Disagreement With WH Over Booster Shots Prompt Senior FDA Directors to Step Down

Source: Newsweek

Two senior officials with the Food and Drug Administration will step down from their positions overseeing vaccine applications this fall, the FDA announced Tuesday.

The two officials, Marion Gruber, director of the FDA's Office of Vaccines Research & Review, will leave the administration in October and her deputy director Phil Krause will follow in November, the FDA shared in a statement shared by CNBC.

Endpoints News, a biotech industry new site, reported that a former senior FDA leader said the duo were frustrated that the CDC and Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) were involved in making decisions they felt should be up to the FDA.

When the White House moved to start administering COVID-19 booster shots by the week of September 20, despite not having FDA approval, the duo began the process of exiting the administration, Endpoints' source said.


Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/disagreement-wh-over-booster-shots-prompt-senior-fda-directors-step-down-1624750

Mike Richards is out as producer of 'Jeopardy!' and 'Wheel'

Source: Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mike Richards is out as executive producer of “Jeopardy!”, days after he exited as the quiz show’s newly appointed host because of past misogynistic and other comments.

Richards is also no longer executive producer of “Wheel of Fortune,” according to a memo to staff that was confirmed by Sony, which produces both of the shows.

“We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at Jeopardy! it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks. That clearly has not happened,” Suzanne Prete, an executive with the game shows, said in the memo.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-37eacabee13704a8c6637cb9866f8283

Unvaccinated Millionaire Fired from Job

The COVID-19 vaccines' ability to keep people out of the hospital appears to be dropping slightly

U.S. on alert for more attacks, death toll rises from Kabul airport carnage

Source: Reuters

Aug 27 (Reuters) - U.S. forces helping to evacuate Afghans desperate to flee new Taliban rule were on alert for more attacks on Friday after an Islamic State attack killed at least 92 people, including 13 U.S. service members, just outside Kabul airport.

Some U.S. media said the death toll was far higher in Thursday's attack, which took place near the airport gates where thousands of people have gathered to try to get inside the airport and onto evacuation flights since the Taliban took control of the country on Aug. 15.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the United States believed there are still "specific, credible" threats against the airport.

"We certainly are prepared and would expect future attempts," Kirby told reporters in Washington. "We're monitoring these threats, very, very specifically, virtually in real time.".

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/western-nations-race-complete-afghan-evacuation-deadline-looms-2021-08-25/

Model predicts 100,000 more COVID deaths unless U.S. changes its ways

Source: Associated Press

The U.S. is projected to see nearly 100,000 more COVID-19 deaths between now and December 1, according to the nation's most closely watched forecasting model. But health experts say that toll could be cut in half if nearly everyone wore a mask in public spaces.

In other words, what the coronavirus has in store this fall depends on human behavior.

"Behavior is really going to determine if, when and how sustainably the current wave subsides," said Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. "We cannot stop Delta in its tracks, but we can change our behavior overnight."

That means doubling down again on masks, limiting social gatherings, staying home when sick and getting vaccinated. "Those things are within our control," Meyers said.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-deaths-100k-more-predicted-united-states/

Biden Says U.S. Will Seek Retribution for Kabul Attacks; 'We Will Hunt You Down'

Source: Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—President Biden said the U.S. would seek retribution for the attacks Thursday in Afghanistan that killed 12 American servicemembers and dozens of Afghans and promised to continue evacuation efforts.

“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Mr. Biden said during remarks Thursday evening at the White House. He said he had instructed his national security advisers to develop response plans to the attack.

Meanwhile, the U.S. evacuation effort would move forward, he said. “We will not be deterred by terrorists,” he said, adding, “We will continue the evacuation.”

Mr. Biden added of the loss of life, “We’re outraged as well as heartbroken.” He called the members of the U.S. military who died and were injured heroes. He added that the situation on the ground remained volatile.

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-address-afghanistan-attacks-as-humanitarian-political-crisis-worsens-11630009841

Court upholds death sentence for Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof

Source: WCSC

RICHMOND, Va. (WCSC) - The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the death sentence for Dylann Roof in the 2015 shooting that killed nine members of a Charleston church.

Roof and his attorneys attempted to appeal the death sentence in May of this year.

“No cold record or careful parsing of statutes and precedents can capture the full horror of what Roof did,” the court’s ruling states. “His crimes qualify him for the harshest penalty that a just society can impose.”

Read more: https://www.live5news.com/2021/08/25/court-upholds-death-sentence-charleston-church-shooter-dylann-roof/

International TV academy rescinds Cuomo's Emmy for COVID briefings

Source: Reuters

LOS ANGELES, Aug 24 (Reuters) - The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences said on Tuesday it had revoked a special Emmy award given to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for his COVID-19 briefings in 2020, given his resignation from office.

Cuomo had received the International Emmy Founders Award for his "masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world," the organization said in November 2020, when it announced the award.

Cuomo stepped down as governor on Monday after a state investigation concluded he sexually harassed women who worked for him. He at times expressed regret for making young women uncomfortable, but denied criminal wrongdoing,

In light of the investigation and Cuomo's resignation, the television academy "is rescinding his special 2020 International Emmy Award," the group said in a statement.

Read more: https://news.trust.org/item/20210824171514-giy9k

Some Hopeful Science News for America

Evolution Deniers Are Finally a Minority in the U.S.

A recent study found that acceptance of evolution among Americans has increased, even among religious fundamentalists.

Americans continue to have a challenging relationship with science, modern medicine, and at times reality, but a review of annual surveys from 1985 to 2019 does yield some good news: Over half of surveyed participants believed in the science of evolution. That’s a win, I guess.

Nearly a century ago, the Scopes trial of 1925 pitted a science teacher and his curriculum (which included evolutionary theory) against the state of Tennessee, which had just banned the subject in schools because, they said, it contradicted the Bible’s creation story. Evolutionary theory is the idea that living organisms change over time, adapting to their environments through a process called natural selection. The naturalist Charles Darwin observed and chronicled such adaptations in the beaks of finches in the Galapagos Islands. Like every other living thing, humans have evolved over time, and it’s that fact that certain folks seem to take the most issue with.

Over the decades, more and more Americans have accepted evolution by natural selection as a driving force of life on Earth. For a long time, though, the split was pretty much half-and-half, but a new study from the University of Michigan has found that the deniers are finally in the minority. The paper—published this week in the journal Public Understanding of Science—looked at opinions on evolution in public opinion surveys conducted since 1985. It found that a recent surge has pushed Americans over the halfway line in believing in the theory put forth by Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.

https://gizmodo.com/evolution-deniers-are-finally-a-minority-in-the-u-s-1847528066