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A U.S. district judge for the Middle District, Florida, has thrown out the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s mandate on the mandatory wearing of masks on U.S. airplanes, trains, buses and public transportation hubs up to at least May 3, according to BBC News, which added “White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the decision ‘disappointing’ and noted that the CDC still recommends travelers cover their mouths and noses.”

Following the ruling, the Transportation Security Administration said it would now no longer enforce mask wearing.

Uber announced it would also drop its mask requirements for drivers and passengers, the Wall Street Journal reports. Passengers will be allowed to sit in the front seat again as well.

The Fattal Hotel Group will rebrand all its Jury Inns assets to its Leonardo brand, ending a hotel name and Irish staple that has been in existence since 1839 when founder William Jury opened a small hotel at No. 7 College Green, Dublin, according to Irish newspaper The Sunday Independent, although at press time the online presence of all Fattal’s hotels outside of Israel, its base, remain with a website named Jurys Inn.

Fattal, along with Sweden-based Pandox, bought Jurys Inn in December 2017 for a total acquisition price of 800 million pounds sterling ($1.1 billion). The Leonardo brand had seven hotels in the United Kingdom at that time, a number that has grown to 15 today, while Jurys Inn has 35 assets in the U.K. and Ireland.

Remington Hotels’ CEO Sloan Dean said he believes the firm’s purchase of Chesapeake Hospitality and subsequent widening of his firm’s management portfolio is a “tipping point” in its relationship with the hotel industry. In an interview with Hotel News Now’s Sean McCracken, Dean said that with this deal, its portfolio of hotels independent of Ashford Inc. has risen from 20% to 40%, and that sends a strong signal.

Dean added that the firm reaching a majority of their hotels not owned by sister companies is an important milestone as it removes the perception of potential conflicts with other ownership groups, particularly other hotel-focused real estate investment trusts.

“Next year, I believe we'll be more than 50% third-party management, and in short succession, we should reach 60%,” he said.

Despite that China, the world’s second-largest economy, stated on April 18 its gross domestic product had grown over the first quarter of 2022 by 4.8% year over year, economists said the real rebound is much less than that because the full cost of strict COVID-19 regulations has yet to play out in the numbers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper said on a quarter-by-quarter basis, the country’s first quarter numbers slowed from 1.6% growth to 1.3%.

Zhennan Li, chief economist, China, at AllianceBernstein, said, “the pandemic has to be the biggest source of risk for China’s growth this year.”

Shanghai, the country's major financial center, has been hit particularly hard by regulations, with the newspaper reporting “25 million people have been confined to their homes since late March.”

Hong Kong, which retains a zero-COVID-19 strategy, has been criticized for the mountains of landfill waste produced by its quarantine-designated hotels, with the city recycling only 11% of the “2,300 tonnes (3,527 tons) of plastic waste a day … most of it goes into landfills,” Reuters reports.

Guests have reported Hong Kong hotels being used as quarantine hotels wrap everything in cellophane and plastic — phones, remote controls, pillows and meals, among other items — and all staff wear full protective gear. Paul Zimmerman, councilor, Southern District, told the news agency the hotels themselves also contribute to waste levels, “because they can’t be used long-term, such as for public housing. They’ve been built very quickly ... and don’t comply with any particular building standards we have in Hong Kong.”

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