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Category: Americas

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why people rebuild in Appalachia’s flood-ravaged areas despite the risks

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kristina P. Brant, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State

    Parts of the North Fork of the Kentucky River flooded in July 2022, and again in February 2025. Arden S. Barnes/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

    On Valentine’s Day 2025, heavy rains started to fall in parts of rural Appalachia. Over the course of a few days, residents in eastern Kentucky watched as river levels rose and surpassed flood levels. Emergency teams conducted over 1,000 water rescues. Hundreds, if not thousands of people were displaced from homes, and entire business districts filled with mud.

    For some, it was the third time in just four years that their homes had flooded, and the process of disposing of destroyed furniture, cleaning out the muck and starting anew is beginning again.

    Historic floods wiped out businesses and homes in eastern Kentucky in February 2021, July 2022 and now February 2025. An even greater scale of destruction hit eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in September 2024, when Hurricane Helene’s rainfall and flooding decimated towns and washed out parts of major highways.

    Scenes of flooding from several locations across Appalachia in February 2025.

    Each of these events was considered to be a “thousand-year flood,” with a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in a given year. Yet they’re happening more often.

    The floods have highlighted the resilience of local people to work together for collective survival in rural Appalachia. But they have also exposed the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains with poor emergency warning systems. As short-term cleanup leads to long-term recovery efforts, residents can face daunting barriers that leave many facing the same flood risks over and over again.

    Exposing a housing crisis

    For the past nine years, I have been conducting research on rural health and poverty in Appalachia. It’s a complex region often painted in broad brushstrokes that miss the geographic, socioeconomic and ideological diversity it holds.

    Appalachia is home to a vibrant culture, a fierce sense of pride and a strong sense of love. But it is also marked by the omnipresent backdrop of a declining coal industry.

    There is considerable local inequality that is often overlooked in a region portrayed as one-dimensional. Poverty levels are indeed high. In Perry County, Kentucky, where one of eastern Kentucky’s larger cities, Hazard, is located, nearly 30% of the population lives under the federal poverty line. But the average income of the top 1% of workers in Perry County is nearly US$470,000 – 17 times more than the average income of the remaining 99%.

    This income and wealth inequality translates to unequal land ownership – much of eastern Kentucky’s most desirable land remains in the hands of corporations and families with great generational wealth.

    When I first moved to eastern Kentucky in 2016, I was struck by the grave lack of affordable, quality housing. I met families paying $200-$300 a month for a small plot to put a mobile home. Others lived in “found housing” – often-distressed properties owned by family members. They had no lease, no equity and no insurance. They had a place to lay one’s head but lacked long-term stability in the event of disagreement or disaster. This reality was rarely acknowledged by local and state governments.

    Eastern Kentucky’s 2021 and 2022 floods turned this into a full-blown housing crisis, with 9,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the 2022 flood alone.

    “There was no empty housing or empty places for housing,” one resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me. “It just was complete disaster because people just didn’t have a place to go.”

    Most homeowners did not have flood insurance to assist with rebuilding costs. While many applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance, the amounts they received often did not go far. The maximum aid for temporary housing assistance and repairs is $42,500, plus up to an additional $42,500 for other needs related to the disaster.

    The federal government often provides more aid for rebuilding through block grants directed to local and state governments, but that money requires congressional approval and can take months to years to arrive. Local community coalitions and organizations stepped in to fill these gaps, but they did not necessarily have sufficient donations or resources to help such large numbers of displaced people.

    Affordable rental housing is hard to find in much of Appalachia. When flooding wipes out homes, as Jackson, Ky., saw in July 2022 and again in February 2025, it becomes even more rare.
    Michael Swensen/Getty Images

    With a dearth of affordable rentals pre-flood, renters who lost their homes had no place to go. And those living in “found housing” that was destroyed were not eligible for federal support for rebuilding.

    The sheer level of devastation also posed challenges. One health care professional told me: “In Appalachia, the way it usually works is if you lose your house or something happens, then you go stay with your brother or your mom or your cousin. … But everybody’s mom and brother and cousin also lost their house. There was nowhere to stay.” From her point of view, “our homelessness just skyrocketed.”

    The cost of land – social and economic

    After the 2022 flood, the Kentucky Department for Local Government earmarked almost $300 million of federal funding to build new, flood-resilient homes in eastern Kentucky. Yet the question of where to build remained. As another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me, “You can give us all the money you want; we don’t have any place to build the house.”

