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This quirky spot in space is where NASA’s Roman Telescope will call home

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The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope just launched to space Sunday morning. The spacecraft is already more than 600 miles away from our planet—but it has many more miles to go.

NASA’s newest space observatory is winging its way to a special spot in space called the second sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2. This point is just shy of one million miles from Earth.

From this distance, Roman will get to work: The telescope will be able to capture broad swaths of space in one image, giving astronomers never-before-seen views of stars, galaxies, and other massive structures in the universe. Its survey will produce huge amounts of data and could solve several cosmic mysteries, with potential achievements ranging from understanding dark energy to detecting exoplanets—and finding some things astronomers don’t even know about yet.

It will take Roman about three months to make the journey to L2, but the trek will be well worth it. Lagrange points are crucial for space telescopes because, at these locations, the gravitational forces of Earth and the Sun essentially balance each other out, keeping the spacecraft stable with minimal effort on its part. The pulls of our star and planet equal the centripetal force needed for a smaller object to stay in place.

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Graphic shows how balancing gravitational forces form Lagrange points and highlights the planned orbit of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope around Lagrange point 2, or L2.

Matthew Twombly (graphic); Heidi B. Hammel/Shari Lifson/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (content consultants)

 

From L2, Roman and its soon-to-be neighbor, the James Webb Space Telescope, can orbit the Sun without disproportionate pull from one direction or the other. In other words, they will stay put. Each of the observatories orbit a point in their halos.

There are five Sun-Earth Lagrange points. They are named after Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange, who proved their existence in a paper entitled “Essay on the Three-Body Problem,” which was published in 1772.

L2 is particularly ideal for telescopes because it’s close enough to communicate easily with Earth but far enough to get a clear, deep view of space. The first Lagrange point (L1) also hosts spacecraft, including solar and weather observatories; the other three points are uninhabited. Of the five Lagrange points, three are unstable, and two are stable. What that means is that spacecraft at the unstable points—L1, L2, and the third Lagrange point (L3)—need regular course corrections to keep them from drifting off into space.

L2 offers a clear view of deep space and keeps the Sun, the Moon, and Earth out of an observatory’s field of view. That means Roman will have the benefit of solar power and a lack of obstructions—giving it an unfettered look into the cosmos.

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https://static.scientificamerican.com/dam/m/e2d33a27de2b101/original/Nancy-Grace-Roman-telescope.jpg?m=1788212205.564&w=900GSFC/SVS

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-is-the-roman-telescope-in-space/

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93% accuracy: China builds humanoid robot capable of crop pollination

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A new humanoid robot designed to support crop breeding has been unveiled in Beijing, highlighting the growing use of embodied AI in agriculture.

GEAIR 2.0 was presented at the 33rd China Beijing Seed Industry Conference as a system capable of autonomously performing tasks involved in hybrid pollination.

Developed by a team from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the robot is designed to operate in complex crop environments without continuous human control.

Its developers say the upgraded system improves the robot’s ability to work among leaves and branches while enhancing its flower-recognition capabilities.

Robot automates pollination

GEAIR 2.0 combines robotics, artificial intelligence and biotechnology to automate hybrid pollination for crop breeding, a labor-intensive step in the process. The humanoid robot can identify flowers, navigate around plants and perform pollination autonomously, allowing it to work for extended periods without continuous human supervision.

The upgraded robot uses two arms instead of the flexible single-arm system used previously. This allows it to maneuver more effectively around leaves and branches and adapt to changing conditions inside crops. Its stigma-recognition accuracy (its ability to identify a flower’s female reproductive organ) has also improved from 85 percent to 92.8 percent.

During its launch in Beijing, GEAIR 2.0 demonstrated tomato pollination by using one hand to hold a pollen tube and the other to operate a pollination brush. The robot completed each pollination in less than 10 seconds, while a single dip of the brush into pollen could support about 50 pollinations, as reported by China Daily.

The system’s name refers to Genome Editing combined with AI-based Robotics. Researchers use gene editing to create male-sterile plants with exposed stigmas, making the reproductive structures easier for the robot to identify and access.

