By Oliver Darcy NBC was presented with a new challenge producing the 2021 Olympic Games on Thursday after organizers said that spectators will be prohibited from the Tokyo venues, a move that eliminates a key component of live sports broadcasts and could give the competitions an eerie feel. The setback, which was announced after Japan declared
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By Maggie Fox Drugmaker Pfizer said Thursday it is seeing waning immunity from its coronavirus vaccine and says it is picking up its efforts to develop a booster dose that will protect people from variants. Pfizer said it would soon publish data about a third dose of vaccine and submit it to the US Food
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By Stella Chan Suzzanne Douglas, an accomplished stage and screen actress who starred “Tap” and the television series “The Parent ‘Hood,” has died, her representative told CNN in a statement on Wednesday. She was 64. “The industry has lost a truly talented artist with the passing of Suzzanne Douglas,” her publicist Penny Vizcarra said. “She
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By DeJuan Hoggard Just one day after acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones decided against accepting a tenured position at UNC-Chapel Hill, instead. taking a job at Howard University, Black organizations on campus came together to present their list of demands to university officials. During a Wednesday afternoon press conference, members and leaders from the Black Graduate
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By Kevin Dotson and Christina Maxouris We have a W-I-N-N-E-R! Zaila Avant-garde, a 14-year-old from New Orleans, Louisiana, won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, becoming the first African American contestant to win in 93 editions of the competition. The only Black winner before was Jody-Anne Maxwell, representing Jamaica in 1998. Zaila triumphed after correctly
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By Katie Lobosco The Department of Education has canceled a total of $1.5 billion in student loan debt for nearly 92,000 students, who were victims of for-profit college fraud, since President Joe Biden took office. The current administration has been taking steps to address the backlog of more than 100,000 forgiveness claims left over from the Trump
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By Lisa Respers France Juvenile doesn’t just want you to get his latest song stuck in your head, he wants you to get stuck in the arm. The New Orleans-based rapper has teamed up with fellow artists Mannie Fresh and Mia X to remake his iconic hit “Back That Thang Up” into a new vaccine
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By Junko Ogura, Chie Kobayashi and Nectar Gan The pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics will take place under a coronavirus state of emergency, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshide Suga confirmed Thursday. Speaking at the start of the government’s Covid-19 task force meeting, Suga said he had decided to declare a new state of emergency for the capital from July 12
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By Madeline Holcombe and Paul Vercammen At the edge of the rubble from a condo building collapse in the Miami-Dade area, first responders, officials, faith leaders and journalists hung their heads for a moment of silence Wednesday evening, honoring those who lost their lives under the debris. The memorial was held after Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine
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By Pamela Kirkland and Sara Murray A federal court judge on Wednesday denied a motion to stop the implementation of parts of Georgia’s new voting law, ahead of state legislature runoff elections next week. In the ruling, US District Judge J. P. Boulee declined to block parts of SB202, saying the timing of the request presents
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