    It has always been costly and time-intensive to develop land in Appalachia. Available higher ground tends to be located on former strip mines, and these reclaimed lands require careful geotechnical surveying and sometimes structural reinforcements.

    If these areas are remote, the costs of running electric, water and other infrastructure services can also be prohibitive. For this reason, for-profit developers have largely avoided many counties in the region. The head of a nonprofit agency explained to me that, because of this, “The markets have broken. … We have no [housing] market.”

    Eastern Kentucky’s mountains are beautiful, but there are few locations for building homes that aren’t near creeks or rivers. Strip-mined land, where mountaintops were flattened, often aren’t easily accessible and come with their own challenges.
    Posnov/Moment via Getty Images

    There is also some risk involved in attempting to build homes on new land that has not previously been developed. A local government could pay for undeveloped land to be surveyed and prepared for development, with the prospect of reimbursement by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development if housing is successfully built. But if, after the work to prepare the land, it is still too cost-prohibitive to build a profitable house there, the local government would not receive any reimbursement.

    Some counties have found success clearing land for large developments on former strip mine sites. But these former coal mining areas can be considerable distances from towns. Without robust public transportation systems, these distances are especially prohibitive for residents who lack reliable personal transportation.

    Another barrier is the high prices that both individual and corporate landowners are asking for properties on higher ground.

    The scarcity of desirable land available for sale, combined with increasingly urgent demand, has led to prices unaffordable for most. Another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts explained: “If you paid $5,000 for 30 acres 40 years ago, why won’t you sell that for $100,000? Nope, [they want] $1 million.” That makes it increasingly difficult for both individuals and housing developers to purchase land and build.

    One reason for this scarcity is the amount of land that is still owned by outside corporate interests. For example, Kentucky River Properties, formerly Kentucky River Coal Corporation, owns over 270,000 acres across seven counties in the region. While this landholding company leases land to coal, timber and gas companies, it and others like it rarely permit residential development.

    But not all unused land is owned by corporations. Some of this land is owned by families with deep roots in the region. People’s attachment to a place often makes them want to stay in their communities, even after disasters. But it can also limit the amount of land available for rebuilding. People are often hesitant to sell land that holds deep significance for their families, even if they are not living there themselves.

    Rural communities are often tight-knit. Many residents want to stay despite the risks.
    AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley

    One health care professional expressed feeling torn between selling or keeping their own family property after the 2022 flood: “We have a significant amount of property on top of a mountain. I wouldn’t want to sell it because my papa came from nothing. … His generation thought owning land was the greatest thing. … And for him to provide his children and his grandchildren and their great-grandchildren a plot of land that he worked and sweat and ultimately died to give us – people want to hold onto that.”

    She recognized that land was in great demand but couldn’t bring herself to sell what she owned. In cases like hers, higher grounds are owned locally but still remain unused.

    Moving toward higher ground, slowly

    Two years after the 2022 flood, major government funding for rebuilding still has not resulted in a significant number of homes. The state has planned seven communities on higher ground in eastern Kentucky that aim to house 665 new homes. As of early 2025, 14 houses had been completed.

    Progress on providing housing on higher ground is slow, and the need is great.

    In the meantime, when I conducted interviews during the summer and fall of 2024, many of the mobile home communities that were decimated in the 2022 flood had begun to fill back up. These were flood-risk areas, but there was simply no other place to go.

    Last week, I watched on Facebook a friend’s live video footage showing the waters creeping up the sides of the mobile homes in one of those very communities that had flooded in 2022. Another of my friends mused: “I don’t know who constructed all this, but they did an unjustly favor by not thinking how close these towns was to the river. Can’t anyone in Frankfort help us, or has it gone too far?”

    With hundreds more people now displaced by the most recent flood, the need for homes on higher grounds has only expanded, and the wait continues.

    Kristina Brant has received funding from the National Science Foundation and United States Department of Agriculture to support her past and ongoing research in rural Appalachia.

    – ref. Why people rebuild in Appalachia’s flood-ravaged areas despite the risks – https://theconversation.com/why-people-rebuild-in-appalachias-flood-ravaged-areas-despite-the-risks-240429

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Parrotfish support healthy coral reefs, but they’re not a cure-all, and sometimes cause harm

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, Professor of Marine Ecology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

    Rainbow and midnight parrotfish feed at Alacranes Reef in the Gulf of Mexico. Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, CC BY-ND

    After two years of record-breaking ocean heat, scientists are assessing the impacts of the world’s fourth mass bleaching event on coral reefs around the globe. At least 74 countries and territories are confirmed to have experienced coral bleaching since the spring of 2023.