The approach, described as “crop-robot co-design,” was detailed in a 2025 study published in Cell. Researchers found that automated tomato cross-pollination could achieve efficiency comparable to manual methods and later extended the approach to soybean.

The developers say automating pollination could reduce the need for manual labor, lower breeding costs, and improve the efficiency of hybrid breeding. Robots could also perform repetitive tasks for longer periods and operate under varying environmental conditions, potentially making them useful for large-scale crop breeding operations.

AI transforms breeding

In this process, the researchers first modify the plants to expose the stigma, removing the need for workers to manually open petals and giving the robot easier access to the reproductive structure.

The robot must then navigate through dense crops, avoid branches and leaves, and locate the needle-sized stigma with enough precision to complete pollination. This allows it to perform repetitive breeding tasks for longer periods than human workers, including during different times of day and under varying weather conditions, the Global Times reported.

According to experts, hybrid pollination is physically demanding and must often be completed within a narrow time window. Robots could let farmers manage the process while reducing the manual labor required.

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GEAIR demonstrated the pollination of tomato flowers.

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/chinese-humanoid-robot-for-breeding-pollination

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Netanyahu’s Rivals Call Him ‘Unfit’ After Report He Was Warned Before Oct. 7 Attack

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Israeli opposition politicians said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “unfit” for office after a newspaper reported he had been warned that Hamas was planning a major operation weeks before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack but did not alert security officials.

The report in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which The New York Times could not confirm, said that Mr. Netanyahu had a 45-minute phone call with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates, in late September 2023, and was told about a plan by Hamas to attack Israel and destabilize the region. Mr. Netanyahu’s office has denied the report.

Mr. Netanyahu was said to have been unfazed by the revelations, responding that Israel was prepared for any scenario, according to the report.

On Wednesday, he vowed to sue Haaretz for libel, calling the report “a wicked fabrication with clear political timing,” in a post on social media. He said security officials had found no record that he had spoken with Sheikh Mohamed between September 2023 and the Oct. 7 attack.

A day earlier, Mr. Netanyahu’s office similarly said that he had not been personally warned by the Emirati president. “No warning was given to the Prime Minister from the United Arab Emirates,” it said. “If there was any relevant information, it was passed through intelligence channels between the two countries.”

The Emirati foreign ministry said in a statement that it did not comment on “media stories or speculation regarding conversations between government leaders.” It added that the Emirati and Israeli governments had “open and direct lines of communication” and that “all relevant intelligence” was transmitted between them.

The report that Mr. Netanyahu may not have been responsive to warnings about the attacks landed at a particularly sensitive time for him and Israel. National elections are planned for late October, and Mr. Netanyahu’s chances of being re-elected are not assured.

The questions about what the Israeli prime minister had been told, by whom and when in the period leading to the Hamas-led assault have become hot-button election issues in a deeply polarized country.

Mr. Netanyahu has sought to present himself as the only politician positioned to ensure Israel’s security. And he has seemed to shift blame onto others for the Oct. 7 assault, the single deadliest day in Israel’s history, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 others taken hostage to Gaza.

Recently, Mr. Netanyahu asserted that Israeli security officials had chosen not to wake him up in the early hours of Oct. 7, despite worrying signs from Gaza, because they had feared he would respond aggressively and set off a war with Hamas.

“If they had woken me up, everything would have looked different,” he said in a campaign video clip last month.

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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/09/08/multimedia/08int-israel-1-ptfk/08int-israel-1-ptfk-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webpPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at a news conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Credit…Ammar Awad/Reuters

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/world/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-2023-hamas-attack.html

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5 graphs that show how the record-breaking El Niño will affect the world

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Hmmmm   ….   Check the graphs carefully!

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The super El Niño climate phase that has begun in the Pacific Ocean is already the strongest on record on some measures. When it peaks at the end of this year, sea surface temperatures in the east-central Pacific Ocean are projected to reach 4°C above normal, a 60 per cent increase over the old record.   

