Biden's vaccine mandate for federal workers blocked while appeals court reconsiders its own ruling
CBSN
In a reversal for President Biden, a federal appeals court in New Orleans on Monday agreed to reconsider its own April ruling that allowed the administration to require federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The new order from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans vacates an earlier ruling by a three-judge panel that upheld the mandate. The new order means a block on the mandate imposed in January by a Texas-based federal judge remains in effect, while the full court's 17 judges take up the appeal.
Biden had issued an order on September 9 requiring that more than 3.5 million federal executive branch workers undergo vaccination, with no option to get regularly tested instead, unless they secured approved medical or religious exemptions.
Scientists say they've discovered the world's biggest coral, so huge it was mistaken for a shipwreck
Scientists say they have found the world's largest coral near the Pacific's Solomon Islands, announcing Thursday a major discovery "pulsing with life and color." The coral is so immense that researchers sailing the crystal waters of the Solomon archipelago initially thought they'd stumbled across a hulking shipwreck.