After opening a toll-free tip line on Monday, police reported receiving around 200 calls from the public. Unfortunately, police said none of these calls have led to the identification of the child.
The child was previously described as a Black male, about four feet tall with a slim build and a short haircut. Police believe he’s approximately 5 years old and that his death occurred sometime in the last week.
“Somebody was taking care of him. He was in somebody’s custody and care for his daily needs and for support,” said Sgt. Carey Huls in a news conference Monday.
Indiana State Police revealed on Tuesday evening that the boy was tragically found inside a closed hard case suitcase with a distinctive Las Vegas design on the front and back. Police hope that anyone with information about this briefcase will come forward and help identify the child.
The photo of the suitcase is included below.
Photo of suitcase provided by ISP
“Somebody knows something. Somebody out there knows the answer to this question,” Huls said.
An autopsy on the child was conducted on Tuesday, but no information on the boy’s cause of death has been determined. A toxicology report is still pending, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the toll-free number established for this case: 1-888-437-6432.
In the wake of a judge’s ruling Monday that struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s transit masking rules, major U.S. airlines have made mask-wearing optional for both passengers and employees. Though customers are free to continue wearing masks if they choose to do so, passengers will not be required to mask up on many carriers for the first time in years.
Here are some of the airlines that no longer require masking. For regional airlines, you should check your carrier’s website before heading to the airport.
This doesn’t mean you’ll never have to wear a mask at the airport. Many of the airlines note that while their new policies apply on all domestic flights, masks may still be required to fly to some international destinations. And some airports, like Philadelphia International Airport, still require masks inside their terminals before you fly.
For ground travel, the rules are a bit more complicated. Masks are no longer required on Amtrak and on some subways, but transit systems in many cities — including New York, Chicago and San Francisco — still require them.
Face masks are now optional for Uber
(UBER) and Lyft
(LYFT) riders and drivers in the United States, the ride-hailing companies said Tuesday, shortly after several major airlines announced a similar change in policy.
“The CDC order requiring masks while using rideshare platforms such as Uber is no longer in effect, and we’ve revised our COVID-19 mask and front-seat policies accordingly,” Uber wrote in emails to users on Tuesday.
Uber will no longer require riders to sit in the back seats of vehicles, but asked riders to refrain from using the front seats unless they are traveling as part of a large group. Lyft passengers are also again permitted to sit in front seats, the company said in a blog post.
“We know that everyone has different comfort levels, and anyone who wants to continue wearing a mask is encouraged to do so,” Lyft said in the post.
“While riders and drivers can always cancel any ride they don’t wish to take, health safety reasons – like not wearing a mask – will no longer appear as cancellation options in the app,” Lyft added.
The changes come one day after a federal judge struck down the Biden administration’s mask mandate for airplanes and other public transport methods.
Masks may still be required by law in some jurisdictions, Uber’s email and Lyft’s blog post said, and in those areas the local regulations will apply.
KYIV/KHARKIV, April 19 (Reuters) – Russia launched its long-awaited all-out assault on east Ukraine on Tuesday, seizing its first town after unleashing thousands of troops in what Ukraine has described as the Battle of the Donbas, a campaign to take two provinces.
Ukrainian officials insisted their troops would withstand the new assault, which they said began overnight with massive Russian artillery and rocket barrages and attempts to advance across almost the entire stretch of the eastern front.
In the first big reported success of Russia’s new assault, Ukraine said the Russians had seized Kreminna, a frontline town of 18,000 people in Luhansk, one of the two Donbas provinces.
Russian forces were attacking “on all sides”, authorities were trying to evacuate civilians and it was impossible to tally the civilian dead, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said.
Moscow gave few details about its new campaign, but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that “another stage of this operation is beginning”. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia was “methodically” carrying out its plan to “liberate” Donetsk and Luhansk, provinces which Moscow demands Kyiv cede fully to Russian-backed separatists.
In the ruins of Mariupol, a southeastern port destroyed while withstanding nearly eight weeks of siege, Russia gave the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a giant steel works an ultimatum to surrender by noon (0900 GMT) or die.
“All who lay down their arms are guaranteed to remain alive,” the defence ministry said, later adding it had opened a corridor so those who surrender could leave. The pro-Kremlin leader of Chechnya, whose forces have been fighting in Mariupol, predicted troops would capture the plant on Tuesday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Ukrainians in a video address overnight that they would withstand the new advance.
“No matter how many Russian troops they send there, we will fight. We will defend ourselves,” he said.
Driven back by Ukrainian forces in March from an assault on Kyiv in the north, Russia has instead poured troops into the east to regroup for a ground offensive in the Donbas. It has also been launching long-distance strikes at other targets including the capital.
BODIES IN STREET
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s main eastern city which is close to the supply lines for Russian troops advancing on the Donbas, shells hit the southeastern Nemyshlianskyi district in early afternoon, wrecking one apartment building and damaging others.
Three bodies of people apparently killed by shrapnel lay outside on the pavement. There was no immediate confirmation of overall casualty numbers.
“They are sabotaging the whole city,” said 79-year-old Fyodor Bondarenko, watching as one body was carried into an ambulance while the crump of shelling continued. The air was acrid from the smell of fire from a strike that hit car workshops and storage spaces a kilometre away.
1/13
A Ukrainian serviceman stand next to a Javelin anti-tank missile, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, at a position in Donetsk Region, Ukraine April 18, 2022. REUTERS/Serhii Nuzhnenko/File Photo
In Russia, the governor of the border province of Belgorod said Ukrainian forces had struck a village wounding three residents. read more
Ukraine’s top security official, Oleksiy Danilov, said Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian defences “along almost the entire front line of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions”.
The coal- and steel-producing Donbas has been the focal point of Russia’s campaign to destabilise Ukraine since 2014 when the Kremlin used proxies to set up separatist “people’s republics” in parts of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
Moscow now says its aim is to capture the full provinces on the separatists’ behalf. Ukraine has a large force defending northern parts of the Donbas, and military experts say Russia aims to cut them off or surround them.
After Russia’s heavily armoured assault fell prey early in the conflict to nimble Ukrainian units armed with Western anti-tank missiles, Moscow may now hope a more conventional battle of armies in the Donbas will better favour its firepower advantage.