As well as raising global temperatures, El Niño also shifts atmospheric circulation patterns, causing extreme weather around the world. This brings drought to some regions and flooding to others, damaging property and disrupting food supplies.

While the exact impacts vary from El Niño to El Niño, what’s clear is they will, on the whole, be stronger than in previous events.

“If you ramp up the size of your El Niño, you tend to ramp up the impacts in most regions of the world,” says Nick Dunstone at the UK Met Office, the national weather service. “It’s hard to know exactly which regions are going to be impacted the worst, but in general it’s fairly linear.”

El Niño forms when trade winds weaken, allowing water they have pushed into the “warm pool” in the western Pacific to run back eastward. This huge blob of warm water heats the atmosphere.

When El Niño isn’t occurring, the heat of the warm pool causes moist air to rise into the atmosphere above it, with the moisture condensing and falling as rain over South-East Asia. At the same time, air sinks over the cooler eastern Pacific. The warm air aloft, now mostly free of moisture, flows in to replace it, creating a giant loop. This loop is joined up with similar loops that circle the global tropics in what is known as the Walker circulation.

But when the warm pool sloshes eastward across the Pacific during El Niño, the centre of rising moist air moves with it, shifting the entire Walker circulation eastward. As a result, the warm, dry air now sinks over South America rather than the eastern Pacific. Another loop of warm, dry air has also shifted and begun descending over South-East Asia and Australia. The Met Office is forecasting dry conditions in these areas over the next few months.

“The Amazon is a concern, as is Borneo and places in Indonesia and Australia as well,” says Dunstone. “Those are some of the regions that wildfire risk would be greatly increased.”

During the 1982-83 super El Niño, the “Great Fire of Borneo” destroyed 36,000 square kilometres of rainforest. Now, thousands of square kilometres of Borneo are burning again, with peatlands releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide. 

Warm weather and drought can also wilt crops. The Met Office is forecasting dry conditions in Central America, home to several major coffee producers, and India, the world’s largest rice exporter.

As a result of El Niño, India is experiencing its weakest monsoon since 2009, a major blow to the rice crop. Rainfall, which is the source of water for 60 per cent of the country’s agricultural areas, is on track to be 15 per cent below average.

Analysts expect global rice production to fall by 9 million tonnes in 2026-27, raising prices on a staple that half the world’s population relies on.

At the same time, because the areas of rising moist air have also shifted, places like Paraguay, Uruguay and southern Brazil are forecast to have more rain than usual. During the super El Niño of 2015-16, more than 100,000 people were displaced by flooding in these areas. The UK and parts of the US are also likely to experience wetter, stormier weather.

On 26 August, global average sea surface temperature reached a new record. Seas around the world have been warming for years. But this new record is unusual because it comes in August rather than in March or April, when the global ocean is normally warmest after the austral summer. Part of the reason is El Niño.

“El Niño is adding heat to the system, but it is doing so on top of decades of human-driven warming,” Samantha Burgess of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a statement.

A rare bit of good news from El Niño is that it reduces the likelihood of hurricanes hitting North America in summer and fall. These tropical storms in the Atlantic are fuelled by warm, moist air rising high into the atmosphere. But El Niño often intensifies high-level westerly winds, creating a contrast with weaker low-level winds known as wind shear that can disrupt this process.

“Tropical storms form better when they’re not being torn apart basically by the upper-level and the lower-level winds,” says Dunstone.

The Atlantic hurricane season has had the quietest start in almost 40 years, with only three named storms, all of them short-lasting. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that conditions will remain less active than normal and generate zero to two major hurricanes.

In the Pacific, however, winds are, in general, weaker than average, and the rising warm air can still generate large tropical storms. But because this convection has shifted eastward, the storms that make landfall in Asia have had more time to suck up energy from the ocean.

Amid all of this, global temperature invariably rises during El Niño, and this incredibly strong event is expected to amp it up even more than is typical. Because this comes on top of climate change, climate scientists are widely predicting that 2027 will be the hottest year ever observed.

