Latest news with #DumbartonOaks
South China Morning Post
14-05-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
US health chief RFK Jnr takes family swimming in sewer run-off tainted creek
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr celebrated Mother's Day with his family by swimming in a contaminated Washington creek used for sewer run-off. Advertisement 'Mother's Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick, and Jackson, and a swim with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius in Rock Creek,' Kennedy captioned an online photo putting him at the scene of the grime. The United States ' National Park Service explicitly warns that Rock Creek is not safe for humans or animals. 'Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading and other contact with the water a hazard to human (and pet) health,' the park's department states on its website. Swimming in Washington's rivers and streams has been banned since 1971 due to 'high amounts of faecal bacteria from combined sewer overflows'. Signs at Rock Creek Park specifically tell visitors to stay out of the water to prevent illness. Kennedy's decision-making skills have been called into question, even by members of his own family.
South China Morning Post
14-05-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
US health chief RFK Jnr takes family swimming in sewer run-off tainted creek
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr celebrated Mother's Day with his family by swimming in a contaminated Washington creek used for sewer run-off. 'Mother's Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick, and Jackson, and a swim with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius in Rock Creek,' Kennedy captioned an online photo putting him at the scene of the grime. The United States ' National Park Service explicitly warns that Rock Creek is not safe for humans or animals. 'Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading and other contact with the water a hazard to human (and pet) health,' the park's department states on its website. Swimming in Washington's rivers and streams has been banned since 1971 due to 'high amounts of faecal bacteria from combined sewer overflows'. Signs at Rock Creek Park specifically tell visitors to stay out of the water to prevent illness. Kennedy's decision-making skills have been called into question, even by members of his own family.
Daily Mail
13-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
RFK Jr sparks health warning after posting pictures from Mothers' Day hike with his grandkids
Robert F. Kennedy Junior has shared pictures of himself and his grandchildren swimming in a DC creek that is contaminated with feces. Authorities warn that Rock Creek, used to drain excess sewage and storm water in heavy rainfall, is positively teeming with and other dangerous bacteria. But the Health Secretary, 71, still took a dip in it with his grandchildren this Mother's Day apparently unaware of the danger. He shared photos of the swim online, showing himself in the water with his jeans on and, at one point, fully submerged. His grandchildren paddled in the water nearby, and one was photographed splashing him with the water. The National Park Service, which manages the Creek, warns online: 'Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading and other contact with the water a hazard to human health. 'Please protect yourself and your pooches by staying on trails and out of the creek.' It adds in the advisory: 'All District waterways are subject to a swim ban — this means wading, too!' Rock Creek, which runs through Dumbarton Oaks Park in the city, has had a swim-ban in place because of the sewage for at least 50 years. Sampling of water running through Rock Creek in September last year, the latest available, revealed an level in the water of 285 per 100 milliliters. The World Health Organization suggests that any count over 10 per sample is 'low risk', while any over 100 is 'medium risk'. It says it is best for water to contain no The Health Secretary shared images of himself taking the dip on Sunday with the caption: 'Mother's Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick and Jackson, and a swim with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius, in Rock Creek.' His post on X has since had a warning placed onto it, that reads: 'Swimming in Rock Creek is dangerous and prohibited by the National Park Service, as the creek contains dangerously high bacteria levels.' Some followers were quick to point out that the water around DC is dangerous and can be contaminated with bacteria. But others heralded him for taking a dip, and applauded his 'healthy and happy family'. has contacted the White House for comment. It's just the latest in a series of peculiar incidents related to RFK's outdoors personality. Previously, his family members have said RFK decapitated a whale carcass in 1994 after its bodywashed up on a beach near Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. His daughter Kick told Town and Country magazine in 2012: '[He] ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale's head and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York.' She added: 'Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet.' RFK has also recounted how he once dumped a dead bear cub in New York's Central Park in 2014. And on the campaign trail, the then Presidential hopeful told crowds how he had a dead worm lodged in his brain.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Hallelujah Junction album review – two-piano journey through 20th-century Americana
This debut recording by husband-and-wife piano duo of Lukas Geniušas and Anna Geniushene (runner-up to Yunchan Lim at the 2022 Van Cliburn competition) beats a revealing path through 20th-century Americana. Four works date from the 1930s, including Gershwin's Cuban Overture and Copland's El Salón México. Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks was the composer's first US commission; played in the composer's two-piano version rather than by chamber orchestra, it seems less an 18th-century homage and more a direct link between the baroque and 20th-century minimalism. A complete contrast comes with Balinese Ceremonial Music by Colin McPhee, who was mining the potential of gamelan music decades before other western composers followed. The playing is finely balanced and unobtrusively imaginative throughout, but it's the two more recent pieces that are arguably the most interesting. Frederic Rzewski's Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues is initially unsettlingly inhuman, weaving the protest song into the noise of factory machines: you can picture the pianists as automatons thumping at the keyboards. Finally, there's the title work, the name of which John Adams borrowed from a truck stop near the California-Nevada border. Written in 1996, it's an example of how Adams can make minimalism feel huge and eclectic; the pianists trace its jangling and surging lines brilliantly. This article includes content hosted on We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Listen on Apple Music (above) or Spotify