But Russia still needs to keep its troops supplied across miles of hostile territory, with difficulty moving off road in muddy terrain. For its part, Ukraine has launched counterattacks near Kharkiv in the rear of Russia’s advance, apparently aimed at cutting off supply lines, an echo of the tactics that defeated Russia’s advance on Kyiv last month.
Zelenskiy adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said the new Russian offensive was doomed to fail because Moscow simply did not have enough troops to overrun the defences.
Ukraine’s defence ministry described Russia’s tactics as lifted from Soviet-era textbooks, with mass artillery barrages followed by attempts to encircle Ukrainian troops and capture settlements.
Western countries and Ukraine accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of unprovoked aggression. The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden, who has called Russia’s actions “genocide”, would hold a call with allies on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, including how to hold Russia accountable. read more
French President Emmanuel Macron said his dialogue with Putin had stalled after mass killings were discovered in Ukraine. read more
Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls a special operation to demilitarise Ukraine. It has bombed cities to rubble, and hundreds of civilian bodies have been found in towns where its forces withdrew. It says, without evidence, that signs of atrocities were staged.
Russia has been trying to take full control of the southeastern port city of Mariupol, which has been besieged since the war’s early days, site of the war’s heaviest fighting and worst humanitarian catastrophe.
Tens of thousands of residents have been trapped with no access to food or water and bodies littering the streets. Ukraine believes more than 20,000 civilians have died there. Capturing it would link pro-Russian separatist territory with the Crimea region that Moscow annexed in 2014.
In Russian-held districts reached by Reuters, shell-shocked residents cooked on open fires outside their damaged homes.
The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the U.S. assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s efforts to resist.
Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday on Day 54.
Russia ‘shaping’ the battlefield for renewed offensive
There are now 76 Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs) inside Ukraine, all of them in the south and east. Each BTG is made up of roughly 800-1,000 soldiers. That’s up from 65 BTGs last week, so as many 11,000 troops have crossed the border since then, the senior defense official said.
Last week, the U.S. mostly saw support forces convoying into the Donbas region, but BTGs are Russia’s primary fighting units. Artillery, helicopter support and command and control elements have continued to flow in.
In a separate briefing, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Monday that while there is currently fighting in Donbas, as there has been for years, defense officials do not believe Russia’s new offensive push has begun.
“We believe that the Russians are shaping and setting the conditions for future offensive operations,” Kirby said.
That shaping effort appears to be an attempt by Russia to avoid blunders it made during combat operations in northern Ukraine.
“We believe that they are trying to learn from from past mistakes, and you can see that in just the way they are conducting these shaping operations,” Kirby said. “They’re conducting themselves in ways that we didn’t see around Kyiv, for instance.”
While Russian forces are “trying to set the conditions for more aggressive, more overt, and larger ground maneuvers in the Donbas,” Kirby said Ukrainian troops are not sitting idle.
“We have seen indications in just the last few days that the Ukrainians not only have have defended bravely, but they have been able to secure certain villages and towns in the Donbas,” Kirby said.
There are another 22 or so BTGs still in Russia north of Ukraine, most likely refitting and resupplying after being depleted form earlier combat in northern Ukraine, according to a defense official.
The official noted that if Russia takes Mariupol, it would free up close to another 12 BTGs (roughly 8,800-12,000 troops) that could be used for fighting elsewhere in the south or east.
Mariupol
Ukrainian forces continue fighting to push back Russian troops in Mariupol, according to the official. The city is still under threat of missile and artillery bombardment.
Kyiv and lviv under long-range fire
Russian long-range bombers have hit both Kyiv and Lviv with air-launched cruise missiles over the last couple of days, according to the official.
“Our initial assessment is that they were going after primarily military targets, or what they believed to be military targets,” the official said.
During his press briefing, Kirby said the U.S. is still assessing what the Russian’s hit in the two cities, but added that most Russian airstrikes are being directed on the east and south of Ukraine, especially Mariupol.
The Moskva
The U.S. can’t verify authenticity of videos purportedly showing Russia’s Moskva cruiser sinking, “but the images themselves comport with what we had assessed to be the damage done to the ship,” the official said.
The official said the U.S. was able to see Russian sailors board lifeboats before the ship sank, but could not confirm how many casualties there might have been.
“It’s hard to look at the damage that was done without generally assuming that there were also casualties, that she lost sailors. How many, we just don’t know,” the official said.
First shipments of new $800 million US aid package arrive
“Based on the last $800 million that the President authorized that we just announced last week, already there have been four flights from the United States arriving into the theater just yesterday,” the official said.
US to train Ukrainians on artillery
In coming days, the U.S. plans to facilitate training for Ukrainians on the howitzers it’s sending them, according to the official. The 18 howitzers heading to Ukraine will come from a mix of U.S. Army and Marine Corps stocks.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its global growth projections for 2022 and 2023, saying the economic hit from Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine will “propagate far and wide.”
The Washington-based institution is now projecting a 3.6% GDP rate for the global economy this year and for 2023. This represents a 0.8 and 0.2 percentage point drop, respectively, from its forecasts published in January.
“Global economic prospects have been severely set back, largely because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, economic counsellor at the IMF, said in a blog post Tuesday, marking the release of the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook report.
Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 with officials like NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg noting that Moscow is hoping to gain control of the whole of its neighbor.
“The effects of the war will propagate far and wide, adding to price pressures and exacerbating significant policy challenges,” Gourinchas said in his blogpost.
The IMF said these penalties will have “a severe impact on the Russian economy,” which estimated that the country’s GDP will fall by 8.5% this year, and by 2.3% in 2023.
However, the fund has forecast an even bleaker assessment for the Ukrainian economy.
“For 2022, the Ukrainian economy is expected to contract by 35%,” the IMF said in its latest economic assessment, while adding that more precise analysis on the economic hit was “impossible to obtain.”
“Even if the war were to end soon, the loss of life, destruction of physical capital, and flight of citizens will severely impede economic activity for many years to come,” the organization said.
Inflation concerns
More broadly, Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine has intensified supply shocks to the global economy, while also bringing about new challenges.
“Russia is a major supplier of oil, gas, and metals, and, together with Ukraine, of wheat and corn. Reduced supplies of these commodities have driven their prices up sharply,” the fund said Tuesday.
