Noteworthy News

[Angrboda]

The Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine this week — a major public health breakthrough for an administration that’s been troublingly down on vaccines.

The flu is a gigantic and costly illness, causing 1 billion infections and 300,000 deaths each year. But this new shot, built on advances from the Covid-19 pandemic, is expected to outperform the standard flu vaccine that we've used, largely unchanged, for the past 80 years.

The new shot fixes a problem that has long bedeviled the traditional vaccine: the gap between how quickly the flu virus mutates and how slowly vaccines are produced. The flu is changing constantly. But under current methods, manufacturing a flu vaccine — which, to my enormous fascination, most commonly involves secret chicken farms — takes six to eight months.

That long lag often means the virus circulating during flu season isn't the one the vaccine was designed to target. But the new mRNA vaccine works differently: Instead of using a weakened or dead virus to trigger an immune response, mRNA vaccines contain genetic instructions that train the immune system to fight influenza.

mRNA vaccines also take less time to manufacture, so they can be produced closer to flu season. In a clinical trial, older adults who received Moderna’s mRNA vaccine were 27% less likely to get the flu than those who received the standard vaccine.

- Vox

[Deesse23]

Drone with 1kg Semtex found and disabled at Leipzig airport. Origin and background is completely unclear 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyvlg4q48l3o

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Racist Cartoonist Is Paralyzed

Scott Adams, the creator of the workplace comic strip “Dilbert” said he is now “paralyzed below the waist” amid his battle with advanced prostate cancer.

“So here’s the latest update,” . “I am paralyzed below the waist in the sense that I can’t move any muscles. I do have feeling; I just can’t move any muscles. And the solution as of today is we’re gonna ambulance me over to a facility to get radiated, and they’re going to try to radiate that pesky tumor that’s around my spine.”

A multitude of publications carrying Adams’ “Dilbert,” his 1989-launched office-set featuring the everyman nerd of the same name, dropped his strip in 2023 after he said Black people were members of a “hate group.” 

He then declared, “The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people.”

Boru

[Jackalope]

Huh, I thought he was dead already. Must have been some other racist loon.

[Fake Messiah]

Yeah, Scott Adams died in January. Boru is posting an old news.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Yeah, Scott Adams died in January. Boru is posting an old news.

Mea culpa.

Boru

[The Valkyrie]

Yeah, Scott Adams died in January. Boru is posting an old news.

Mea culpa.

Boru

To be fair, it's worth celebrating again when a Trump supporter dies...

[Angrboda]

For the past few weeks, Iran and Oman have been engaged in direct talks, facilitated by mediators in Qatar, to reach an agreement over how to manage maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in the future.

While Iran had agreed to keep the strait open to shipping without charge for 60 days following the signing of the MoU with the US on June 17, this quickly fell apart as the two sides disagreed over who had ultimate control over the strait – in particular which routes ships should take. Towards the end of June, Iran launched strikes on a number of ships which had followed an Oman-issued route, approved by the US, rather than its own route, and the US restarted strikes on Iran for nearly two weeks.

Following that, Iran refused to talk directly to the US, saying it had violated the terms of the MoU which included a cessation of hostilities on all fronts, and began talks with Oman over the future of the strait instead. Iran also issued a list of new demands relating to the lifting of sanctions and a permanent end to US strikes before it would resume talks, it said.

On Monday, Tehran said the two countries have reached an agreement on a new shipping route in the strait and are now preparing a joint declaration.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the proposed mechanism for control of the strait seeks to protect the interests of both Iran and Oman while allowing commercial shipping to pass through.

Why has Trump threatened to bomb Oman – for a second time?

[Angrboda]

Vaccination coverage for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) among kindergarteners in the U.S. remains below the ideal rate needed to best prevent widespread outbreaks, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the number of exemptions going up.

The CDC on Monday released the latest figures on vaccine coverage among kindergarteners during the 2025-26 school year, finding that 92.4 percent of students had received the MMR vaccine.

The ideal rate required to prevent widespread outbreaks is considered to be 95 percent. The U.S. has been steadily falling away from this coverage rate since the 2019-20 school year, when the coverage rate was 95.2 percent. Since then, the rate has remained below 94 percent.

This figure is not a significant drop when compared to the previous school year, when 92.5 percent of children received the MMR vaccine. Vaccine exemptions, however, noticeably rose from 3.6 percent to 4.2 percent, with 41 states and Washington, D.C., reporting increases.

Among states reporting increases, 24 reported exemptions exceeding 5 percent.

These figures come as the U.S. deals with the worst outbreak of measles it has seen in more than 30 years. As of the most recent update from the CDC, 2,566 measles cases have been reported in the U.S. this year from across 47 jurisdictions.

Kindergarten MMR vaccine coverage still below ideal rate to prevent outbreaks: CDC