Global temperature rise will almost certainly exceed 1.5°C. While that isn’t the long-term average that would be needed to officially fail the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, it’s another nail in its coffin.

And a strong El Niño is often followed by strong La Niña, a cooling in the eastern Pacific that creates its own extreme weather.

“That would generally have the opposite impacts,” says Dunstone. “That can be an extra sort of stress on systems if they are changing like that.”

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https://www.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/SEI_309544625.jpg?w=840

Wildfires in California in 2015 were exacerbated by a strong El Niño phase Bobbushphoto/Getty Images

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Click the link below for the complete article (the graphs are important):

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2586328-5-graphs-that-show-how-the-record-breaking-el-nino-will-affect-the-world/

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Experimental drug turns cancer’s sugar hunger against tumors

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A new study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin takes the opposite approach. Instead of starving cancer cells, an experimental drug tricks them into burning even more sugar. Then it blocks another fuel source, fat, at the same time.

The compound, called XJ-4-85, showed promise against an aggressive form of melanoma in mice. It also killed several types of human cancer cells in lab tests, including melanoma, leukemia, breast, lung, liver, and neuroblastoma cells.

A Two-Part Attack On Cancer Fuel

The study focuses on cancer metabolism. That term describes how tumor cells gather and use energy.

Many cancer cells rely heavily on glycolysis, a process that breaks down sugar. This pattern helps tumors grow quickly, even in difficult conditions. It also gives scientists a possible weakness to target.

XJ-4-85 works in a surprising way. One part binds to PFKL, an enzyme that helps cells break down sugar. Rather than blocking this enzyme, the drug speeds it up.

At the same time, the compound releases a payload that targets CPT2. That enzyme helps cells use fatty acids for energy. By disrupting both systems, the drug places cancer cells under severe stress.

“I like to think of this technology like a two-headed dragon,” said Xiaolu (Lulu) Lim Ang Cambronne, an associate professor of molecular biosciences at UT and co-corresponding author. “We are putting one part of the cell into overdrive while simultaneously weakening another part. It appears to be extremely potent.”

Using Cancer’s Appetite Against It

The idea may sound strange at first. If cancer cells love sugar, why make them burn more of it?

The answer lies in balance. Cells survive by shifting between energy sources. If one pathway becomes strained, they often lean on another.

XJ-4-85 appears to disrupt that flexibility. It pushes sugar metabolism into overdrive while weakening fatty acid metabolism. Cancer cells lose room to adapt.

The result is a kind of metabolic trap. The tumor cell runs harder on one fuel system while losing access to a backup. Many cancer cells could not survive that pressure.

Noncancerous cells were much less affected in the mouse experiments and several lab studies. That selectivity remains an important early sign, though more testing is needed.

A Small-Molecule Alternative

The researchers compare their strategy with antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs. These cancer drugs use antibodies to guide chemotherapy payloads toward tumor cells.

ADCs have become an important tool in cancer treatment. But they also have limits. Antibodies are large, complex and difficult to manufacture.

They usually target proteins on the surface of cancer cells. That leaves many important proteins inside cells out of reach.

“Antibodies are difficult to make, and because they’re so large they’re only able to target proteins in the surface of cancer cells,” said Ken Hsu, an associate professor of chemistry at UT and co-corresponding author. “We think of this new compound as a fully chemical counterpart to ADCs. They are much easier to manufacture. And because they are smaller, they are able to target even proteins that are inside cells.”

How The Drug Finds Its Target

XJ-4-85 targets PFKL at specific sites on the enzyme. In the study image, the protein structure shows the compound bound at K677 and K315.

Those sites help explain how the drug boosts glycolysis. When the compound binds, it helps keep PFKL in an active form. That pushes the sugar-burning pathway forward.

Researchers used cryo-electron microscopy to see the drug bound to PFKL in detail. This method can reveal protein structures at near-atomic resolution.

The team found that the compound stabilizes the enzyme in its active state. That helps explain why sugar metabolism rises after treatment.

