the delta variant, after receiving the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna regimen or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
But U.S. health officials made clear Sunday they are preparing for the possibility that the time for boosters may come sooner than later.
Food stamps: The Biden administration has revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest
permanent increase to benefits in the program’s history, a move that will give poor people more power to fill their grocery carts but add billions of dollars to the cost of a program that feeds 1 in 8 Americans.
Under rules to be announced Monday and put in place in October, average benefits will rise more than 25% from pre-pandemic levels. All 42 million people in the program will receive additional aid. The move does not require congressional approval, and unlike the large pandemic-era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last.
Under the new rules, average monthly benefits, $121 per person before the pandemic, will rise by $36. Although the increase may seem modest to middleclass families, proponents say it will reduce hunger, improve nutrition and lead to better health.
NY bus crash: Authorities
continued to investigate a bus crash that left 57 people injured, as first responders described a chaotic scene as they rushed to pull people from the wreck.
The tour bus bound for Niagara Falls ran off the New York State Thruway west of Syracuse and rolled over Saturday afternoon, sending more than 50 people to hospitals.
The bus landed on its side in the grass on the highway’s westbound side. Almost all of the bus’s windows had been blown out, Port Byron Fire Chief Corey Rooker told Syracuse.com.
Many of the injured appeared to be families with children, Rooker said. First responders from a number of local units were aided by good Samaritans, he said.
All 57 people aboard the bus were taken to area hospitals including the driver, identified as Fermin Vasquez, 66, of Wingdale, New York. The bus was operated by JTR Transportation of Poughkeepsie.
Hungary bus crash: A bus traveling on a highway in Hungary crashed through a guardrail and tipped over early Sunday, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens, police said.
The crash occurred on Hungary’s M7 highway near the town of Szabadbattyan, between the capital, Budapest, and Lake Balaton, just before 5 a.m. Sunday.
Turkish floods: Turkey sent ships to help evacuate people and vehicles from a northern town on the Black Sea that was hard hit by flooding, as the death toll in the disaster rose Sunday to at least 62 and more people than that remained missing.
Torrential rains pounded the country’s northwestern Black Sea provinces Wednesday, causing flooding that demolished homes, severed bridges, swept away cars and rendered numerous roads unpassable.
Turkey’s interior minister said 77 people were still missing in the flooding.
The Turkish defense ministry sent two ships to evacuate people and vehicles from a town in Sinop. They also sent military vehicles that can serve as temporary bridges to help get access to areas where bridges were wiped out.
Lebanon fuel explosion: A warehouse where fuel was illegally stored exploded in northern Lebanon early Sunday, killing 20 people and burning dozens more in the latest tragedy to hit the Mediterranean country in the throes of a devastating economic and political crisis.
It was not clear what caused the explosion near the border with Syria. Fuel smuggling operations have been ongoing for months.
The Lebanese Red Cross said a fuel tanker exploded, and its teams recovered 20 bodies from the site in the border village of Tleil. In a statement, it said it evacuated 79 people who were injured in the blast.