This is expected to hurt lower-income households globally and lead to higher inflation for longer than previously anticipated. The IMF estimates the inflation rate will reach 7.7% in the United States this year and 5.3% in the euro zone.
“The risk is rising that inflation expectations drift away from central bank inflation targets, prompting a more aggressive tightening response from policymakers,” the fund said.
The U.S. Federal Reserve expects to hike interest rates six more times in 2022, while the European Central Bank confirmed last week it is ending its asset purchase program in the third quarter.
However, this monetary tightening could be accelerated if inflation remains high.
The latest IMF economic outlook also points to concerns about the 5 million Ukrainian refugees who have sought support in neighboring countries, such as Poland, Romania and Moldova, and the ensuing economic pressures for these nations from supporting them.
Speaking to CNBC Tuesday, Tobias Adrian, director for monetary and capital markets at the IMF, said that the current string of crises hitting the global economy reminded him of the euro sovereign debt crunch which followed the 2008 crash.
“Many commentators and policymakers hoped that the 2008 crisis was over but they were just about to enter this new sovereign debt crisis. Today, we had the pandemic, the pandemic caused tremendous stress in the financial markets … It has left the financial system with certain vulnerabilities and so on top of this pandemic, in this phase of pandemic recovery comes the war in Ukraine and that has caused further stresses in some segments,” he told CNBC’s Geoff Cutmore.
A person suspected of starting a fire that destroyed a Home Depot in San Jose earlier this month has been arrested, officials said Monday.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said officials will provide further information on the arrest and charges during a news conference at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
The five-alarm fire on April 9 leveled the Home Depot store on Blossom Hill Road, across the street from Westfield Oakridge Mall, in South San Jose.
It took more than 100 firefighters about 12 hours to knock the fire down, and while there were no serious injuries in the blaze, it forced a shelter-in-place for hours and the evacuation of more than 60 pets from the Wagly Pet Campus next door.
In the days since, investigators and the Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms have been looking through the debris for evidence to determine a cause and origin.
The day of the fire, witnesses said fire alarms and sprinklers didn’t go off until almost everyone was out of the store.
Inspection records show that in December 2020, the San Jose Bureau of Fire Prevention asked the store to provide proof of its annual inspection of the alarm system and its five-year inspection for the sprinkler system or have it serviced “ASAP”.
That was done in January of 2021.
The last inspection was in October, asking the store to maintain a clearance in front of electrical panels at all times. The report shows it was fixed the same day.
The 14-year-old who died after falling from a thrill ride in Florida last month was in a seat that had previously been manually adjusted in a way that made the ride “unsafe,” a report released this week by forensic investigators found. Quest Engineering and Failure Analysis’ report found that the adjustment to the seat that Tyre Sampson fell from prevented safety sensors from shutting the ride down, even though the space between the seat and harness harness was too wide.
“This report confirmed our department’s findings that an operator of the Orlando drop tower made manual adjustments to the ride, resulting in it being unsafe,” Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried said at a press conference Monday.
Neither Fried nor the report specified when the sensors were changed or who specifically made the adjustment.
The ride did not experience any kind of mechanical or electrical failure, Quest’s investigation found.
According to the report, two safety lights that are meant to illuminate once the seat’s harness is secured in a certain position must be activated for the ride to operate. The gap between Sampson’s seat and harness was found to be over twice as big as the average gap in 27 of the other seats on the ride. But due to the adjustment that had been made to the plate that houses the proximity sensors, the safety lights were still illuminated, allowing the ride to operate normally. The investigation concluded that had the pate been in it’s original position, the space between Sampson’s seat and closed harness would have been the same as the other 27 seats on the ride.
The report also noted that the gap between the seats and the harnesses can expand another three inches when enough force is applied, meaning the gap between Sampson’s seat and harness could have been as large as 10 inches while the ride was operating.
Testing during the investigation found that two individuals with similar height and weight as Sampson “were able to slip through the restraint opening without any assistance.” CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez reported in March that the harness for Sampson’s seat “was still in a down and locked position when the ride stopped.”
Sampson was 6 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed over 300 pounds when he fell to his death from Orlando FreeFall ride at Orlando’s Icon Park on March 24.
The tower sits at 430 feet tall and is billed as the world’s tallest free-standing drop tower. Riders are taken up to the top, tilted so they face the ground for several seconds, and then drop at speeds up to 75mph.
According to an operations and maintenance manual seen by CBS News and prepared by the ride’s manufacturer, Funtime Handels GmbH, of Dölsach, Austria, the maximum weight for passengers should be around 286 pounds. Ride operators are advised to check that larger riders fit within the contours of the seat and the bracket before starting the ride.
A makeshift memorial for Tyre Sampson is viewed outside the Orlando Free Fall ride at the ICON Park entertainment complex, Sunday, March 27, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. Sampson fell to his death while on the ride.
Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP
Following the release of the report, officials have said the drop tower will remain closed “indefinitely” while the investigation continues.
Sampson’s family has called for more information on how the accident took place, but officials said Monday they could not answer when the sensor was manually moved or who did it.
“This is going to be an issue of a lack of supervision and lack of training,” Bob Hilliard, a Texas attorney who represents Sampson’s mother, Nekia Dodd, said in March. “A straight-up negligence case.”
On Monday, Florida state Representative Geraldine Thompson said that she and other officials would be pushing for more regulations, including requiring additional inspections for rides that make manual changes like sensor moves. Thompson also said she was considering a “Tyre Sampson bill,” aimed at preventing similar incidents.
Historically, when Florida school districts reevaluate which math instructional materials they will use, they’ve have had more than one publisher to choose from.
Now, the only publisher approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education for K-5 mathematics is Accelerate Learning, a company out of Houston, Texas.
“In the subject area as large as mathematics for grades K through five, it is unusual for there only to be one publisher to choose from,” said Billy Epting, assistant superintendent for academic services for Leon County Schools.
The Florida DOE rejected more than 50 mathematics textbooks — about 40% of those submitted — for failing to meet Florida’s new learning standards or because they “contained prohibited topics” that included references to critical race theory.
For regular math classes, Accelerate Learning’s STEMscopes Florida Math books are the only option for school districts.
