Latest news with #Kennedy
France 24
24 minutes ago
- Sport
- France 24
Australian sprinter Kennedy tastes 100m victory in Nairobi
Kennedy, 21, came from behind to beat Bayanda Wazala of South Africa and Kenya's African 100m record holder Ferdinand Omanyala into second and third positions respectively in Nairobi. "As soon as I saw the 9.98 I was thrilled, the feeling was so surreal. I couldn't believe it," said an ecstatic Kennedy, who in January ran a world-leading 6.45sec in the 60m in Canberra. Kennedy is one half of an exciting duo of young Australian sprinters, led by the 17-year-old sensation Gout Gout. Walaza, 19, who will hope to make his mark for South Africa in this summer's World Championships in Tokyo, timed 10.03sec in second and said he was picking up experience all the time. "I am still getting my way into the 100m. I am learning from these people, including Akani (Simbine) and Omanyala, who are my mentors," he said. Earlier South Africa's Zakithi Nene recorded the fastest time in the world over 400m with a sparkling personal best of 43.76sec, beating Nigerian Chidi Okezi (44.89sec) into second place. The 27-year-old Nene, who previous best was 44.22sec at the South African championships in April, made up for the disappointment of finishing runner-up to American Jacory Patterson at the Rabat Diamond League last weekend. Kenyan-born Jonah Koech, competing for the United States, upstaged his former compatriots to win the 800m in a personal best 1min 43.32sec. It was Koech's second track victory in a week after his shock maiden Diamond League victory in the 1500m in Rabat. Trinidadian two-time world javelin champion Andersen Peters' hopes of winning his first Kip Keino title were shattered when he finished seventh with a disappointing 77.49m. Brazilian Luiz Mauricio da Silva dominated the event with a new personal best of 86.34m to finish ahead of Germany's former Olympic champion Thomas Rohler (80.79).
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
CDC counters RFK Jr., keeps COVID vaccine on schedule for kids
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s announcement Tuesday that the COVID-19 vaccine would come off the immunization schedule for children caused a stir among medical groups and others. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has seemingly contradicted the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, under whose purview federal public health agencies including their own fall. As The New York Times reported Friday, 'The agency kept COVID shots on the schedule for healthy children 6 months to 17 years old, but added a new condition. Children and their caregivers will be able to get the vaccines in consultation with a doctor or provider, which the agency calls 'shared decision-making.'' The CDC told the Times the shots would also remain available for the 38 million low-income children who participate in the Vaccines for Children program, under the same conditions. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon couched the week's yo-yo-announcements as 'restoring the doctor-patient relationship.' Parents can decide, he said, in consultation with their health practitioner. The immunization schedule note dated May 29 from the CDC said that 'shared clinical decision-making vaccinations are individually based and informed by a decision process between the health care provider and the patient or parent/guardian. Where the parent presents with a desire for their child to be vaccinated, children 6 months and older may receive COVID-19 vaccination, informed by the clinical judgment of a health care provider and personal preference and circumstances.' As Deseret News reported earlier this week, Kennedy, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya released a video heralding the removal of the shots from the recommended immunization schedule. Bhattacharya called the decision 'common sense' and 'good science,' but pediatricians and other medical groups pushed back, noting it could put children at risk and that if insurance companies decided not to cover the vaccine as a result, some patients also might not be able to afford it. Kennedy and the others also said that the COVID-19 shot would not be recommended for pregnant women. Nixon appeared to include them in the shared decision-making response late this week. But without a government mandate or recommendation, whether insurance will pay remains a question. COVID-19 vaccine recommendations have been a moving target. Last week, HHS recommended that those 65 and older get the shots, which are updated to match the variant that's expected to circulate. But it said for the vaccines to be licensed for healthy people ages 6 months to 64, new clinical trials will be required. That recommendation also included folks who have certain specific chronic health conditions or are immune-compromised, as well as pregnant women. They were removed later.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Local beach is popular with seals. Parks Tacoma starts program to protect them
Parks Tacoma this summer is bringing in volunteers to help protect seals and seal pups on a local beach. The program will train and facilitate volunteers to keep an eye out for wildlife that hauls out on Owen Beach at Point Defiance Park to protect it from predators and well-meaning members of the public who might be curious about the animals, program coordinator Desiree Kennedy told The News Tribune. The Marine Mammal Health Watch is part of Parks Tacoma's Point Defiance Park Watch program, in which volunteers patrol the area to serve as an extra set of eyes on park rule violations. 'These people really will be the eyes and ears out in the park to let us know what they're seeing so that we can record it appropriately,' Kennedy said of the program at Owen Beach. Kennedy said a team of volunteers will be dispatched along Owen Beach in two-hour shifts to ensure that a volunteer will be on site in the event of reports of seal appearances. Volunteers will help educate people about the animals and ensure that passersby keep a safe distance so the animals remain unharmed. The program will focus on Owen Beach since it's a known hot spot for seal activity, Kennedy said. 'They also use that space at Owen beach naturally to mate, to give birth to their babies, to molt and to warm up or potentially cool off,' Kennedy told The News Tribune. 'So it's just really part of their natural behavior to come onto shore.' Parks Tacoma decided to create the program after noticing the need for such volunteers over the years. 'Just the amount of questions that come from the public, we knew that we needed to be able to help answer those,' Kennedy said. The program kicked off on May 21 when Parks Tacoma hosted its first orientation for interested volunteers. Kennedy said about 40 volunteers attended the event, and Parks Tacoma hopes to assign all of them two-hour shifts at Owen Beach to keep a volunteer presence on site at least during peak hours on weekends. Volunteers will likely be stationed at Owen Beach starting around mid-June, Kennedy said. Interested volunteers can contact Desiree Kennedy at to learn more or get involved.
