Latest news with #OlympicTorch
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Police run torch for Special Olympics this week all across Vermont
SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44) – Police, athletes, and members of the military will be running for a cause throughout Vermont for the next four days. The annual Law Enforcement Torch Run in Vermont will be held this week, from June 3 through 6. Members of the law enforcement community will be carrying the Flame of Hope, the Special Olympics' equivalent to the Olympic Torch, from the four corners of the state all the way to St. Michael's College in Winooski. It is the largest community fundraiser for the Special Olympics organization, which holds the Special Olympics World Games every two years. The torch run will be followed by the annual Special Olympics Vermont Summer Games on June 6 and 7. This year will feature two sports, bocce ball and basketball, with hundreds of athletes joining in. Special Olympics Vermont Penguin Plunge underway this Saturday The event will start in four places simultaneously: in Derby Line and Highgate Springs in northern Vermont, and in Brattleboro and Bennington in southern Vermont. Four torches will be carried separately Tuesday through Thursday, before joining together for two final legs on Friday from Essex Junction to St. Michael's College. Lake Champlain will also get to feature in the event, as one of the four torches will be carried by the Colchester Boating Unit and U.S. Coast Guard over the water from Bayside Beach in Colchester over to Burlington. How staying 'up-to-date' with water quality at Burlington beaches can keep you safe According to the Special Olympics Vermont website, the event brings together more than 91,000 law enforcement officers from 46 countries each year as 'part of a global movement that works year-round to foster inclusion and acceptance of people with intellectual disabilities by using the power of sport.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pomp, circumstance and a drone show: USC shakes up its graduation a year after turmoil
As thousands of families poured into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the University of Southern California's main-stage commencement on Thursday night, the scene had the feel of the usual collegiate event held there: a football game. 'Churros! Water!' vendors called out as they picked their way past seated guests, some of them clutching pom-poms. Then the USC fight song began to play as night fell — and the Olympic Torch towering over the Coliseum ignited to cheers. The spectacle offered a rah-rah turning-of-the-page on last year's graduation controversy at USC. In May 2024, USC was widely criticized for its handling of commencement. Amid the turbulence of campus protests over Israel's war in Gaza, President Carol Folt canceled the main ceremony over safety concerns, along with the speech of valedictorian Asna Tabassum, who had expressed pro-Palestinian views. As the four-day graduation ceremonies ramped up Thursday night for the Class of 2025, USC unveiled major changes to a long-held tradition. Arguably the biggest adjustment: abandoning longtime on-campus commencement venue Alumni Park — and its stately red-brick buildings and mature greenery — for the cavernous Coliseum. USC also did away with a long-held practice, announcing in February that there would be no valedictorian — and no accompanying speech. Instead of selecting a graduating senior based mainly on academic grades, the student speaker, Meghan Anand, was chosen from among applicants with grade-point averages of 3.5 and above who submitted celebratory essays about their class. Yet, for a university that steeps itself in its Trojan traditions, commencement had already been forced to bend with the times. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 gathering was relocated to the Coliseum because the venue's size allowed for a series of socially distanced events. Last year, after the main-stage commencement was canceled, the university scrambled to host a 'Trojan Family Graduate Celebration' at the Coliseum. It featured a drone show, fireworks and free hats from rapper Travis Scott's apparel company. Feelings were mixed. Ahead of Thursday's event — the centerpiece of a days-long graduation celebration that began Wednesday, concludes Saturday and includes more than 20 celebrations on and near campus — The Times interviewed five graduating seniors about commencement. Some said they would have preferred to have the ceremony on campus, but the prospect of a nighttime celebration that would include another elaborate drone show and massive fireworks display still appealed. Senior Michael Young, 21, said he was "excited for that drone show" and knew from football games the Coliseum would provide a "celebratory atmosphere," but he added he would miss the vibes of Alumni Memorial Park. "If we had it there, it would just feel nostalgic," he said. "Because, you know, we walk through that main road of campus