There are two more publisher options for accelerated math, McGraw Hill LLC and Savvas Learning Company LLC, formerly known as Pearson K12 Learning LLC.
DOE said more than half the textbooks being disallowed incorporated “prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT,” while others were not allowed because publishers “rebranded” Common Core Standards.
According to the Accelerate Learning’s website, the math book for Florida was “built from the ground up to the Florida B.E.S.T. by practicing educators using the flexible 5E lesson model.”
The K-5 math books were also created in partnership with Rice University.
DeSantis has taken a lead role nationally in Republican efforts to aggressively push back against liberal cultural values and what he calls “woke indoctrination.”
A measure labeled “Individual Freedom,” also known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” was passed during this year’s legislative session and still waits for the governor’s signature.
The legislation (HB 7) prohibits any teaching that could make students feel they bear personal responsibility for historic wrongs because of their race, color, sex or national origin.
In workplaces, employment practices or training programs that cause an individual to feel guilty for similar reasons could be considered an unlawful employment practice and subject a company to a lawsuit as a civil rights violation.
Accelerate Learning’s website includes an undated diversity statement which says the company commits to hold more diversity training, examine current business and recruitment practices and continue to be inclusive in all levels of the company.
“Our nation’s black communities have long faced the repeated, harmful effects of systemic racism within the justice and education systems,” the statement said.
The company also matched all employee donations to the NAACP, Black Lives Matter and Equal Justice organizations.
“Accelerate Learning, Inc. is committed to supporting diversity in all its manifestations, which requires a consequent commitment to equity and inclusivity,” the statement said.
Contact Ana Goñi-Lessan at AGoniLessan@tallahassee.com and follow her on Twitter @goni_lessan.
Want more news coverage? If you’re already a subscriber, thank you! If not, please subscribe using the link at the top of the page and help keep the news you care about coming.
WASHINGTON/CHICAGO, April 18 (Reuters) – The Biden administration will no longer enforce a U.S. mask mandate on public transportation, after a federal judge in Florida on Monday ruled that the 14-month-old directive was unlawful, overturning a key White House effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
Soon after the announcement, all major carriers including American Airlines (AAL.O), United Airlines (UAL.O) and Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), as well as national train line Amtrak relaxed the restrictions effective immediately. read more
Last week, U.S. health officials had extended the mandate to May 3 requiring travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains, and in taxis, ride-share vehicles or transit hubs, saying they needed time to assess the impact of a recent rise in COVID-19 cases caused by the airborne coronavirus. read more
Industry groups and Republican lawmakers balked and wanted the administration to end the 14-month-old mask mandate permanently.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, an appointee of President Donald Trump, came in a lawsuit filed last year in Tampa, Florida, by a group called the Health Freedom Defense Fund. It follows a string of rulings against Biden administration directives to fight the infectious disease that has killed nearly one million Americans, including vaccine or test mandates for employers.
Judge Mizelle said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had exceeded its authority with the mandate, had not sought public comment and did not adequately explain its decisions.
A U.S. administration official said while the agencies were assessing potential next steps, the court’s decision meant CDC’s public transportation masking order was no longer in effect. The administration could still opt to appeal the order or seek an emergency delay in the order’s enforcement.
“Therefore, TSA will not enforce its Security Directives and Emergency Amendment requiring mask use on public transportation and transportation hubs at this time,” the official said in a statement.
“CDC recommends that people continue to wear masks in indoor public transportation settings.”
The Transportation Security Administration said it will rescind the new Security Directives that were scheduled to take effect on Tuesday.
The ruling comes as COVID-19 infections rise again in the United States, with 36,251 new infections reported on average each day, and 460 daily deaths, based on a seven-day average – the highest number of reported total COVID-19 deaths in the world.
The White House called the ruling “disappointing.”
The CDC first issued a public health order requiring masks in interstate transportation in February 2021. The TSA issued a security directive to enforce the CDC order.
The CDC and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declined to comment.
United Airlines, American, Delta, Southwest Airlines (LUV.N), JetBlue (JBLU.O) and Alaska Airlines (ALK.N) said masks are now optional on their planes.
“We are relieved to see the U.S. mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as COVID-19 has transitioned to an ordinary seasonal virus,” Delta said. The World Health Organization warned against comparing the virus to an endemic illness like the flu earlier this year, noting it is evolving too quickly.
The move could impact travel demand, which has roared back after a blip caused by the Omicron coronavirus variant. U.S. passenger traffic has been averaging about 89% of the pre-pandemic levels since mid-February, according to TSA data.
With the COVID-19 case count rising again, lifting the mandate could make some passengers wary, while prompting others to fly again.
Only 36% of Americans think it’s time for people to stop using masks and quarantines so that life can get back to normal after COVID-19, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted between Jan. 31 and Feb. 7. However, while a mere 16% of Democrats hold this view, a whopping 60% of Republicans do, according to the poll.
Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian last week acknowledged the risk, but said the airline still expected its flights to be full.
“It’s a question of individual accountability, personal accountability, making your own decisions rather than the government making decisions for people as to how to stay well,” Bastian told Reuters in an interview.
On Monday, Delta asked its employees to show “understanding and patience” as the unexpected nature of the announcement could result in “inconsistent” enforcement.
Since January 2021, there have been a record 7,060 unruly passenger incidents reported, 70% involving masking rules, according to the FAA. Thousands of passengers have been put on “no-fly” lists for refusing to comply with masking requirements.
Alaska said some passengers will remain banned, even after the mask policy is rescinded.
The “battle for Donbas” looks to be underway in Ukraine, as Russia concentrates its war machine on the eastern region — a major strategic, political and economic target for the Kremlin.
Having mostly pulled back from northern parts of Ukraine, Russia’s long-anticipated offensive in the east appeared to begin in earnest on Monday, with its military forces unleashing attacks on a number of areas within the Donbas.
“It can now be stated that Russian troops have begun the battle for Donbas, for which they have been preparing for a long time,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, adding that “a very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive.”
CNBC takes a look at the three main reasons why Russia is now focusing on eastern Ukraine:
1. Russia needs a ‘victory’
A longtime focus for Russia, the Donbas region includes two Russian-backed separatist “republics” in Luhansk and Donetsk. They have been fighting Ukrainian forces for years.
