Connecticut is the latest state to set plans to lift its statewide mask mandate for schools, following earlier announcements Monday from New Jersey and Delaware.

The loosening guidelines are signs that the three Northeastern states are changing how they manage the COVID-19 pandemic as cases from the omicron surge continue to subside.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont recommended Monday that the state end the statewide mask mandate on Feb. 28 — the earliest date of the three states.

After the state mandate is lifted, the Democratic governor said it would be up to local leaders, like mayors or superintendents, to make their own decisions on mask requirement.

“Today with boosters, given vaccines, given the N95 masks, you are in a better position to keep yourself safe,” Lamont said at a press conference.

The Garden State will lift its mask mandate in schools for both students and employees beginning on March 7, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday morning, though districts will still be able to require masking to control any spikes in infections. The news was first reported by The New York Times.

“Balancing public health with getting back to some semblance of normalcy is not easy. But we can responsibly take this step due to declining COVID numbers and growth in vaccinations,” Murphy said in a tweet.

New Jersey was among the hardest-hit states early in the pandemic, and Murphy implemented a variety of strict public health measures to control the virus, garnering both praise and criticism for the aggressive approach to controlling COVID-19’s spread.

Murphy said employees and students can still choose to wear masks in schools where they aren’t required.

Delaware’s indoor mask mandate for public and private K-12 schools and child care facilities will end on March 31, Gov. John Carney announced. The universal indoor mask mandate expires Friday.

He said the date would give districts and schools time to consider local masking requirements and allow the state to update its quarantine and contact tracing guidance.

“We’re in a much better place than we were several weeks ago in the middle of the Omicron surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations,” Carney said in a statement.

“I want to be clear about this point — COVID is still circulating in our communities. And the virus still poses a risk of serious illness, particularly among those who are not up to date on their vaccinations,” he added. “But we have the tools to keep ourselves and each other safe.”

A version of this story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog.

The U.S. Supreme Court further undercut the Voting Rights Act on Monday, blocking for now the creation of a second majority-Black congressional district in Alabama for the 2022 election.

The court’s action came on an emergency appeal from Alabama, which challenged a decision by a three-judge federal court panel that included two Trump appointees. The lower court concluded that under the Voting Rights Act, Alabama, a state with a population that is more than one-quarter Black, could reasonably, and therefore must, create two majority-Black districts.

The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s three liberals in dissent. All four would have refused to intervene now, thus allowing the 2022 election to go forward with the map approved by the lower court. In contrast, the five-justice majority decision means that for at least another election cycle, Alabama will have just a single majority-Black congressional district.

While the Supreme Court has said that outright racial gerrymanders are unconstitutional, it has long interpreted the Voting Rights Act as requiring race to be a major factor in redistricting under certain circumstances — namely when white voters vote as a bloc against Black candidates and when there is a large and compact enough majority-minority district or districts that can be drawn so that minorities have a good chance to elect the candidates of their choice.

In the case from Alabama, the state doesn’t dispute that there is bloc voting. But it contests the creation of a second majority-Black district, because it would divide the suburbs of Mobile. That argument was rejected by the lower court, which noted that the school districts in that area were divided in precisely the same way as the proposed second Black congressional district.

But the Supreme Court stopped the lower court’s order from going into effect.

Once again, the court’s action came in an unsigned order, without full briefing or argument, though the court will eventually hear arguments in the case, either later this term or, more likely, next fall.

“Accepting Alabama’s contentions would rewrite decades of this Court’s precedent about Section 2 of the VRA. For that reason, this Court goes badly wrong in granting a stay,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. “There may—or may not—be a basis for revising our VRA precedent in light of the modern districting technology that Alabama’s application highlights. But such a change can properly happen only after full briefing and argument—not based on the scanty review this Court gives matters on its shadow docket.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was in the majority, wrote a concurring opinion in which he said the “stay order does not make or signal any change to voting rights law. The stay order is not a ruling on the merits, but instead simply stays the District Court’s injunction pending a ruling on the merits.”

The court did not say when it will hear arguments in the case — and so the current map, which has only one majority-minority district, will remain in effect.

Ryan Ellingson