At least 59,000 workers at the five largest U.S. meatpacking companies caught COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic, and 269 workers died. That’s the finding of a House investigation which found meat industry managers grossly underreported COVID cases as the coronavirus tore through their slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants. The toll was about three times higher than estimates from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

Here in New York, a judge has denied a request by the city’s largest police union to block a vaccine mandate for municipal workers. In Chicago, a police union filed a similar lawsuit Tuesday against Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker seeking to overturn vaccine mandates.