Now, Russia’s apparent refocus on the area comes after few military successes in the rest of Ukraine despite almost two months of fighting.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has given up on his more ambitious goals completely,” former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul commented Tuesday on Twitter, saying it was “very striking how they have changed the name of their war to ‘special military operation in defense of Donbas.'”
Russia’s forces appear to have been underprepared and ill-equipped to deal with the harsh fighting conditions in Ukraine and the strong resistance mounted by the country. Despite causing much destruction, Moscow has achieved relatively little — and it has failed to bring about the swift fall of the capital Kyiv and removal of Zelenskyy’s pro-Western government.
As such, analysts believe this has prompted Russia to refocus its efforts on the complete takeovers of key strategic cities in southern Ukraine and on the Black Sea, for example the port cities of Mykolaiv, Mariupol and Kherson. The latter two are almost completely in Russian control, despite pockets of fierce resistance from Ukrainian fighters.
Russia is also thought to be looking to take over Odesa further up the coast to the west, although that’s seen as a much harder task.
The Kremlin is seen to be striving to declare some kind of victory in Ukraine by May 9 — a day known as “Victory Day” that holds great national importance for Russia as it marks the Soviet Union’s defeat in 1945 of Nazi Germany in World War II.
The Kyiv Independent newspaper reported in March that Russian troops were being told that the war must end by May 9, citing intelligence from the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry was unavailable to immediately comment on this when contacted by CNBC.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy noted on Monday that an increasing number of attacks were recorded in the Donbas, near the cities of Izyum in the Kharkiv district and Sloviansk in the Donetsk district, as well as around Severodonetsk and Popasna in the Luhansk region, further east.
Separately, a senior U.S. Defense official confirmed on Monday that Russian forces have added to their footprint inside of Ukraine, with nearly all of their ground forces deployed to eastern and southern parts of the country.
2. Russia wants a land bridge
A “win” in eastern Ukraine is not only key for Russia in terms of its military strategy; it has significant economic value, too.
Firstly, the Donbas itself is a heavily industrialized region known for its coal mining industry and large coal reserves that Russia could potentially access if it annexed the entire region.
And secondly, control of the region would also enable Russia to create a “land bridge” to Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and which is a vital military and trading hub for Moscow on the Black Sea.
This push to be able to access Crimea by land is a key reason that the southern port city of Mariupol — which is directly in the path of a possible land bridge — has been the focus for Russian attacks and Ukrainian resistance: winning or losing it has big consequences for both sides.
Eurasia Group founder and President Ian Bremmer noted that Russia was now in “phase two” of its invasion, with different strategic objectives.
This includes “capturing all of the Donbas” including the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, he said in emailed comments Monday, and securing a land bridge from the region to Crimea.
He said Russia’s other goals included to fully control the city of Kherson — crucial to securing the freshwater canals to Crimea that the Ukrainians have cut off — and to seize “some buffer territory to hold it all comfortably.”
3. Russian identity politics
The Donbas region is also important to Russia when it comes to its own national identity and its influence over former Soviet territories — and the people within them that still identify as being Russian.
Indeed, Russia’s self-proclaimed “defense” of ethnic Russians in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions (which are overwhelmingly Russian-speaking) has formed a large part of its justification for invading Ukraine.
The area is no stranger to conflict; the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics have been the location of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces ever since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Figures vary, but it’s believed that around 14,000 people were killed during the prolonged but lower-level conflict in the area.
Aside from the conflict, over the last eight years analysts say Russia has been sowing the seeds that would enable it to annex the Luhansk and Donetsk regions with attempts to “Russify” the areas, such as offering Russian passports and citizenship to residents there since 2019.
Political analysts saw this as a cynical precursor to an incursion, because Russia could defend such a move by saying it was seeking to “protect” its citizens from Ukraine. Russian state media has focused on Donbas residents fleeing in recent weeks, repeatedly accusing Ukraine’s military of war crimes in the region, allegations denied by Ukraine.
For its part, Russia has repeatedly denied backing rebels in the Luhansk and Donetsk areas, despite evidence of financial support for the breakaway “republics” and Russian weapons being used by separatists to fight Ukrainian forces.
After a federal judge in Florida on Monday voided the national mask mandate for airlines and other forms of public transportation, multiple agencies in Northern California said they will stop requiring face coverings.
Because of that court ruling, the TSA told KCRA 3 it would “no longer enforce its Security Directives and Emergency Amendment requiring mask use on public transportation and transportation hubs.”
The change in policy took effect immediately.
A spokesperson with Sacramento International Airport said in an email that the airport won’t be requiring face masks of passengers and staff, due to the TSA’s new directive.
Amtrak is also following suit, saying that both passengers and employees are no longer required to wear masks while onboard trains or in stations. Masks are welcome if people choose to still wear one.
Sacramento Regional Transit in a written statement said it will recommend masks be worn on transit but will no longer require them.
“Crews will be working over the next couple days to remove all mask requirement signage on our buses and trains,” SacRT said in a statement.
United Airlines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Arilines and Southwest are also allowing people to wear masks if they want to continue to do so but will not be enforcing the mandate anymore.
Delta Air Lines says it is making masks optional, and warned travelers they “may experience inconsistent enforcement during the next 24 hours as this news is more broadly communicated.”
KCRA 3 was inside Sacramento International Airport as government entities and airlines were announcing the sweeping changes.
Some passengers and airline staff continued to mask up, while others did not.
“I’m glad you don’t have to wear a mask,” traveler Bruce Gillard said. “Obviously, I didn’t have one when I walked in and wasn’t planning on wearing one.”
“I hate wearing these things,” Jason Tamayo, a passenger from Woodland, told KCRA 3.” If I don’t have to, I’m not wearing it.”
Some were indifferent, like Javier Oropeza.
“I don’t really mind wearing a mask,” he said and explained there will be times when he will choose to either wear a mask or not wear one.
Other Sacramento travelers feel it’s too soon to go onto a plane mask-free.
“I think it’s just safety,” Natalie Leighton said. “I think especially when you’re in a closed compartment with a group of other people, we’ll probably feel wearing it for peace of mind.”
The previous federal travel mask mandate, recently extended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, covered a vast array of transportation, from airplanes and trains to city subways and ride-sharing vehicles such as Uber.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, also said the CDC improperly failed to justify its decision and did not follow proper rulemaking procedures that left it fatally flawed.
