– Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt asked a federal appeals court to affirm a lower-court ruling from earlier this year that blocked the Biden administration from requiring masks on public transit, including commercial airlines. In a brief filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, Schmidt, along with 21 other state attorneys general and the solicitor general of Iowa, argued that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacked authority to impose the mask mandate. In addition, the states argue the mandate is invalid because it failed to go through notice and comment procedures, is arbitrary and capricious and violated the agency’s own regulations.