Friday, August 13, 2021

Wake-Up Call: Vaxx Booster Gets Okay

The Food and Drug administration last night approved a booster shot of the Pfizer or Moderna coronavirus vaccines for immunocompromised people, including transplant recipients and cancer patients, a group that includes several million Americans. Vaccines have a harder time working as well in people with weakened immune systems, and the advisory is coming as the coronavirus is surging in the U.S. again, driven by the delta variant. Those eligible can get a third shot at least 28 days after getting their second dose. The FDA didn't mention immunocompromised patients who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

San Francisco, New Orleans to Require Vaccines for Indoor Activities: Following the lead of New York City, San Francisco and New Orleans officials said yesterday that people will have to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative Covid tests to get into bars, restaurants, music and entertainment venues, or other indoor sites.


➤3,000 U.S. TROOPS GOING TO AFGHANISTAN FOR PARTIAL EMBASSY EVACUATION: Some 3,000 U.S. troops are being sent to the Kabul airport in Afghanistan to help with a partial evacuation of the U.S. embassy, a move that comes as the Taliban is quickly taking over more and more of the country as the U.S. moves towards a full withdrawal from the country by the end of the month. The news came yesterday as the Taliban took over Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, and now has effective control of about two-thirds of the country. The State Department said the embassy will continue functioning, with spokesman Ned Price saying, "This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. This is not a wholesale withdrawal. What this is is a reduction in the size of our civilian footprint." 

President Biden has not backed away from his decision to end the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan despite the Taliban's unexpectedly swift advances, with the administration's position being that after 20 years, it's now up to the Afghans to defend their country.

➤HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY MAYORKAS SAYS 'SERIOUS CHALLENGE' AT BORDER: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said yesterday that there is a, quote, "serious challenge" at the border with Mexico, saying during a Texas news conference that there's what he called an "unprecedented" number of people crossing illegally. There were more than 212,000 people apprehended in July, the highest monthly number in two decades. Mayorkas said 27 percent of them had previously tried to cross. The administration has taken a series of actions to crack down, including increasing resources and personnel to the Rio Grande Valley, sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to help Border Patrol, resuming fast-track deportations for migrant families, and flying people to other border sectors for processing. Mayorkas also went to Mexico earlier this week with other U.S. officials to meet with Mexican authorities and coordinate or decreasing the flow of migrants at the border.


 
➤SUPREME COURT'S BARRETT REJECTS CHALLENGE TO INDIANA UNIVERSITY'S VACCINE MANDATE: Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett yesterday refused to block Indiana University's requirement that students be vaccinated against Covid-19, the first legal test of Covid mandates to come before the high court. There were no noted dissents from other justices to the decision by Barrett, who is in charge of that region. Eight students challenging the mandate had asked for an emergency order blocking it. A federal judge had upheld the mandate last month, as did a federal appeals court. Similar lawsuits brought by students against other schools are pending in federal courts.


➤WENDY'S TO OPEN 700 DELIVERY-ONLY KITCHENS:  Wendy’s is making a bet that people don't just want their fast food fast, they want it delivered to them too, with plans to open 700 delivery-only kitchens by 2025, mostly in big cities in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.. Third parties like DoorDash, UberEats and Grubhub will make the deliveries, and Wendy is partnering with Miami-based Reef Technology, which runs 5,000 delivery kitchens in 30 cities around the world, which will building kitchens and hire workers for them. Wendy's will get royalties of some six percent of sales. Demand for restaurant delivery, already on the rise before the pandemic, understandably surged during it. It remains to be seen how much of that will continue, but Wendy's said its digital sales, which include delivery and orders for pickup, made up 7.5 percent of total sales in the second quarter of this year, up from 2.5 percent in 2019.

➤METABOLISM DOESN'T DECLINE UNTIL AGE 60: New research shows that there isn’t much difference between a teenager’s metabolism and an adult’s. The metabolism reaches adult levels by age 20 and doesn’t start to decline until age 60 – meaning you may not be able to blame your middle-aged weight gain on your metabolism. Prof John Speakman, co-author of the research, of the University of Aberdeen said, ““Previously there was a suggestion that metabolism might slow in your 30s and that was then thought to [cause] susceptibility to middle age spread. We found no evidence to support that. So if you are piling the weight [on] and your waistline is expanding during your 30s and 40s, it’s probably because you are eating more food, then expending less energy.”

