Mardi Gras parades to return in '22, New Orleans mayor says
Mardi Gras will be back in full force when it returns to the Big Easy on March 1, closer to the way people know and love the Bourbon Street celebration, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell tweeted Tuesday.
“The big news & the BEST news is that MARDI GRAS 2022 IS HAPPENING!” wrote Cantrell.
Though Cantrell said that none of the krewes — groups or organizations taking part — will be moved from their traditional day, “every parade will be asked to make SLIGHT accommodations,” she wrote.
“No one is being singled out! No one is being given special treatment!” she continued.
The announcement came despite omicron, the highly contagious and now dominant strain of COVID-19, causing a worldwide surge of cases.
New Orleans has seen a seven-day average of 232 new infections and reported 265 COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to data from the city’s COVID-19 dashboard.
The city reported 279 new cases and 10 new hospitalizations on Tuesday alone.
In November 2020, New Orleans officials announced that Mardi Gras would “look different” in 2021, but given its designation as a religious holiday could not be canceled.
—New York Daily News
Md. libraries run out of scarce COVID tests in 30 minutes
BALTIMORE — Melanie Thankappan headed to the library in Federal Hill for the branch’s 10 a.m. opening, hoping to score a box of COVID-19 rapid tests.
A lot of people were already there, and the boxes of test kits were already distributed. She and some other hopefuls waited for a few minutes to make sure there weren’t more inside.
“I feel like if I walk away then they will come out with more boxes,” said the second-grade teacher in Baltimore, who is tested regularly at school but wanted more certainty and timeliness in results for gatherings.
“I don’t want to hoard tests, but I want to have enough so that I make sure I’m safe and everyone around me is safe.”
With Christmas and New Year’s coming soon, and the highly transmissible coronavirus variant omicron now circulating, it seems everyone is eager to stick a swab up their nose.
The library system had around 4,800 tests, and almost all were handed out within the first 30 minutes, said Meghan McCorkell, a library system spokeswoman.
Some people in line said they had already been on a tour of other library branches, drug stores and other sites with not luck finding the test kits that have been in low supply throughout the pandemic.
—The Baltimore Sun
FAA, TSA to remove PreCheck rights from unruly passengers
WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Authority announced Tuesday it will be working with the Transportation Security Administration to identify unruly passengers who face fines so that the TSA can remove them from its PreCheck screening program.
“If you act out of line, you will wait in line,” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a news release. “Our partnership aims to promote safe and responsible passenger behavior. One unruly incident is one too many.”
The news release notes TSA PreCheck is a privilege reserved for low-risk travelers.
The partnership will also see the TSA sharing information to the FAA to identify and locate unruly passengers to serve them with penalty notices, although passenger privacy and personal information protections will be in place.
Through Dec. 14, the FAA has received 5,664 unruly passenger reports including 4,072 mask-related incidents, according to its website. From those, the FAA initiated 1,030 investigations, from which 315 enforcement cases, many which involve steep fines, have been handled since the beginning of the year.
The FAA has investigated less than 200 cases a year for the last 15 years.
—Orlando Sentinel
Latinos, Democrats boosted in California congressional map
WASHINGTON — California has a new congressional map after its independent commission voted late Monday to finalize a plan increasing the number of Latino-majority districts in the state and giving Democrats a chance to pick up more seats even as the overall delegation shrinks.
Latinos make up the majority of the voting population in 16 congressional districts under the new map, and a plurality of voters in another two districts. In its 2011 map, the state had 13 districts with a majority Latino population.
California was one of a handful of states that lost a seat in reapportionment earlier this year following the release of 2020 census results. Due to relative population loss, the state’s lost seat came out of Los Angeles County. That resulted in combining the Long Beach-area seats of Democratic Reps. Alan Lowenthal and Lucille Roybal-Allard, who both announced retirements before the map was finalized.
Five Republicans in the state — Reps. Tom McClintock, David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Ken Calvert and Michelle Steel — may face tougher races next fall: All of their seats gained communities that made them more favorable to Democrats.
Steel, Garcia and Valadao all won close races last year in districts that also backed Joe Biden over Donald Trump for president. Garcia won his 2020 race by 300 votes and Steel unseated Rep. Harley Rouda, who is already preparing for a rematch, by a little more than 8,000 votes. Valadao ousted Rep. T.J. Cox by less than 1 percentage point.
—CQ-Roll Call
