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The U.S. Navy quietly rolled back an order punishing SEALs who remain unvaccinated due to their religious beliefs, according to recent court documents.The order, "Trident Order #12," disqualified SEALs seeking religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine from training, traveling for deployment and conducting other standard business. It was first issued on Sept. 24, 2021 by Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William Lescher, and all special warfare forces were initially expected to come into compliance with the vaccine mandate by mid-October 2021.The order specifically said that "Special Operations Designated Personnel (SEAL and SWCC) refusing to receive recommended vaccines based solely...

Switzerland announced this week that it is lifting nearly all coronavirus restrictions in the country as infection rates in the country steadily decline. The Federal Council, the seven-member Swiss executive branch, said as of Thursday, masks and COVID-19 vaccination passes will no longer be required to enter shops, restaurants, cultural venues and other public settings and events. The requirement to wear masks in workplaces and a work-from-home recommendation will also end, as will capacity limits on large-scale gatherings.

Sweden and Switzerland joined Denmark, Norway, Finland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Italy, Lithuania, France and the UK in announcing they will lift COVID restrictions and open up their countries.(Children’s Health Defense) – Europe is accelerating steps to roll back COVID restrictions as efforts to control the spread of the virus have failed and countries downgrade the threat posed by SARS-CoV-2.Sweden and Switzerland joined Denmark, Norway, Finland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Italy, Lithuania, France and the U.K. in announcing they will lift COVID restrictions and open up their countries.Top Israeli officials also announced this week they are abolishing the country’s “Green Pass” COVID...

WASHINGTON — Nicolas Talbott, a graduate student at Kent State University in Ohio who is transgender, was told in May that because of President Trump’s transgender ban in the military, he would no longer be eligible for placement as an Army officer. He could continue participating in the Reserve Officers Training Corps program, but the benefits that he joined for — health insurance and student loan forgiveness — were no longer available to him. “Everyone else would walk away with a job in the United States Army, and I would walk away with just more student loan debt,” Mr. Talbott...

The Environmental Protection Agency will propose easing rules on disposal of coal ash, the residue from burning coal, to make it less likely the federal government would shutter a coal-fired utility plant, in an announcement set for Monday. The move is part of what has been a larger deregulation push by the Trump administration to roll back strict Obama-era regulations that the industry viewed as the previous administration’s “war on coal” that pushed to shut down many coal-fired power plants. “The EPA is no longer picking winners and losers in electric generation,” Peter Wright, assistant administrator for EPA Office of...

Ten years after a financial crisis rocked the nation’s economy, the Senate is poised to pass legislation that would roll back some of the safeguards Congress put into place to prevent a relapse. The move to alter some key aspects of the Dodd-Frank law has overwhelming Republican support and enough Democratic backing that it’s expected to gain the 60 votes necessary to clear the Senate. Several Democratic lawmakers facing tough re-election races this year have broken ranks with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The legislation would increase the threshold at which banks are considered too...

Health advocates are blasting provisions in federal funding legislation that are seen as dialing back school nutrition standards, even as the White House seeks to downplay the riders as “minor adjustments” to the first lady’s signature policy. The bill known as “cromnibus,” contains language that would allow states to exempt struggling districts from having to offer all whole grain products and eases requirements for schools to reduce sodium levels. Critics who lobbied against more restrictive nutrition rules hailed the language as a win. The American Heart Association, meanwhile, worries the changes will open the door for more legislation that will...

There were silver linings on Election Day that should not be dismissed. It's time to disband the circular firing squad and focus on the superb opportunities conservatives face in the 2014 midterms and the 2016 general election. More

We knew it was going to be a bad election night for the Democrats when former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe announced on NBC's "Today" program that "the results of these elections tend to be overread." Certainly that was not the prevailing opinion in Democratic circles in 2008, when giddiness over Barack Obama's election reached manic proportions. Virginia, which voted Democratic for president for the first time since 1964, was singled out as an indication of the shape of things to come. In 2008, Mr. Plouffe bragged that only Mr. Obama could make Virginia competitive, and when he won the...