all the time, right? We go into that library sometimes, right? We want to graduate on the exact steps that we took to graduate." Several students also criticized the administration's decision to not name a valedictorian — or let that person speak. Senior Nicole Concepcion said the decision was "just another way for USC to really filter out what they want to show everyone." "They're really, really trying to control it this year, which rubbed me the wrong way," she said. Yet others pointed out that the pandemic had thwarted their high school's in-person graduations. They were simply happy to attend any sort of gathering recognizing their achievements. "Our high school graduation ceremonies were impacted by COVID, so I'm excited that we get a grand event," said senior Jennie Duong, 22. In a statement, USC said the commencement was moved to the campus-adjacent stadium this year in part because it had gotten feedback from graduates who went to last year's celebration "and loved the drone show and fireworks." It was also moved to the Coliseum because the event "has outgrown all venues on our campus." The university said it expected 50,000 guests Thursday night; attendance figures were not immediately available. As for the decision to forgo naming a valedictorian, the university has noted that other universities have also retired the valedictorian title, and that it wanted to "celebrate the accomplishments of a wider range of our graduating students who have worked incredibly hard throughout their academic career." The event at the Coliseum represented something of a do-over for USC — at least in one way. "Wicked" director Jon M. Chu, a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, delivered a speech Thursday night after his planned 2024 commencement address was called off by the university even before the Alumni Park ceremony was canceled amid the swirling controversies. "Your job is not simply to inherit a world but to reimagine it and set the foundation for who we are moving forward," Chu told the graduates. "Because we're living in a moment when those old stories of who we are and what we stand for are breaking down." The main-stage campus commencement gatherings at Alumni Park, which began about 75 years ago, weren't short on pageantry and old-world tradition going back decades. The event would typically begin with a processional that saw students stream out of Bovard Administration Building carrying heraldic flags for the university's various academic units, followed by deans and other senior university leaders in academic gowns and colorful hoods as "Pomp and Circumstance" played. "It [was] very traditional," said Annette Ricchiazzi, who worked for USC in events during the 2000s and helped produce commencement events. It offered "the sense of what of a graduation ceremony should be." At the Coliseum on Thursday, some of that tradition was on display. There were, for example, students bearing flags. And there was a processional of dignitaries. But there were elements not typically seen at commencement — though they might have been familiar to any fan of the USC football team, which plays at the Coliseum. Like those food vendors. Ricchiazzi, a USC alumna whose two daughters also graduated from the university, decried changes that broke with tradition. "Commencement is not a football game — and it shouldn't be," she said. Students and alumni, Ricchiazzi among them, said they believed the decision to hold the event at the Coliseum stemmed partly from the fact that the venue, which is equipped with metal detectors, offers a high level of security. On Thursday, guests were only allowed to bring clear bags into the stadium, a policy deployed for other events there. Senior Lawrence Sung, 22, said he bristles at the security gates USC put in place along its campus' perimeter for the start of the school year, but in the case of commencement, he understand the needs for tight restrictions. "For a big event like this — for graduation — I do see the value in that," he said. Asked whether security concerns played a role in the decision to move commencement to the Coliseum, USC referred The Times to a statement that said in part the event was held there because the venue's capacity suited its needs. The university said it would not disclose details of its security plans. Lloyd Greif, a prominent alumnus of the USC Marshall School of Business, said that in 2021 — the year of the socially distanced commencement at the Coliseum — two of his children graduated from the business school, one with a bachelor's degree, the other a graduate degree. The Greifs attended the event, and it worked out just fine. "I did like the setting," said Greif, who founded the Marshall School's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. "Just like Memorial Park has a lot of history and tradition, so does Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum." One more recent tradition that hasn't changed: affinity commencement celebrations. Despite guidance from the Trump