Court revives block of federal worker vaccine rule
In a reversal for President Biden, a federal appeals court in New Orleans on Monday agreed to reconsider its own April ruling that allowed the administration to require federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The new order from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans vacates an earlier ruling by a three-judge panel that upheld the mandate. The new order means a block on the mandate imposed in January by a Texas-based federal judge remains in effect, while the full court’s 17 judges take up the appeal.
Biden had issued an order Sept. 9 requiring that more than 3.5 million federal executive branch workers undergo vaccination, with no option to get regularly tested instead, unless they secured approved medical or religious exemptions.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of Texas by then-President Donald Trump, issued a nationwide injunction against the requirement in January. At the time, the White House said 98% of federal workers were already vaccinated.
Brown’s ruling was followed by back-and-forth rulings at the 5th Circuit. In February, a 5th Circuit panel refused to block Brown’s ruling pending appeal. But after hearing arguments in March, a different panel ruled 2-1 that Brown did not have jurisdiction in the case. The panel said those challenging the requirement could have pursued administrative remedies under Civil Service law. Although the ruling was issued in April, it was not to officially take effect until May 31.
CHINA
Online censors edit official’s remarks
Digital censors quickly deleted a hashtag “the next five years” Monday as online discussion swirled in response to reported remarks of Beijing’s Communist Party secretary saying that the capital city will normalize pandemic prevention controls over the course of the next five years.
Beijing’s Communist Party chief, Cai Qi, made the remarks Monday morning as part of a report on the Party’s management of the city.
The citywide party congress is held once every five years, ahead of the national level party congress, which is scheduled for this fall. At the congresses, members generally review the work of the past five years while also announcing goals for the next five years.
“In the next five years, Beijing will resolutely, unremittingly, do a good job in normalizing pandemic prevention controls,” according to a cached version of the remarks in Beijing Daily, the main Communist Party mouthpiece in the capital city.
The city “will implement high quality regular PCR tests, and screening at key points, strictly inspect entries in residential communities, work units and public institutions,” it said.
The current version of the Beijing Daily no longer has the phrase “in the next five years.” On Weibo, the hashtag “the next five years” was deleted. A search for it on the social media platform turns up a notice saying the topic could not be displayed “according to relevant laws, regulations and policies,” a common error message for topics deleted by the app’s censors.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Free school meal program to end
The pandemic-era federal aid that made school meals available for free to all public school students — regardless of family income levels — is ending, raising fears about the effects in the upcoming school year for families already struggling with rising food and fuel costs.
For families already strained by inflation and the end of other federal help like expanded child tax credits, advocates say cuts to the aid could mean turning more frequently to food banks.
The rules are set to revert to how they were before the coronavirus pandemic with families that are eligible based on income levels required to apply for their children to receive free or reduced-price lunch. Schools in predominantly low-income areas will be allowed to serve breakfast and lunch to everyone for free, as before.
Since waiving the eligibility requirement during the pandemic, the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees school meal programs, has seen the number of participating students soar.
During this past school year, about 30 million kids a day were getting free meals, compared with 20 million before the pandemic, said Cindy Long, administrator of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.
At summer meal distributions, 1.3 billion meals and snacks were given out nationwide in fiscal year 2020 at a cost of $4.1 billion — an eightfold increase from the previous year in terms of meals and cost, according to the USDA.
A bill passed in Congress last week and signed by President Biden on Saturday aims to keep the rules around summer meals programs as they have been during the pandemic so that sites can operate in any community with need, rather than just where there’s a high concentration of low-income children, and offer to-go meals. It also provides flexibility for schools to make substitutions for certain types of food without being fined if they run into supply chain problems.
Advocates say the legislation will provide relief, but the timing has caused confusion around plans for summer meal distributions.
For the next school year, some states have taken it upon themselves to keep school meals free for all students.
California and Maine made universal meals permanent last year and Vermont is continuing the free meals for all public school students for another year using surplus state education funding.