Idaho Bans Mask Mandates; New Jersey Drops Its Mask, Social Distancing Rules

AP: Idaho Lieutenant Governor Bans Mask Mandates
With the governor out of the state, Idaho’s lieutenant governor issued an executive order Thursday banning mask mandates in schools and public buildings, saying the face-covering directives threatened people’s freedom. Republican Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin is acting governor while Gov. Brad Little is at the Republican Governors Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee. He was expected to return Thursday evening. (Ridler, 5/27)

Politico: New Jersey Lifts Mask Mandate, Social Distancing Rules In Time For Memorial Day
New Jersey is lifting its mask mandate after having been one of the few holdouts in adopting the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday. Murphy’s new directive, which takes effect Friday, the start of the Memorial Day weekend, gives New Jersey residents — even those who aren’t fully vaccinated — the green light to remove their masks and other face coverings in most cases. Matching the CDC’s guidance, the order excludes settings such as health care facilities, jails, schools, child care centers and public transportation networks. (Sutton, 5/27)

The New York Times: NYC And Homelessness: Lawmakers Take Dramatic Step To Stem Rise
For nearly a decade, New York City has struggled to help homeless people find apartments of their own, as rents hovered in the stratosphere and the number of people stuck in shelters surged past 60,000. So on Thursday, the City Council took its most dramatic step in years to address the city’s affordable housing crisis, voting overwhelmingly to expand a subsidy program in ways that could make apartments affordable to tens of thousands of people who are homeless or threatened with eviction. (Newman, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Fraud Charges Leveled Across The Country
Billy Joe Taylor set up a medical testing lab in 2017 in Arkansas, submitting around $23 million in claims to Medicare through early 2020. His billing activities had already left a former business partner uneasy, the partner later told the FBI, but once the pandemic hit the activities appeared to go into overdrive. Mr. Taylor acquired a California lab for $60,000 in February 2020, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit filed last week, and used it to bill more than $42 million in fake claims through last month. Mr. Taylor bundled expensive and unnecessary tests with those coded as Covid-19-related, in an apparent effort to slip them through for approval, the affidavit alleged. The document said $11 million of those claimed were paid. (Viswanatha, 5/27)

The CT Mirror: House Approves Bill Aimed At Expanding School Mental Health Clinics
The state House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday aimed at expanding school-based mental health clinics throughout Connecticut. If it passes the Senate and is signed into law, this legislation would have the Department of Public Health, in collaboration with the Department of Children and Families and the Connecticut Association of School-Based Health Centers, conduct a study no later than Jan. 1, 2022, identifying school districts in the state that do not have accessible mental health resources for students and provide them with options to integrate school-based mental health clinics or centers in the area. (Watson, 5/26)

Health News Florida: Florida Planned Parenthood Clinics Expand Mental Health Offerings
May is mental health awareness month, and it seems the need for mental health services grows in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Now a new source for these services has emerged in the form of Southeast and North Florida's Planned Parenthood clinics. Dr. Karen Peters is Planned Parenthood's Behavioral Health Program director. She said Florida locations are among the first in the organization to expand health care offerings in this direction. (Flanigan, 5/27)

North Carolina Health News: How To Return To Normalcy Post-Pandemic 
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Pat Szafranski chose her restaurants the way most of us would: by looking at the menu. In recent months, she’s developed a new criteria, and it has nothing to do with food. The Greensboro resident judges a restaurant by its ventilation. “If we have to eat inside, it would be at a place with really high ceilings, it would have good ventilation,” she said about eating out with her husband. “I would ask them to put me in a corner somewhere out of the way.” (Engel-Smith, 5/28)

ABC News: These Florida Concert Tickets Are $18 If You're Vaccinated, $1,000 If You're Not
A concert promoter in Florida came up with a creative way to encourage his community to get vaccinated by offering $18 discounted tickets to an upcoming show for those who have been vaccinated -- and charging $999.99 per ticket for those who have not. Paul Williams of Leadfoot Promotions in Tampa Bay said he came up with the idea as vaccination appointments in his state opened up to all, and while trying to plan a concert that people could safely enjoy after over a year of living through a pandemic that shut down most live events with crowds. (Thorbecke, 5/27)

NBC News: Tennessee Woman Accused Of Driving Through Clinic, Shouting 'No Vaccine' Is Charged
A Tennessee driver accused of yelling "no vaccine!" while speeding through a Covid-19 vaccination tent has been charged with reckless endangerment, the Blount County Sheriff's Office said Thursday. Virginia Christine Lewis Brown, 35, of Greenback, is facing seven counts of felony reckless endangerment in the incident Monday at the vaccination site outside a mall, the sheriff's office said. No one was hurt, but the sheriff's office said the lives of workers were placed in danger. (Helsel, 5/28)