“The way this drug works was totally unexpected,” said Xiaoding Jiang, a postdoctoral fellow in the Hsu Lab, who designed the molecule. “A lot of research was required to figure out what it was doing on the molecular level. We were also surprised to see how selectively it binds to cancer cells.”

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https://www.thebrighterside.news/uploads/2026/08/cancer.png?format=auto&optimize=high&width=1920Researchers developed a small-molecule drug that tricks cancer cells into burning more sugar while blocking their backup fuel source. (CREDIT: Shutterstock)

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/experimental-drug-turns-cancers-sugar-hunger-against-tumors/

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Brushing Aside Trump’s Threats, Canada Retaliates on Tariffs

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Hmmmm  ….  Vote crazy Trump administration out!

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With an insulted and angry nation solidly behind him, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada is charging ahead in a bitter trade war with the United States, risking a further fraying of what once was one of the world’s closest friendships.

Retaliatory tariffs, set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, demonstrate Mr. Carney’s defiance toward increasing bombast by President Trump, who has been trying to humiliate Canada economically after more than two weeks of finger pointing and threats.

Mr. Carney’s response has distinguished him as one of the few world leaders standing up to Mr. Trump as he lashes out at American allies on a range of issues.

The new measures will double the rate of existing tariffs that Canadian businesses pay on imported American steel and aluminum products and affect about 700 products, including aluminum foil, railway locomotives and steel bridges.

Polls show that Canadians strongly back Mr. Carney’s decision to end trade talks with Washington last month and hit back with tariffs on about $20 billion in American products entering Canada. But there is also concern over what might happen next. Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened another round of American tariffs if Canada follows through on its plan.

Some in Canadian industry say they are inclined to take Mr. Trump at his word, at least on this threat.

People in the Trump administration “are willing to hurt themselves, their own sectors and industries, in pursuit of their goal, however misguided I think it is,” said Flavio Volpe, the president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’​ Association of Canada. “So they may escalate. I hope that we don’t end up in a tit-for-tat situation.”

In what appeared to foreshadow Mr. Trump’s latest intentions, he announced on Monday that Bombardier, the Montreal-based aerospace company, would be banned from selling in the American market unless it built in the United States. “They live off American Buyers, American Companies, American Airports, and American Service — All while Canada blocks our GREAT American Banks, and Companies, throughout the U.S.A.,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post announcing the ban.

Mr. Carney announced Canada’s new tariffs after he pulled Canadian negotiators out of talks in Washington last month — an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to stave off 50 percent American tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian exports and to reduce or eliminate tariffs of up to 50 percent on Canadian steel, aluminum and automobiles.

The Trump administration said the tariffs it imposed last month were in part a response to retaliatory tariffs Canada placed last year on some U.S. imports, particularly autos. American officials have repeatedly noted that only China and Canada retaliated against the United States since Mr. Trump began upending global trade.

Since trade tensions began to rise with Canada at the start of Mr. Trump’s second term, the United States has lashed out in ways both substantive and symbolic, including threats to block the reopening of a U.S.-Canada bridge and an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”

At a news conference after a sternly worded speech announcing the tariffs, Mr. Carney declared that Canada had been attacked by the United States and that the two countries are now “at war.”

Last week, Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, rejected that framing, arguing that Canada is too small an economic power to battle the United States. “I don’t think you can be in a tit-for-tat with someone who’s 13 times larger than you are,” Mr. Bessent said on CNBC.

On Friday, Mr. Trump escalated his trade rhetoric even further. He said that he might “end all trade with Canada” and other countries that have trade surpluses with the United States. Mr. Trump has frequently made dramatic threats during trade negotiations that have gone unrealized, such as floating the idea of a 100 percent tariff on Canadian goods in January.

Separately, the U.S. commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said Mr. Carney had shut down the talks to gain “political leverage” at home, not because of what the U.S. side had offered.

