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The IEEE Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery named Daniel Reed, PhD, as the recipient of the 2026 Ken Kennedy Award. Reed is a Presidential Professor in Computational Science (emeritus) at the University of Utah and previously served as Corporate Vice President of Technology Policy at Microsoft.
A Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center survey of over 5,400 Americans found 53 percent of men claimed familiarity with two fictional AI figures, Susan Milner and Craig Dalton, compared with 40 percent of women. The same survey found men use AI more often and answer factual questions about it correctly slightly more often, but largely because women are more likely to say they don't know an answer rather than guess wrong.
The FDA has proposed expanding its 'threshold of regulation' exemption, which currently applies only to food-contact materials like packaging, to allow chemicals to be added directly to food as flavorings, preservatives, emulsifiers and other additives without safety review, provided they fall below 0.5 parts per billion. The expansion was included in a Federal Register filing tied to the agency's recent move to close the separate 'generally regarded as safe' loophole, which Robert F Kennedy Jr and the FDA publicly touted as a win for food safety.
Thomas Kennedy, an Argentinian-American writer and immigration advocate, has sued the federal government alleging that a Customs and Border Protection agent searched his bags and phone upon his re-entry into the US at Miami International Airport. He says the agent took his phone for about 45 minutes, during which he believes data was copied, before releasing him without charges. Kennedy is seeking a court order requiring the government to delete any data taken from his device.
The FDA approved mFlusiva, a flu vaccine shown to perform well in older adults, but the CDC has issued no formal recommendation on its use. This departs from the agency's usual practice of guiding doctors and the public on newly approved vaccines shortly after FDA clearance.
The CDC has begun allowing states to order 2026–2027 COVID-19 vaccines through the Vaccines for Children program, ending a delay of nearly a month despite FDA approval of the shots in late August. HHS initially said procurement decisions had not been finalized, and an unnamed source told The Washington Post the holdup partly stemmed from unfinished clinical guidance requiring outside expert review.
Officials at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts say the institution is heading toward what they call certain fiscal collapse, with closure possible as early as Tuesday. Internal documents reportedly tie the venue's financial fate to a dispute over restoring Donald Trump's name to the building's exterior.
Despite chaos at the CDC's vaccine advisory panel and RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine actions as health secretary, updated flu and COVID-19 vaccines have been FDA-approved and are already shipping to pharmacies for the fall season. Major insurers have agreed to keep covering previously recommended vaccines at no cost through at least 2027, and state health officials expect a mostly normal rollout.
The CDC has declined to include two child deaths from measles reported by Pennsylvania's health department in its official outbreak tally, departing from its usual practice of accepting state-reported data. The move follows a public dispute between HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, after Shapiro blamed vaccine misinformation for the deaths and Kennedy accused him of fabricating the incident. Both children, from Lancaster County, were unvaccinated and tested positive for measles, according to state officials.
NASA's $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, bound for a location four times farther than the Moon. The observatory carries a 300-megapixel camera built with a repurposed spy satellite mirror and offers a field of view 100 times wider than Hubble's. It is only the second NASA-led astrophysics flagship mission launched this century, after Webb in 2021, and notably arrived at the pad ahead of its own deadline.
During NASA's post-launch news conference for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, Administrator Jared Isaacman stepped away mid-briefing to take a call, then returned to let President Trump address reporters and officials over speakerphone. Trump praised the launch's television coverage, complimented Isaacman's leadership, and noted his administration's funding for the agency.
Following news that two unvaccinated people in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania—including a newborn—died of measles, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a series of anti-vaccine claims on social media, attacking the MMR vaccine and Governor Josh Shapiro. He also suggested, citing a local Republican commissioner's disputed claim, that the deaths might have been fabricated by the governor's staff. These are the first measles deaths in Pennsylvania in 35 years and the first in the US in 2026, amid a national outbreak that has reached nearly 2,800 cases, the worst since 1991.