➤GEN Z IS LEARNING ABOUT CLASSICAL MUSIC FROM TIKTOK: Boomers and Gen X may have learned about classical music from Bugs Bunny cartoons but Gen Z and millennials are getting exposed to Beethoven and Bach on TikTok. According to joint research by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, French music streaming service Deezer and British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in 2020, 34% of those streaming classical music from 2019 to 2020 were 18 to 25, and classical streams by listeners under 35 rose by 17%. Many got their first exposure to this kind of music by watching videos from TikTok users like TwoSet Violin and oboe player Spencer Rubin who told The NY Post, “I think that with social media, we’re able to de-stigmatize the sense that classical music is super fancy and needs to be perfect.”






➤AMERICA'S WHITE POPULATION SHRANK FOR THE FIRST TIME:  The Census Bureau released data yesterday (August 12th) from the every-10-years count that was carried out in 2020, showing that the U.S. became both more diverse and more urban over the past decade. The release showed that the non-Hispanic white population fell for the first time on record, from 63.7 percent in 2010 to 57.8 percent in 2020, driven by falling birthrates compared to Hispanics and Asians. People who identify as a race other than white, Black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, either alone or in combination with one of those races, is now the second-largest racial group. Hispanics grew by almost one-quarter since 2010, accounting for more almost half of the overall population growth. Americans continue to move to the South and West from the Midwest and Northeast, but almost all of the decade's growth took place in metropolitan areas, with more people moving from smaller counties to more urban counties. The share of children in the U.S. declined because of falling birth rates, and the share of adults grew, driven by aging baby boomers.


➤'JEOPARDY!' CONTESTANT MOVES INTO THIRD ON ALL-TIME EARNINGS LIST: As all the attention has been focused on who's going to host Jeopardy!, a current contestant has been racking up wins, and after his 17th straight victory in the show that aired last night got him another $42,400, PhD student Matt Amodio has now moved into third place on the all-time earnings list with $547,600. He's now only behind Jeopardy! legends Ken Jennings, who won $2.52 million, and James Holzhauer, who won $2.46 million. Jeopardy!'s season ends today, so if Amodio wins again, he'll be there when new host Mike Richards takes over in September.

➤YOUNG INAUGURAL POET ESTABLISHES AWARD FOR HIGH SCHOOL POETS: Amanda Gorman, the 23-year-old poet who won accolades after reading her poem, "The Hill We Climb," at President Biden's inauguration in January, has established a poetry prize for high school students with Penguin Random House. The Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry is a $10,000 prize for public high school students who submit the best original work. Public high school seniors in the U.S. and U.S. territories who plan to attend a two- or four-year college are eligible, with the application period running from October 1st to February 1st, 2022.


⚾WHITE SOX WIN 'FIELD OF DREAMS' GAME IN WALKOFF: The Chicago White Sox won the Field of Dreams game 9-8 over the New York Yankees last night on a ninth-inning walkoff home run. Chicago's Tim Anderson hit the two-run homer with one out, launching it into the cornfield before 7,832 fans in the temporary stadium set up next to the site in Dyersville, Iowa, used to film the classic 1989 baseball movie. That came after Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton each hit two-run homers for the Yankees in the top of the ninth. Both teams were wearing 1919-style uniforms for the game, which began with Field of Dreams star Kevin Costner slowly walking out of the cornfield beyond the outfield, followed by the players. Commissioner Rob Manfred has said a Field of Dreams game will be played again next season.


⚾BREWERS' URIAS TIES MLB RECORD WITH FIVE EXTRA-BASE HITS: Milwaukee's Luis Urias tied the MLB record with five extra-base hits last night in the Brewers' 17-4 rout of the Chicago Cubs. Urias homered in the seventh and ninth innings and also hit three doubles, driving in five runs and scoring five. He is now the 16th MLB player with five-extra base hits in a game. The game also featured teammate Manny Pina driving in six runs, with a grand slam and two-run homer.

🏀STORM BEAT SUN 79-57 IN WNBA'S INAUGURAL COMMISSIONER'S CUP: The Seattle Storm beat the Connecticut Sun 79-57 last night in the WNBA's inaugural Commissioner's Cup game. The Storm's Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird and Jewell Loyd contributed to the win, just five days after helping the U.S. women's team win its seventh consecutive Olympic gold medal in Tokyo. Connecticut didn't have any Olympians.

The WNBA will resume its season on Sunday (August 15th) after breaking for a month for the Olympics.

🏀CLIPPERS RE-SIGN LEONARD TO FOUR-YEAR, $176 MILLION DEAL: Kawhi Leonard re-signed with the L.A. Clippers yesterday in a four-year, $176.3 million deal. Leonard, who previously declined his player option for the upcoming season to become a free agent, told the team last Friday that he was returning, and they've now finalized the deal. Leonard, a two-time NBA Finals MVP, is expected to miss significant time next season as he continues to recover from surgery last month to repair a partially-torn ACL.
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