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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/09/07/multimedia/07int-canada-trade-tariffs-lvbk/07int-canada-trade-tariffs-lvbk-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webpThe Blue Water Bridge, connecting Sarnia, Ontario, and Port Huron, Mich., this month. Credit…Carlos Osorio/Reuters

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/07/world/canada/tariffs-trade-war-carney-trump.html

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Top medical leaders urge Americans to get their flu and COVID shots in lieu of CDC vaccine campaign

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The Trump administration has remained silent so far on vaccination recommendations as flu season approaches. But leaders of some of the country’s largest medical organizations are urging Americans to get their shots to avoid serious illness.

On Wednesday, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, as well as the University of Minnesota’s Vaccine Integrity Project, released recommendations indicating that the vast majority of people should get vaccinated against influenza, COVID and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

“Unfortunately, today the federal government is not fulfilling that responsibility in the way that it historically has. But the need for that work has not disappeared,” said Bruce Gellin, a member of the Vaccine Integrity Project’s board of advisers and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, during a press briefing on Tuesday.

“Americans should have access to the best available scientific evidence and recommendations from the physicians and medical experts who care for them so they can make informed decisions about vaccination. Whatever happens to the federal vaccine policy process, we cannot lower that scientific standard,” Gellin said.

The recommendations come as an increasing number of people opt not to get themselves or their children vaccinated for various diseases. Nodding to data showing that the nation’s medical institutions are suffering from a crisis of confidence among a growing number of Americans, the consortium released summaries of research into the shots’ safety and efficacy in the Journal of the American Medical Association and online to accompany the new guidelines.

The group’s guidance acknowledges the fact that COVID is less dangerous today than it was at the height of the pandemic. But during the 2025–2026 respiratory virus season in the U.S., an estimated 15,000 to 42,000 people still died of the disease, while up to 240,000 people were hospitalized and millions more experienced less severe illness. The consortium’s research review for the COVID shots finds that they cut the risk of hospitalization for adults older than age 65 by 53 percent and reduce that risk for pregnant women by 58 percent. There are also signs that the vaccines’ benefits are passed on to the latter’s babies, who tend to have fewer COVID-related hospital visits than children of unvaccinated mothers. Adults who are immunocompromised see their risk of being put into intensive care or of dying from COVID cut by the vaccines by between 32 and 53 percent.

Influenza is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable respiratory illness. Vaccines against the illness reduce its hospitalization rate among adults older than age 65 by 31 percent and cut deaths among infants and children by 80 percent, according to the group’s research review for these shots. Meanwhile, the consortium’s review of RSV vaccines finds that they reduce hospitalization rates by up to 83 percent among people older than 60, while vaccination during pregnancy reduces hospitalization for infants by up to 70 percent.

Despite the evidence showing the vaccines are safe and effective, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which usually produces an annual campaign to push people to get vaccinated against respiratory illnesses, has yet to roll out a similar effort this year. The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The CDC recommends vaccinations against the flu and COVID for most Americans, including pregnant women and healthy children. Still, those guidelines are at odds with vaccine-skeptic statements and positions taken by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and other members of the administration.

Kennedy’s apparent opposition to vaccines could make access to the shots more difficult for some parents, said AAP president Andrew Racine at the same press event. Racine said it’s also unclear at this time if the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program, which provides shots for families that can’t afford them, will cover the cost of the recommended vaccines.

“Last year Vaccines for Children covered all of the recommended vaccines that we had put in our vaccine schedule,” Racine said. “I can’t say necessarily what’s going to happen going forward, but it’s our anticipation that the federal government, with Vaccines for Children and other programs that they run, have a responsibility and an interest in making sure that children of any income get all of the care that they need in order to keep them healthy and safe.”

Still, Racine pointed out that, while there is a decline, most U.S. children are vaccinated and that polling data indicate that most families prefer to get medical information from their pediatricians.

“I’m not saying this to say that we don’t have work to do,” he said. “We do have work to do. Certainly, the trends are not moving in the direction we would like, but I do think that we have lots of advantages in our day-to-day work.”

