Monday morning news - January 3, 2022

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Kids return to school amid record COVID-19 surge » Kids and teachers are returning to classrooms this week amid a record surge of new COVID-19 cases.

Some schools are once again requiring masks and some others are ramping up testing.

But a court over the weekend ruled that President Biden cannot force teachers in the Head Start early education program to get vaccinated and kids in the program to be masked.

PAXTON: We’ve been fighting this ever since Biden issued these mandates.

That’s Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

PAXTON: The idea here is the federal government can’t make up laws without Congress passing them, that the Biden administration has to follow the law. They have to follow the Constitution. They’re implementers of the law. They can’t just make it up.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty agreed. He wrote that the Biden administration unlawfully bypassed Congress. The administration ordered workers in the Head Start programs to be vaccinated by Jan. 31st. And it mandated that students 2 years or older be masked when indoors or when in close contact outdoors.

It was not immediately clear the federal government would appeal the ruling.

Twenty-four states sued over the mandates.

Mass flight cancellations continue » The nightmare continued on Sunday for travelers stuck inside crowded airports.

Airlines again canceled well over 2,000 U.S. flights.

That as airline workers continue to call in sick with COVID-19. But the weather didn’t help either.

A weekend winter storm in the Midwest made Chicago the worst place in the country for travelers. Airlines cancelled about a quarter of all flights at O’Hare Airport yesterday.

Three people missing after wildfire in suburban Denver » Three people were still missing and feared dead on Sunday after a massive fire that burned neighborhoods to the ground in suburban Denver. The blaze broke out on Thursday and destroyed nearly a thousand buildings.

David Marks lives in Superior, Colorado. He said his home was spared, but his neighbors weren’t as fortunate.

MARKS: For 35 years, I walked out my front door and I saw beautiful homes. Now, when I walk out—my home’s standing—I walk out my front door and this is what I see.

What he saw was the blackened and smoldering remains of his neighborhood.

Louisville city councilman Caleb Dickinson said Sunday…

DICKENSON: There are entire neighborhoods gone. It’s unbelievable. It’s really just down to rubble in so many places.

Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said authorities were pursuing a number of tips and had executed a search warrant at “one particular location.” He declined to give details.

PELLE: We are looking into the cause and origin of the fire. And if it turns out to be arson or reckless behavior with fire, we’ll take appropriate actions.

Pelle said the area was under a “red flag” warning on Thursday and burning of any kind was not allowed.

Fire ravages South Africa's historic Parliament complex » Meantime, in South Africa, a major fire ripped through the county’s historic Parliament complex on Sunday.

As firefighters struggled to tame the blaze, a dark plume of smoke rose high into the air above Cape Town.

The flames gutted offices and caused ceilings to collapse in parts of the 138-year-old complex.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said authorities are investigating the fire.

RAMAPHOSA: I believe somebody is being held right now and they are being questioned, but we need to go a lot deeper, a lot deeper into how this type of event can take place and what measures we will need to take going forward.

The Parliament complex has hosted some of the country's most pivotal moments. Officials said the fire started in the Old Assembly building. It was built in 1884.

Twitter bans Rep. Greene » Twitter on Sunday permanently banned the personal account of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: The company cited multiple violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy.

Congresswoman Greene said in a statement that her account was suspended after she tweeted statistics from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. That’s a government database that includes unverified raw data. The Georgia Republican blasted Twitter's move as un-American.

Greene has made numerous highly controversial claims about vaccines, and Twitter has suspended her account multiple times. The permanent ban does not affect her official congressional Twitter account.

Twitter has taken heavy criticism for its censorship. But the company defends its content policies, saying it has removed thousands of tweets and challenged millions of accounts.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.