Business Recorder
7 hours ago
- Health
- Business Recorder
US FDA approves Moderna's next-generation COVID vaccine for adults 65 or older
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Moderna's next-generation COVID-19 vaccine for everyone aged 65 and above, the company said on Saturday, the first endorsement since the regulator tightened requirements. The vaccine has also been approved for people aged 12 to 64 with at least one or more underlying risk factors defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Moderna said in a statement. The company said it expects to have the vaccine, called mNEXSPIKE, available for the 2025-2026 respiratory virus season. 'The FDA approval of our third product, mNEXSPIKE, adds an important new tool to help protect people at high risk of severe disease from COVID-19,' CEO Stephane Bancel said in the statement. The Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of long-time vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is tightening regulatory scrutiny on vaccines. The FDA said on May 20 it planned to require drugmakers to test their COVID booster shots against an inert placebo in healthy adults under 65 for approval, effectively limiting them to older adults and those at risk of developing severe illness. The Moderna vaccine can be stored in refrigerators rather than freezers, to offer longer shelf life and make distribution easier, especially in developing countries where supply-chain issues could hamper vaccination drives. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which Kennedy also oversees, said on Thursday that COVID vaccines remain an option for healthy children when parents and doctors agree that it is needed, stopping short of Kennedy's announcement days earlier that the agency would remove the shots from its immunization schedule. The CDC announcement eases investor concern to some extent, analysts say, as it keeps the existing framework for older adults and at-risk people who generally seek out the shots. FDA leaders have said 100 million to 200 million Americans would still be eligible for annual shots. Moderna is betting on its newer messenger RNA vaccines as it grapples with waning demand for its original COVID vaccine Spikevax and lower-than-expected uptake of its respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. The approval for mNEXSPIKE was based on late-stage trial data, which showed the shot was not inferior in efficacy compared to Spikevax in individuals aged 12 years and older. The shot also showed superior efficacy compared to Spikevax in adults 18 years of age and older in the study. Kennedy has kickstarted a major overhaul of health departments, laying off thousands of employees to align with President Donald Trump's goal of dramatically shrinking the federal government. This has further ignited worries about potential disruptions to the regulatory review of treatments and vaccines. The CDC's outside panel of vaccine experts in April discussed recommending the booster shots only for populations at risk of severe COVID-19 for the upcoming immunization campaign. The FDA approved Novavax's COVID vaccine Nuvaxovid this month, limiting its use to older adults and people over the age of 12 with conditions that put them at risk due to the illness. Conditions that constitute additional risk range from illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease to behaviors like physical inactivity and substance abuse, according to the CDC. While Moderna's shots, as well as Pfizer-BioNTech's Comirnaty, are mRNA-based, Novavax's vaccine is protein-based and takes longer to manufacture. Moderna this month withdrew an application seeking approval for its flu-and-COVID combination vaccine candidate to wait for efficacy data from a late-stage trial of its influenza shot.
Buzz Feed
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Historian Says Posh Accents Ruin Period Dramas
At this year's Hay Festival, Jane Tranter – former executive vice-president of programming and production at the BBC and current producer of Austen adaptation The Other Bennet Sister – said actors 'start speaking posh' when they get a Pride And Prejudice -era script in their hands. 'Not everybody spoke posh in those days, so you have to work with that as well,' she shared (via The Times). Pinched voices, fussy hairdos, and 'weird hats' can risk leading to 'such a fetishised approach that it becomes a barrier between the audience and what is going on,' she adds. So, we spoke to author and historian Katie Kennedy (of viral account @TheHistoryGossip and new SKY History series History Crush) about what we lose when costume drama accents all start to sound the same. It's not an isolated trend Kennedy tells us the tendency isn't limited to period costume dramas. 'It is widely known that the acting industry is dominated by the middle and upper classes,' she says. In 2024, the Sutton Trust found that people from working-class backgrounds were four times less likely than their middle-class peers to work in any creative industry. BAFTA-nominated actors are five times more likely to have gone to private school than the general public. 'While this is an issue in itself,' Kennedy continued, 'it also heavily influences how history gets portrayed on screen. 'We've been sold this idea that everyone in the past was super polished and polite, and we've equated that with the classic RP [received pronunciation] accent.' That's not to say you can't change up voices, actors, stories, or perspectives, especially in looser adaptations like Bridget Jones (expertly nicked from Pride And Prejudice) – but would-be 'faithful' adaptations tend to sound distractingly, and sometimes inaccurately, similar. Take, the historian says, the 2022 film Emily. 'The Brontës are portrayed with soft-spoken middle-class voices, even though they most likely would've had an Irish or at least an Irish/Yorkshire mixed accent as their father was Irish,' she shares. Indeed, Charlotte Brontë's friend Mary Taylor said the author 'spoke with a strong Irish accent,' while the British Film Institute admits star Emma Mackey 's 'Yorkshire accent sporadically wanders down the M1″ in the movie. 'A lot of the time' in period dramas, 'the working-class accent has been attributed to comic relief, or a character who has had a troubled life,' she tells HuffPost UK. 'When everyone in a period drama speaks the same, you're not just losing historical accuracy, you're also reinforcing the idea that the only 'serious' or 'worthy' people in history were the ones who 'spoke properly.''