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A photo of a child with bandage on their arm after receiving a vaccine.SanyaSM/Getty Images

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/top-medical-leaders-urge-americans-to-get-their-flu-and-covid-shots-in-lieu-of-cdc-vaccine-campaign/

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Birding Basics Tour

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It’s fall migration season in the Park! A key stop on the Atlantic Flyway, Central Park welcomes more than 210 bird species each year. On this hands-on tour, you will learn the basics of bird identification while you explore the Ramble, a vibrant woodland habitat that supports a variety of NYC wildlife. Our expert Conservancy guides will share helpful tips for spotting and identifying birds. Bring your own binoculars or borrow a pair from us.

BUY TICKETS

  • Sunday, September 6

    10:00 am EDT Sold Out
  • Saturday, September 12

    10:00 am EDT Sold Out
  • Friday, September 18

  • Sunday, September 27

    10:00 am EDT Sold Out

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https://d2wsrtli9cxkek.cloudfront.net/media/images/Tours_BirdingBasics_20220519-30.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.4981&fp-y=0.3199&h=767.44186046512&q=80&w=1650&s=1f2b507d1116d656358577a722d6d18dCentral Park is a birding haven! Join us this season to make the most of fall migration.

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.centralparknyc.org/activities/tours/birding-basics-ramble-tour

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Inside the Battle to Save One Pioneering General From Hegseth’s Purge

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decided in early 2025 to spike Gen. Christopher T. Donahue’s nomination to be the top U.S. military officer in Europe.

Mr. Hegseth believed that President Trump wanted heads to roll for the deaths of 13 U.S. service members in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. General Donahue was not responsible for security at the bombing site. But he was a top commander at the airport, and so Mr. Hegseth decided he needed to go.

It fell to Joe Kasper, Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, to try to convince him that he was wrong.

Mr. Kasper asked a senior Pentagon official to prepare a card with a half-dozen bullet points laying out the facts in General Donahue’s defense, current and former officials said. He took it with him in March of last year as he and Mr. Hegseth sped through traffic to the White House for a press event.

For those few minutes in the car, Mr. Kasper knew he would have his boss’s undivided attention.

Sirens were blaring. He handed Mr. Hegseth the card.

These were the facts of General Donahue’s three-decade career: He had seen more combat in his 20-plus deployments than just about any officer in the U.S. military. A star in the clandestine world of special forces, he had spent years in the shadows hunting terrorist leaders. And then as the world and warfare changed, he changed with it.

He had played a central role in the U.S. military’s efforts to help Ukraine hold off a much larger Russian force, a job that inspired his vision for a new kind of combat that married divebombing drones, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Now his fate lay in the hands of Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host who had two deployments as an Army officer to Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Hegseth had come to the Pentagon vowing to weed out the “small” and “feeble” generals who he believed had failed in those wars.

What played out in the 16 months after the car ride was a clash between Mr. Hegseth and General Donahue’s supporters, who viewed him as a generational talent.

That clash, and its outcome, was described to The New York Times by more than 40 people at the Pentagon, in Congress and around the world, nearly all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

It amounts to one of the most consequential chapters in Mr. Hegseth’s campaign to drive out those he sees as out of step with his priorities, a leadership purge that his critics say is driven by ideology, identity and suspicion of those with tenuous ties to former military leaders that he does not like. And it shows the intensity of the behind-the-scenes battle to save one general.

The more General Donahue’s allies pushed, the more Mr. Hegseth’s opposition seemed to harden.

The Pentagon declined to answer questions about General Donahue, saying in a statement that all senior military leaders serve at the pleasure of the president and the defense secretary.

In the spring of 2025, General Donahue was commanding ground forces in Europe. Mr. Hegseth was new to the Pentagon. To the extent he was familiar with General Donahue, it was largely through the prism of the Afghanistan withdrawal and a grainy photo that indelibly linked the general to the war’s tragic end.

General Donahue was the last U.S. soldier to leave Afghanistan. As he stepped onto a hulking military cargo plane, an Army photographer snapped his picture using his cellphone camera and night vision device.