In her 59-page ruling, Mizelle said the only remedy was to vacate the rule entirely across the country because it would be impossible to end it for the limited group of people who objected in the lawsuit.
The Justice Department declined to comment Monday when asked if the government planned to appeal the ruling. The CDC also declined to comment.
LVIV/KYIV, April 19 (Reuters) – Russian forces have launched their anticipated offensive in eastern Ukraine, attempting to push through defences along almost the entire front line early on Tuesday in what Ukrainian officials described as the second phase of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had begun the “Battle of Donbas” in the east and a “very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive”.
“No matter how many Russian troops they send there, we will fight. We will defend ourselves,” he said in a video address on Monday.
Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, assured Ukrainians their forces could hold off the offensive in “the second phase of the war”.
“Believe in our army, it is very strong,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from Russia’s defence ministry on the latest fighting. The governor of the Russian province of Belgorod said Ukrainian forces had struck a border village wounding one resident. read more
Ukrainian media reported a series of explosions, some powerful, along the front line in the Donetsk region, with shelling taking place in Marinka, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.
Blasts were also heard in Kharkiv in the northeast, Mykolaiv in the south and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast while air raid sirens were also going off in main centres near the front line, officials and media said.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the reports.
Ukraine’s top security official, Oleksiy Danilov, said Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian defences “along almost the entire front line of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions”.
Driven back by Ukrainian forces in the north, Russia has refocused its ground offensive in the two eastern provinces known as the Donbas, while launching long-distance strikes at other targets including the capital, Kyiv.
Donbas has been the focal point of Russia’s campaign to destabilise Ukraine, starting in 2014 when the Kremlin used proxies to set up two separatist “people’s republics” in the ex-Soviet state. It is also home to much of Ukraine’s industrial wealth, including coal and steel.
Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces aimed to establish full control over the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson regions, while intensifying missile strikes in west Ukraine.
1/11
A woman pulls a wheel chair while transporting an injured man in a street in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 18, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
BIDEN TO HOST CALL WITH ALLIES
Western countries and Ukraine accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of unprovoked aggression, and the White House said U.S. President Joe Biden would hold a call with allies on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, including on how to coordinate on holding Russia accountable. read more
French President Emmanuel Macron said his dialogue with Putin had stalled after mass killings were discovered in Ukraine. read more
The United Nations said on Monday the war’s civilian death toll had surpassed 2,000, reaching 2,072 as of midnight on April 17 from the beginning of the invasion on Feb. 24.
About 4 million Ukrainians have fled the country.
Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls a special operation to demilitarise Ukraine and eradicate dangerous nationalists. It rejects what Ukraine says is evidence of atrocities, saying Ukraine has staged them to undermine peace talks.
‘HELL ON EARTH’
Russia has been trying to take full control of the southeastern port city of Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks and which would be a big strategic prize, linking territory held by pro-Russian separatists in the east with the Crimea region that Moscow annexed in 2014 and freeing up the besieging troops.
Video footage showed block after residential block in charred ruins. Shell-shocked residents in the Primorskyi district cooked on open fires outside their damaged homes.
“To be honest, we are not well,” one resident named Olga told Reuters. “I have mental problems after air strikes, that’s for sure. I’m really scared. When I hear a plane I just run.”
The city council said at least 1,000 civilians were still hiding in shelters beneath the vast Azovstal steel plant, which contain myriad buildings, blast furnaces and rail tracks. read more
Major Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th marine brigade which is still fighting in Mariupol, appealed for help in a letter to Pope Francis.
“This is what hell looks like on earth … It’s time (for) help not just by prayers. Save our lives from satanic hands,” he said in the letter, according to excerpts that Ukraine’s Vatican ambassador posted on Twitter.
Moscow’s mayor says that 200,000 Russians in the city are likely to be without work.
Hundreds of Western companies have distanced themselves from Russia, creating a dearth in jobs.
Some global firms pledged to continue paying their local workers, though it’s unclear for how long.
Moscow’s mayor said on Monday that hundreds of thousands of city residents could lose their jobs as Western companies suspend or pull their operations from Russia.
“According to our estimates, about 200,000 people are at risk of losing their jobs,” Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote in an official blog post.
In the post, Sobyanin said Moscow had approved an employment support program worth 3.36 billion rubles, or roughly $41 million, that would supply temporary jobs or training to those without work.
Sobyanin wrote that around 58,000 employees are expected to benefit from the program and highlighted that Russia would provide a monthly allowance for children and loans for small and medium businesses.
Sobyanin’s comments come as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to deny Western sanctions have impacted Russia’s economy.
“We can now confidently say that such policy (of sanctions) towards Russia has failed,” he said on Monday. “The economic blitzkrieg strategy didn’t work. Moreover, the initiators themselves couldn’t get away with the sanctions.”
More than 750 companies have publicly announced that they would cut operations in Russia to some degree since the invasion of Ukraine began, according to the Yale School of Management.
Some companies have pledged to continue paying their Russian workers even while shuttered in the country, though it’s unclear exactly how long they plan to sustain their support.
Sobyanin’s post indicated that Moscow is still grappling with a long list of crises. City authorities will discuss in the next two weeks how the capital will maintain its stock of medicines without imports, and how it will keep its hospitality industry afloat, he wrote.
“There is a lot of work to be done, the results of which will appear only in a few years,” wrote Sobyanin.
April 18: Ukrainians wait as Red Cross relief workers distribute food in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine.
Emilio Morenatti/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Emilio Morenatti/AP
April 18: Ukrainians wait as Red Cross relief workers distribute food in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine.
Emilio Morenatti/AP
In the eighth week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces have left the outskirts of Kyiv and are focusing their attacks in the east.
Their troops have reportedly taken control of the town of Kreminna in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region after weeks of bombardment. In Mariupol, Ukrainian forces are refusing to surrender, despite Russia’s long and bloody siege.
After weeks of relative peace, the western city of Lviv was hit by at least four missiles Monday. At least seven people were killed in the attack, and another 11 were injured, marking the first fatalities the city had seen since Russia’s invasion began in late February.