administration's Education Department that suggested Black, Latino and other cultural affinity group celebrations during commencement were illegal forms of segregation and spurred cancellations elsewhere in the U.S., USC planned to continue the events — and all were welcome. Lavanya Sharma, 21, who was selected to be a flag bearer, was among those in the processional that kicked off the Coliseum celebration. Her parents are immigrants from India, and Sharma is the first in he family to graduate from a U.S. university. The Coliseum, she said, seems suitably cool for a commencement venue. "It is rare for students to be given access to the field," she said. "And I've really started to view the Coliseum as part of USC. I've been there for so many ... football games hosted by USC." Concepcion, who is Filipino American, can relate. She also is the first person in her family to graduate from a U.S. university. She made plans to attend several ceremonies, including a gathering for students of Filipino descent that she said is known as "P-Grad." But she said she'd told her parents she wasn't sure if she wanted to go to the main commencement. Her parents weren't having it. "They were like, 'No, we'd love to do it. We're super excited to just see what it looks like,'" Concepcion said. Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
BBC News
09-03-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Kieran Maxwell's mum highlights urgency of bone cancer diagnosis
A mum whose teenage son died after being diagnosed with bone cancer has called for more awareness of the disease's Maxwell, from Heighington, County Durham, was told he had Ewing sarcoma in 2010 and had his left leg amputated before his death, aged 18, in mother, Nicola, said it took 14 months for Kieran to be sent for an X-ray after first seeing a doctor about than 150 youngsters in the UK are diagnosed with bone cancer each year, according to The Children & Young People's Cancer Association (CCLG), but fewer than 50 of those patients survive for 10 or more years. Ms Maxwell, who now lives in Darlington, said: "Bone cancer was never even mentioned by doctors as a possibility because it's so rare in young people."The guidelines said you had to have persistent bone pain and see a doctor three times to be sent for an X-ray, but Kieran's pain was intermittent and he had no other symptoms."He wasn't losing weight and he was still active. They put it down to growing pains."I believe it could have been caught earlier. Chances were missed."The amputation of Kieran's left leg in 2011 appeared to have been successful in treating the disease and, using a prosthetic leg, the following year he took part in the Olympic Torch relay ahead the games being staged in to the ground as he carried it through Bishop Auckland, he carried on after being helped up. 'Poor' survival rate Then, in 2013, doctors found cancer had spread to Kieran's lungs and his was, Ms Maxwell says, a blow that seemingly "came out of nowhere" as he had achieved several personal bests in sporting competitions just a couple of months set up the Kieran Maxwell Legacy charity in the hope of funding a researcher to look into the illness. Ms Maxwell added: "It is very difficult to treat relapsed bone cancers and survival is very poor. Early diagnosis has a positive impact on survival and the chance of recurrence drops quite significantly."I often wonder, if Kieran had been diagnosed earlier, would we have had the chance to save his leg and his life?" Signs and symptoms Bone cancer can affect any bone, but most cases develop in the long bones of the legs or upper is the most common type, mostly affecting people under 20, while Ewing sarcoma most commonly affects people between 10 and 20. Chondrosarcoma tends to affect adults aged over main symptoms include:Persistent bone pain that gets worse over time and continues into the nightSwelling and redness (inflammation) over a bone, which can make movement difficult if the affected bone is near a jointA noticeable lump over a boneA weak bone that breaks more easily than normalProblems moving around – for example, walking with a limpSource: NHS Early treatment 'essential' CCLG says about one in 10 patients wait more than three months after noticing symptoms before talking to a healthcare professional, and then often face further delays before a diagnosis is charity's CEO, Ashley Ball-Gamble, believes raising awareness among health professionals is "essential to ensuring no child or young person's symptoms are overlooked, and that treatment can begin as early as possible".It has funded research by the University of Nottingham stressing the need for earlier diagnosis and David Walker, senior author of the paper, explained: "Efforts to improve outcomes for children with bone tumours have not led to improvements in cure rates or disability rates for nearly two decades."It is time to look at whether accelerating diagnosis could change this static state of affairs." Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
