Thanks to President Biden’s focus on getting Americans vaccinated, 70 percent of adult Americans are now fully vaccinated—up from less than one percent when the President took office. This is significant progress, made possible by a vaccinations program that made shots free and convenient for months. But more vaccinations are needed to save lives, protect the economy, and accelerate the path out of the pandemic. To that end, in July, President Biden began rolling out vaccination requirements for federal employees and contractors and calling on employers to do the same. Thousands of organizations across the country have answered the President’s call, and vaccination requirements have already helped reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans by approximately 40 percent since July.

Today, the Biden Administration is announcing the details of two policies to fight COVID-19 that will drive even more progress and result in millions of Americans getting vaccinated, protecting workers, preventing hospitalization, saving lives, and strengthening the economy.

First, the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is announcing the details of a requirement for employers with 100 or more employees to ensure each of their workers is fully vaccinated or tests for COVID-19 on at least a weekly basis. The OSHA rule will also require that these employers provide paid-time for employees to get vaccinated, and ensure all unvaccinated workers wear a face mask in the workplace. OSHA has a strong 50-year record of requiring employers to take common sense actions to prevent workers from getting sick or injured on the job. This rule will cover 84 million employees.

Second, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at the Department of Health and Human Services is announcing the details of its requirement that health care workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid are fully vaccinated. The rule applies to more than 17 million workers at approximately 76,000 health care facilities, including hospitals and long-term care facilities.

The Administration has previously implemented policies requiring millions of federal employees and federal contractors to be fully vaccinated. To make it easy for businesses and workers to comply, the Administration is announcing today that the deadline for workers to receive their shots will be the same for the OSHA rule, the CMS rule, and the previously-announced federal contractor vaccination requirement. Employees falling under the ETS, CMS, or federal contractor rules will need to have their final vaccination dose – either their second dose of Pfizer or Moderna, or single dose of Johnson & Johnson – by January 4, 2022. OSHA is also clarifying that it will not apply its new rule to workplaces covered by either the CMS rule or the federal contractor vaccination requirement. And, both OSHA and CMS are making clear that their new rules preempt any inconsistent state or local laws, including laws that ban or limit an employer’s authority to require vaccination, masks, or testing.......

The Fox Corporation’s upcoming annual shareholder meeting in Los Angeles will feature something that totally contradicts its own media outlets’ right-wing editorial line: vaccination passports, mask requirements, and a variety of other COVID-19 safety measures as part of Fox’s health and safety protocols.

The company’s blatant hypocrisy is already well-documented during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fox News has undermined the Biden administration’s vaccination campaign nearly every day in a six-month period, and turned vaccine resisters into culture war heroes. At the same time, the network has practiced COVID-19 vaccine and testing requirements that are more stringent than anything mandated by the Biden administration, while also requiring masks in close quarters.

This dichotomy has played out for a quite a while, as Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch stated in a company memo on remote work that “the health and safety of our workforce has remained my priority” while he has also supported prime time host Tucker Carlson’s anti-vaccine misinformation. (And moreover, network founder Rupert Murdoch took the vaccine early on, receiving his first dose back in December 2020.)

Indeed, a person can go through the full health and safety protocols memo line by line and demonstrate the ways that the company is not practicing any of what its news network personalities have been preaching to viewers.

A gun-control nonprofit founded by former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D) filed a federal lawsuit against the National Rifle Association on Tuesday, alleging the group orchestrated an illegal, secret donation scheme involving millions of dollars that violated campaign finance laws and benefited then-candidate Donald Trump and other Republicans.

The lawsuit was filed by campaign finance watchdog Campaign Legal Center on behalf of Giffords in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It accuses the NRA of using a network of shell companies to skirt campaign finance laws and give money to Trump and GOP candidates.

The nonprofit, which is called Giffords, alleges the shell companies affiliated with the NRA illegally coordinated with Republican campaigns to use the same personnel and vendors to run ads for GOP candidates, claiming the vendors were “functionally indistinguishable.” Campaign finance laws state that such a practice is illegal.....

The lawsuit alleges as much as $35 million in “unlawful” and “unreported in-kind campaign contributions” went toward a scheme that goes back as early as 2014, with $25 million allegedly going toward Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Republican campaigns for Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Rep. Matthew M. Rosendale (Mont.) are named as defendants in the lawsuit, and GOP Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and former senator Cory Gardner of Colorado are also mentioned.

An overwhelmingly White jury will weigh murder charges in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery after the defense struck 11 out of 12 Black people from the final pool for a nationally watched case in which race looms large.

Prosecutors alleged racial discrimination Wednesday in jury selection, formally challenging eight of the defense picks. But the judge rejected the prosecutors’ argument, saying the defense gave sufficient reasons other than race for their choices.

Black people made up a quarter of the finalist jurors; the jury ultimately included one Black man and 11 White people.....

When a strike is challenged as racially motivated, however, lawyers must give a “race-neutral” justification for their choice.

Those reasons are “pretty easy to find,” said Ashleigh Merchant, a Georgia attorney who has been following the case and knows lawyers on both sides.

A series of antisemitic incidents around Central Texas — including a potential arson outside an Austin synagogue this weekend — drew condemnation from a coalition of interfaith leaders and local politicians Monday.

“Hateful acts of intimidation to incite violence is unacceptable, and we will not be silent,” Simone Talma Flowers, the executive director of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, said at a press conference Monday. “We stand united with our Jewish community as they are targeted and victimized by acts of antisemitism.”

Flowers read from a statement signed by more than 500 people, including Austin Mayor Steve Adler and all 10 of his City Council colleagues. The incidents come as nearly 1 out of every 4 Jews in the U.S. indicate experiencing antisemitism over the past year, according to a recently released report by the American Jewish Committee.

On Sunday night, the Austin Fire Department received reports of a “small exterior fire” outside Congregation Beth Israel, a reform Jewish temple in Central Austin. While no injuries occurred, Capt. Brandon James said Monday that the fire caused about $25,000 in damages. A flammable liquid appeared to have been used to accelerate the fire, James said, and the event is under investigation as a potential arson.