Here’s a look at the situation on the ground:
April 16: Members of the Ukrainian military walk amid debris after a shopping center and surrounding buildings were hit by a Russian missile strike in Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine. After Russian forces retreated from areas around Kyiv, officials say they anticipate a new offensive in the eastern part of the country.
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
April 18: An interior ministry sapper collects unexploded shells, grenades and other devices in Hostomel, a suburb of Kyiv.
Efrem Lukatsky/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Efrem Lukatsky/AP
April 16: People evacuating eastern Ukraine board a train in Kharkiv that’s bound for Lviv.
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
April 16: Nadiya Trubchaninova, 70, cries while holding the coffin of her son Vadym, 48, during his funeral in a cemetery on the outskirts of Kyiv after he was killed by Russian soldiers on March 30 in Bucha.
Rodrigo Abd/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Rodrigo Abd/AP
April 17: A man takes a selfie as he stands in front of a ruined Russian tank in the village of Andriivka, in the Kyiv oblast.
Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
April 18: Firefighters battle a blaze after a civilian building was hit by a Russian missile in Lviv. Officials say at least seven people were killed and another 11 wounded in missile strikes in different areas of the city overnight.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
April 17: A man carries a bicycle down a street littered with ruined Russian military vehicles near Chernihiv, Ukraine.
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
April 16: Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a shopping center and surrounding buildings after a Russian missile strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
April 17: People attend a Palm Sunday church service at a church in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
April 16: A view inside the Jehovah’s Witnesses church that was destroyed by shelling earlier in the area around Horenka, a suburb of Kyiv, Ukraine.
Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
April 16: People displaced by the war in Ukraine eat lunch at a former maternity hospital converted into shelter for internally displaced people, in Dnipro, in eastern Ukraine. The elderly are “often forgotten” and “very vulnerable” during conflicts, says Federico Dessi, the director of an NGO providing equipment and financial support to the Dnipro shelter.
Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
April 17: Ukrainian servicemen run for cover as explosions are heard during a Russian attack in downtown Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Felipe Dana/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Felipe Dana/AP
April 16: A view of a playhouse in a backyard in Horenka, Ukraine.
Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
April 17: A digger and a communal worker clean debris off buildings destroyed in Russian bombardments in the Ukrainian town of Borodianka, in the Kyiv Oblast.
Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
April 18: A woman reacts as she looks on at the destruction caused when a civilian building was hit by a Russian missile in Lviv, Ukraine.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
April 16: A body of a civilian lies next to a damaged car near the Illich Iron & Steel Works Metallurgical Plant, the second largest metallurgical enterprise in Ukraine, in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in Mariupol, Ukraine.
Alexei Alexandrov/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Alexei Alexandrov/AP
April 17: A crane lifts a casket as volunteers remove the soil from a mass grave during an exhumation of four civilians killed in Mykulychi, Ukraine. All four bodies in the village grave were killed on the same street, on the same day. Their temporary caskets were together in a grave.
Emilio Morenatti/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Emilio Morenatti/AP
April 16: Smoke rises from an oil refinery in Lysychansk, about 75 miles north of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s military seems to be focused on seizing the eastern Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists control the Donetsk and Lugansk areas.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images
April 17: Sergei looks out of the window of a train minutes before arriving with his family in Lviv, from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Rodrigo Abd/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Rodrigo Abd/AP
April 16: A mother hugs her daughter as they wait for a bus to flee the city of Sloviansk, in the Donetsk Oblast, to travel to Rivne, in western Ukraine.
Petros Giannakouris/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Petros Giannakouris/AP
April 16: A man crosses a river next to a ruined bridge in the village of Rusaniv, in the Kyiv Oblast.
Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images
April 18: A woman cries next to the body of her father lying on the ground after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
On Saturday, around noon Ukraine time, a missile hit this section of Kharkiv, and Mook, chief executive of World Central Kitchen, is explaining that, once again, Russian forces have attacked a civilian area. This time, it was a restaurant operating as a relief kitchen with support from WCK, the organization founded by chef and humanitarian José Andrés. Four staff members of the ghost kitchen, part of the Yaposhka chain of restaurants in Ukraine, were hospitalized with burns, some severe.
Mr. McDonald’s great-uncle, the Rev. Marvin Hunter, did not immediately respond to emails or phone calls on Monday, but he said in February that he did not protest Mr. Van Dyke’s early release.
“Justice, in our eyesight, was getting a conviction,” he said at the time. “It wouldn’t benefit anyone in this country for Jason Van Dyke to go back to jail and get 100 years or 1,000 years.”
But Ja’Mal Green, 26, a former Chicago mayoral candidate who has spoken out about Mr. McDonald’s killing for several years, said that he had wanted the federal authorities to press charges against the former officer.
“The fact that a white man was able to pump 16 bullets into a young Black boy and only do three years in jail? That’s not justice,” Mr. Green said on Monday night.
As a result of Mr. McDonald’s killing, the federal authorities investigated the Chicago Police Department and issued a consent decree ordering hundreds of police reforms. Chicago police officers now wear body cameras while on duty.
The police superintendent and several police officers werefired over the cover-up, which also may have been one of the reasons Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor, did not seek a third term.
Sonoma State University President Judy Sakaki, who is facing growing criticism of her handling of sexual harassment allegations involving her husband, announced Monday that she is separating from her spouse.
Sakaki said in a statement that she was “disavowing the words and actions of my husband, Patrick McCallum,” who she said sent emails to friends and family about the allegations that Sakaki called “inaccurate and unauthorized.” McCallum is a prominent higher education lobbyist and official volunteer on the Sonoma campus who has represented the university at many events with his wife.
Meanwhile, the state senator who represents the district that includes the university issued a statement saying the scandal raises “serious questions” about Sakaki’s leadership of the Northern California campus and asked the Board of Trustees to address the matter.
“The reports are a significant distraction for the university at a critical time, and raise serious questions about her leadership and judgement,” state Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) said. “It is concerning and deserves close scrutiny by the CSU chancellor and board of trustees as to how the interests of students and employees can be best served going forward.”
The developments come after a Times investigation reporting that California State University paid $600,000 this year to settle a claim with a Sonoma State provost who reported retaliation and sexual harassment allegations involving Sakaki and her husband.
CSU paid $600,000 to settle a former Sonoma State provost’s legal claim that she suffered retaliation after reporting sexual harassment by the university president’s husband.