The green-and-black image rocketed around the world. Senior Pentagon officials said Mr. Hegseth seemed to be fixated on the photo, mistakenly referring to it as a “selfie.”

The first item on the card that Mr. Kasper handed to Mr. Hegseth in the car clarified that the photo was not a selfie and that General Donahue had nothing to do with its distribution. Other bullet points noted that Marines, not General Donahue’s paratroopers, were in charge of the gate where the suicide bombing occurred.

The defense secretary glanced at the card and passed it back to his chief of staff.

“I don’t care,” Mr. Hegseth told Mr. Kasper.

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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/09/03/multimedia/00dc-donahue-wbvz/00dc-donahue-wbvz-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webpGen. Christopher T. Donahue greeted service members before the 2023 renaming of Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The general had extensive combat experience and strong support in the Army. Credit…Allison Joyce/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/us/politics/hegseth-army-general-donahue.html

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MUTINY (2026) – My rating: 7.5/10

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Mutiny is an action thriller about a billionaire’s head of security who uncovers a conspiracy aboard a cargo ship the company does business with. It is directed by Jean-François Richet and written by Lindsay Michel and J. P. Davis. Produced by MadRiver Pictures and Punch Palace Productions, the film was released by Lionsgate in the […]

MUTINY (2026) – My rating: 7.5/10

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Să facem glume, nu război

🇲🇲Dear all peace-loving people around the world🇲🇲

In the world, human beings are facing various problems. People who are full of greed, anger, and ignorance are seen to be fighting with each other in words and deeds. As the fighting continues, various problems such as civil wars, wars of aggression, and wars of aggression are occurring. As world peace is being destroyed, humans are facing unbearable problems. Innocent children and women are not getting the rights they deserve and deserve. I can't think of one thing every time. What is it? The United Nations. If we look at the responsibilities and duties of the United Nations, I think it is not suitable for solving the problems that are happening in the world today. In fact, the United Nations and the World Security Council, such an organization must rule the world, must be able to give orders, and must have various ways to obey orders. There must be no organization that can influence more than that organization. There should be experts from each country. They can even dominate the superpowers like the US, China, and Britain. Only then will global peace be achieved quickly. Now, if a country with power develops more militarily, economically, or socially than its own country, then powerful countries will jealously seek out enemies and wage war. Or they will attack with fighter jets. In this, innocent people are losing their lives. No one understands the value of a life. You should think about how to achieve global peace by controlling these. If the US continues to be the permanent president of the UN, world peace will never be achieved. If you think carefully, no one sees that they are working for the common good, but for their own benefit, for the benefit of their own country. The permanent president of the UN and the Security Council has rejected this, As a young Rohingya, I have come to realize that only by electing the president and secretary from among the countries in the world through a secret ballot system and governing the world fairly can we achieve global peace. The United Nations and the Security Council are organizations in which any country must govern, give orders, and make them obey their orders. For example, only when a defendant is tried in court can we hold the leaders of the countries in check and control them, can we achieve global peace smoothly. Otherwise, it will not be easy for powerful countries to use various excuses to end this war every year, every year, for the benefit of themselves and their countries. No country's leaders pay any attention to the words of the United Nations and the Security Council. If we look at it in practice, look at the Rohingya issue. Myanmar is a small country. Even that country has been under siege for 8 years. What action can be taken? Why is the UN and the Security Council Powerless? Without such Power, how can the organization bring about global peace? Everyone should think about it. Whether there is a veto or a strong one, all countries in the world can only achieve global peace if they are subject to the UN and the Security Council. Seek peace in the quiet embrace of nature. Peace is an indispensable need of the human race. It is not as if one person can kill another person, and it is as if one country can attack another country, but instead of trying to build peace, we must try to destroy the peace now, and the world is getting hotter and is on the verge of collapse. I especially appeal to all the world experts to urgently try to bring about peace in all parts of the world. Mr, Noor Muhamed Arkhan Rohingya Youth Myanmar

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