James' World 2

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This morning I woke up to a freshly rebooted desktop. A bit annoying, but that’s just something that happens with Windows 11 — it reboots to install an update after a while, sometimes even when you don’t ask it to. But I got the feature I’ve been waiting for since Windows 11 launched, almost five full years ago: I can put the taskbar on the top of the screen.

I’m in a small minority of users here, I know. Most people use the taskbar on the bottom. If that weren’t the case, Microsoft wouldn’t have unaccountably stripped out a feature Windows has had for decades, for apparently no reason. But when we’re talking about a userbase in the billions, it’s a big deal.

Personally, I use the taskbar on the top because it just feels right on my standing desk, where I’ve got an iPad beneath my monitors, and I try to keep the screens roughly parallel with my eyes for ergonomics. Looking at the taskbar, as I need to do for triple screens and constant multitasking, is a much bigger part of my day than for a lot of people. I’m glad it’s back. Microsoft seems to be seriously trying to improve Windows 11 for users for the first time, not just using it as a serving platter for “AI” and a bunch of other expensive services. (And advertising. Don’t forget, Microsoft is a massive advertising company.) This isn’t the only thing it’s doing. Microsoft, while careful not to walk back its commitment to Copilot in pretty much every way, is pulling out a lot of the actual Copilot buttons it’s jammed into every possible nook and cranny of Windows.

And Microsoft is, allegedly, trying to make Windows functional on 8GB of RAM. Here I’ll point out that Microsoft set 16GB as a standard for itself years ago, and now sells Surface products that start at 8GB. And also, Microsoft is a fairly sizeable part of the corporate issue creating the problem that’s making RAM unaffordable. So yeah, thanks for all of that, Microsoft! Windows feels kind of nice for me again, for the first time in years, despite your best efforts to make both hardware and software terrible.

One of my core measurements for improvement in an operating system is that I need fewer third-party tools. For example, I used to use a program called Ultramon to put taskbars on secondary monitors, back when Windows didn’t do that on its own. Now it does. Improvement. Simple.

Windows 11 required me to add programs to bring core features back. So in honor of Microsoft reversing one of the biggest annoyances of its OS, I’m going to show you a program that can easily tweak a bunch of stuff, which I’ve been using and enjoying. It’s called Windhawk.

Windhawk isn’t a mod in and of itself; it’s more of a platform for delivering Windows modifications. It reminds me a lot of some of the tools I used to use for rooted Android phones, back when that operating system was a lot less mature and needed work. (Take that statement as you will.) Windhawk offers hundreds of small tweaks, provided by the community, and shows users and reviews to give you a glimpse of how well they work. You can search and browse through it with an interface similar to an app store. These are all fairly small tweaks, but a lot of them are serious creature comforts for me. I’ll give you an example. Some time ago, Windows started trying to put notifications on the active monitor you’re using. That’s a good idea. But it doesn’t work. Slack and email notifications seem to appear randomly across my three monitors, and there’s no way to assign them to one monitor specifically. I hear a notification, and I have to rapidly look across three screens to find it before it disappears.

A Windhawk mod called “Customize Windows notification placement,” created by m417z and currently reviewed at 5 stars with over 16,000 users, fixes that. Now when I hear the “ding” of a notification, I know exactly where to look: the bottom-center of my main screen. Thanks, m417z, you’ve genuinely helped me.

Most of the tweaks in Windhawk are possible with other programs — there’s one that puts the taskbar on top, for example, which I was doing with StartAllBack before. (I happily paid five bucks for that one years ago.) But the centralized interface and easy-to-add, easy-to-disable nature makes it super fast to add a bunch of stuff, like the option to put the Start button on the left even when your apps are in the center, or add weather or performance info to your clock without needing a widget that gobbles up RAM and serves you ads.

A word of caution: Windhawk is installing small programs on your PC that aren’t coming from a verified source, and anyone can add stuff or even fork an existing mod. It’s presenting the same kind of security issues that any third-party software does. But the creator of the program, Ramen Software (Michael Maltsev), seems to be aware of this. Contributors can link their Github profiles for extra verification, and you can take a look at the source code and updates for each tool right on its page.

Someone who actually understands that source code, make a mod that brings back the list view for icons on the desktop. Please and thanks.

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Credit: Michael Crider/Foundry

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Hmmmm  … MAGA! Please don’t believe lying trump’s 5.000.00 check lie!

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The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed to no longer count immigrants without green cards in the 2030 census or ask about race and ethnicity, part of an overhaul that would redefine who counts as a U.S. resident in the eyes of the federal government.

The sweeping measures would upend a process that helps determine the allotment of congressional seats, billions of dollars in federal funding, and policies to address systemic disparities.

The proposed regulation, published online on Wednesday, would not count noncitizens without green cards in the 2030 census, a significant departure from the process stipulated by the Constitution to occur every 10 years. Historically, the census has asked Americans about their race and ethnicity and counted all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status.

The overhaul also would bar the U.S. Census from asking Americans about their sexual orientation.

While the proposal is likely to face legal challenges, the changes would not only remove undocumented immigrants from the official population count used to determine congressional seats, but also immigrants who are in the United States legally and have yet to secure green cards or citizenship. As a result, areas with more immigrants, which tend to vote Democratic, could lose representation and federal funding.

The proposed overhaul, as well as removing questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation from the census, could have major implications for collecting the federal data used to inform anti-discrimination policies and civil rights protections.

“If we don’t have the data in order to see that there’s problems, then we’re sticking our heads in the sand,” said Kimball W. Brace, the president of Election Data Services, an organization working with Democratic and Republican local governments on census and election issues. “We won’t see it. We won’t get a feel for what’s happened.”

An overhaul of the census count would face significant hurdles. The 14th Amendment calls for “counting the whole number of persons in each state,” rather than just citizens. And the rule would affect a census count after the 2028 presidential election, so a new administration could try to reverse the changes. Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress is tasked with carrying out the census; however, it has delegated decisions on the census to the Commerce Department.

But some researchers said Mr. Trump’s decision to try to resurrect his first-term effort to reshape the census could create a chilling effect and reduce participation.

As part of the proposal released on Wednesday, the administration said it was considering including a question in the census about the immigration status of participants, something civil rights groups have warned would deter immigrants with and without legal status from filling out the form out of fear of government retaliation.

“The Trump administration is trying to omit pieces of the population that they don’t feel are real Americans,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “And in many ways, pulling back some of the trends and important policies that came into effect since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.”

The White House referred questions to the Commerce Department, which did not respond to requests for comment.

In the proposed rule posted on Wednesday, signed by Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, the administration said it was reassessing how it collects race and ethnicity data after “substantial doubts about the meaning, significance, and impact of attempting to categorize persons by race and ethnicity” surfaced in the national conversation.

The proposal also cited Mr. Trump’s executive order that purged the federal government of efforts centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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A naturalization ceremony at Ellis Island in 2022. The Trump administration has proposed new census regulations that would no longer ask Americans about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, and would exclude noncitizens without green cards. Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

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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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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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GSFC/SVS

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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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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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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at a news conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Credit…Ammar Awad/Reuters

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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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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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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.

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Researchers 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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Hmmmm  ….  Vote crazy Trump administration out!

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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.”

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The Blue Water Bridge, connecting Sarnia, Ontario, and Port Huron, Mich., this month. Credit…Carlos Osorio/Reuters

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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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SanyaSM/Getty Images

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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

  10:00 am EDT

• Sunday, September 27

  10:00 am EDT Sold Out

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Central Park is a birding haven! Join us this season to make the most of fall migration.

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