The provost, Lisa Vollendorf, alleged that she faced retaliation from Sakaki, her boss, after she reported the sexual harassment accusations about McCallum to top officials at the chancellor’s office, records in the case show.
Sakaki and McCallum issued statements last week saying he had done nothing wrong, and Sakaki denied retaliating against Vollendorf, saying the accusations “are utterly without basis.”
At an Academic Senate meeting on Thursday, faculty voiced criticism and raised frustrations over the allegations. One faculty member asked Sakaki if her husband would still attend fundraising events. Sakaki said that a decision had not been made, but that the sensitivity of the campus would be taken into consideration.
Another faculty member told Sakaki she believed her husband owed the women who alleged harassment an apology. McCallum issued one a day later, saying: “I want to apologize to anyone who has felt uncomfortable in my presence or through my actions. It was never my intent to act disrespectfully but it’s clear that I made some people uncomfortable. For that, I’m truly sorry.”
Within days, McCallum sent out an email in which he references the “hurtful allegations” detailed in The Times’ investigation and criticizes Vollendorf, whose allegations led to the settlement, according to an email that was reviewed by Times reporters.
Chancellor Joseph I. Castro approved a quiet $260,000 payout to administrator Frank Lamas, who was accused of sexual misconduct, according to documents and officials.
The email was one of several rambling messages, including some to a Times reporter, that McCallum sent in recent days.
Sakaki said the email to friends and family was “sent without my knowledge or consent and does not reflect my viewpoint. I consider the matters between Dr. Vollendorf and me to be resolved,” she said.
“I ask for privacy and time to address these personal matters,” Sakaki added, “as I continue my service to our campus and community.”
Chancellor Joseph I. Castro’s resignation follows outcry over his handling of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment allegations while he was president of Fresno State.
The Times’ investigation detailed Vollendorf’s reports to the CSU about the allegations against McCallum.
Vollendorf said she told the general counsel in December 2018 that three women — two of them campus employees — alleged McCallum talked about his sex life, ran his fingers through one woman’s hair and then made “inappropriate personal comments” about her appearance during a party at his house, according to settlement records the provost’s attorney filed with system officials.
The women, who reported the accusations to Vollendorf because they worked for her or knew her, described the behavior as “creepy,” “disgusting” and “pervy,” the records said.
The former provost said she provided CSU officials with the names of all three as well as three more people who told her they witnessed the conduct, according to the records.
Cal State officials acknowledged that they did not launch a formal investigation into the sexual harassment claims and instead spoke to Sakaki about the accusations against her husband.
They said CSU’s former Title IX officer interviewed three people — two complainants and an apparent witness — about the allegations. One person declined to be interviewed. CSU officials said that those interviewed declined to proceed. Officials denied Vollendorf was subjected to retaliation.
Two complainants, who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity, said that fears of job loss and damage to the president’s reputation prompted them not to go forward. One complainant said she later told the Title IX officer that she believed Sakaki had retaliated against her over the claims.
A former interim vice president at the university told The Times that he reported similar allegations in 2019 against McCallum on behalf of his staff to general counsel Andrew Jones, but that no one followed up with him.
Gordon McDougall, who directed Sonoma State’s University Advancement Division before retiring in 2020, told The Times he changed schedules to prevent women on his team from working with McCallum during campus events following “complaints of inappropriate touching and comments.”
The law says the agency may take such measures as it deems “necessary,” and provides a list of examples, like “sanitation.” The judge wrote that this power was limited to things like cleaning property — not requiring people to take hygienic steps.
“If Congress intended this definition, the power bestowed on the C.D.C. would be breathtaking,” she wrote. “And it certainly would not be limited to modest measures of ‘sanitation’ like masks.”
If the government’s broader interpretation of the agency’s powers were accurate, she added, the C.D.C. could require businesses to install air filtration systems, mandate that people take vaccines, or even require “coughing into elbows and daily multivitamins.”
The ruling joins a tangle of litigation over various mandates attempting to curb the pandemic, most of which have centered on requirements, issued under various legal authorities, that different categories of people get vaccinated.
The outcomes of legal challenges to those mandates have varied. For example, a Federal District Court judge in Texas blocked an administration requirement that federal workers be vaccinated, but this month, an appeals court reversed that ruling.
In January, the Supreme Court blocked a Biden administration edict that large employers require workers to get vaccinated or submit to regular testing. But the Supreme Court has permitted military officials to take vaccination status into account when deciding where service members should be assigned or deployed — and on Monday, it allowed the Pentagon to take disciplinary action against a reservist who refused to get vaccinated.
After the C.D.C. and T.S.A. issued their guidance Monday evening, the nation’s four largest airlines — United, Delta, Southwest and American — said they were dropping their mask requirements, as did JetBlue, Alaska, Spirit and Frontier.
“As we have seen with the vaccine mandates, these court decisions are subject to review on appeal,” Jason Abrams, an Amtrak spokesman, said in a statement.
Many public transit agencies across the country also appeared to be keeping their mask mandates in place in the hours after the ruling. Those include the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City; New Jersey Transit; the Metro and bus system in Washington, D.C.; the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston; the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority in Philadelphia; and the Chicago Transit Authority.
President Trump appointed Judge Mizelle to the bench in November 2020, after he had lost re-election. A former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, she was 33 years old at the time, making her the youngest person Mr. Trump appointed to a life-tenured judgeship; the American Bar Association declared her not qualified because of her lack of experience, but Republican senators confirmed her in a party-line vote.
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, said that the Biden administration would have to appeal the decision if it wanted the mandate to continue. He also defended the agency’s authority to issue the mask requirement.
“If there were ever an instance where the C.D.C. has authority to act, the classic case is to prevent the interstate transmission of a dangerous infectious disease,” he said.
Apart from the legal issues concerning the scope of the C.D.C.’s authority to protect public health, as a matter of policy, Judge Mizelle’s ruling was greeted by some in the airline industry as a relief.
David Neeleman, who has founded several airlines including JetBlue Airways and Breeze Airways, which started flying last year, said he welcomed the end of a mask mandate for passengers. Crew members at Breeze, where Mr. Neeleman is the chief executive, have been frustrated by having to police passengers, creating unnecessary tension in flight, he said.
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