June 11, 2008 Oil price crisis threatens to reverse globalisation Carl Mortished: World Business Briefing With brutal efficiency, the oil price is beginning to duff up a monster of the 20th century: globalisation. Those great tentacles that gripped our world in a hideous embrace are suddenly weakening and the multinational octopus is looking a bit pale and sickly. The extraordinary rise in the price of crude oil is wrecking outsourced business models everywhere and distance from your customer is no longer merely a matter of dull logistics. Whether you are selling coiled steel or cut flowers, the cost of transport...

Under pressure from employers, the Treasury issued a ruling that allows companies to freeze the pensions of older workers in certain cases without running afoul of laws meant to protect employees' nest eggs. In addition to validating some pension rollbacks that could save companies billions of dollars, the Treasury's action also could tip the outcome of long-running lawsuits alleging age discrimination by pension plans at AT&T Inc., Cigna Corp., Dun & Bradstreet Corp., El Paso Corp., and other major companies. The stakes are huge: In just the AT&T case, nearly 24,000 current and former workers had opted into a class...

2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is firing up the troops for the coming battle over the Supreme Court - taping a message for her supporters accusing President Bush of appointing judges who want undo the accomplishments of the civil rights movement. In a "conversation" with Georgia Rep. John Lewis - videotaped shortly before Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement and posted to Clinton's web site in the last few days - the top Democrat hails the Warren court's landmark Brown vs Board of Education school desegregation decision. Then Hillary warns darkly: "What we are experiencing today is a real movement...

In a memo distributed in the run-up to Mayor Dick Murphy's State of the City address, San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre advises city officials to seek major pension benefit rollbacks in upcoming contract talks with municipal labor unions. "I'm trying to bring a realistic, needed reform that can restore the financial integrity of the pension plan and re-establish the fiscal strength of the city," Aguirre said in an interview yesterday. "If we do this, we can avoid bankruptcy. If we don't, it's almost certain we will go into bankruptcy at some point." Aguirre made his recommendations in a five-page...

WASHINGTON - Some conservative Republicans in the House want to roll back much of the new Medicare drug benefit and the "No Child Left Behind" education law that President Bush (news - web sites) made domestic hallmarks of his first term, a GOP lawmaker said Wednesday. While praising Bush's leadership on fighting terrorism and passing tax cuts, Rep. Mike Pence (news, bio, voting record) of Indiana said it was important for Republicans to reassert conservative values that led them to control of Congress. "The fate of the Republican majority ... will be largely determined by whether or not we rediscover...

The Schwarzenegger administration signaled its support Tuesday for a plan to drop Clinton-era protections that barred road-building and other development on nearly a third of the country's national forest land, including more than 4 million acres in California. The rollback, proposed by the Bush administration last summer, would repeal the most ambitious conservation move of Clinton's presidency — a rule that blocked commercial timber cutting and road construction on 58.5 million acres of national forest holdings. In its place, the Bush proposal would create a system that relies heavily on individual states to decide whether the forest lands should be...

A tax proposal based on California's "Proposition 13" will be on the November 2 ballot in Maine, and librarians and others are warning that it could devastate municipal services. The proposal, spearheaded by Maine Taxpayer Action Network head Carol Palesky, would roll back assessed property values by almost a decade and impose a property tax cap of 1% (or 10 mills) on the new value. The Maine Municipal Association projects a municipal tax revenue loss in FY 06 of nearly $600 million, or a 30% reduction in property tax revenues. However, that assumes that part of the measure would be...

<p>Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday said he supports an effort by Assembly Democrats to raise personal income taxes and undo the vehicle license fee increase.</p> <p>Lawmakers are crafting legislation that would wipe out the tripling of the car fee that is to go into effect Oct. 1. Instead, the bill would add two new top income tax brackets and bump up taxes on cigarettes.</p>