    As coastal development, pollution and climate change put increasing stress on the world’s oceans, tropical reefs are losing reef-building corals at unprecedented rates. These corals – species with rigid skeletons, such as elkhorn and brain corals – are the architects of these ecosystems, providing the foundations for coral reef communities.

    Coral reefs perform many important functions, such as buffering coastlines and providing habitat for one-fourth of all marine species. In the U.S. alone, these ecological services are worth an estimated US$3.4 billion yearly.

    Over the past several decades, many studies have spotlighted the role of “grazers” – fish who feed on algae – in keeping coral reefs clean and healthy. Protecting parrotfish, a family of some 90 species of large, colorful grazers, has become a tenet of reef conservation policies.

    We have analyzed indicators of reef health and resilience and assessed the roles parrotfish play in controlling seaweed, promoting coral growth and eroding reefs. While it is clear that parrotfish are an important part of coral reef communities, management strategies focusing on them, in our view, have not fully proved effective. In a review of recent science, we showed why conservation programs need to rethink the role parrotfish can play as a conservation tool to improve reef health.

    The coral bleaching event that started in 2024 is the largest such episode on record.

    The parrotfish paradigm

    Corals and the reef bottom they live on need to stay clean to prevent seaweed from growing on their surfaces. Excessive seaweed growth on reefs can block sunlight from corals’ surfaces, release chemicals that affect coral survival, slow the corals’ growth and make it harder for new corals to establish themselves and build reef structures.

    When disease or bleaching kills corals on a reef, other fast-growing organisms, including seaweed, rapidly colonize the dead corals’ skeletons. This impedes new corals from settling and surviving on the reef, and locks the ecosystem into a state of low growth and poor recovery.

    In this context, it is easy to see why protecting algae-eating fish has become a cornerstone of coral reef conservation. This paradigm assumes that restoring populations of “grazing” species by protecting them from fishing is essential for controlling seaweeds, improving reef health and promoting coral recovery.

    This strategy has spurred governments in many countries, including Belize, Bermuda, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Colombia and the U.S., to create marine protected areas, restrict fishing in designated zones and ban parrotfish harvesting.

    Fishermen in Indonesia with a green humphead parrotfish.
    Thierry Tronnel/Corbis via Getty Images

    Missing pieces of parrotfish protection

    Evidence shows that conservation measures have increased parrotfish populations in some places, such as Bonaire and Belize, with positive effects on reefs. However, parrotfish increases have not always reduced algae growth or increased coral cover. In our review, we highlight three main factors that may be hindering the success of this approach in the Caribbean.

    First, parrotfish management has traditionally treated all species as if they consume the same amount of algae. This notion leads to using measures like the total number or total weight of parrotfish present in a given reef as proxies for seaweed consumption.

    However, not all parrotfish are the same. Some species, such as the redband parrotfish, effectively remove algae, while others, such as the blue parrotfish, barely eat it. More precise and targeted conservation measures would consider each species’ specific impact on seaweed growth.

    Second, while parrotfish help reefs to grow by keeping them clean, they also can cause gradual erosion of reef structures. Some parrotfish species graze by biting off chunks of coral, especially from dead skeletons, and grinding it in their digestive systems, excreting it as sand.

    Humphead parrotfish are among the species that consume coral, grinding it in their powerful jaws and excreting fine sand that creates tropical beaches.

    This bioerosion process is natural and essential. But on highly degraded reefs with low coral cover, large numbers of eroding parrotfish can accelerate reef breakdown.

    Increases or declines in populations of parrotfish influence the intensity of erosion. But focusing so closely on parrotfish has unintentionally overlooked the erosive capacity of these fishes by assuming all parrotfish have the same effect on the ecosystem. This raises an important question: Which species are favored by restrictions on harvesting parrotfish?

    Our research shows that key bioeroding species that break down dead coral, such as the queen parrotfish and the stoplight parrotfish, are more vulnerable to overfishing because they are larger and take longer to mature. This means that reducing or restricting their catch might unintentionally increase bioerosion. For these ecosystems, increasing parrotfish numbers might not reduce algae growth enough to fully offset higher rates of bioerosion.

    A stoplight parrotfish breaks down dead coral while feeding.

    Conservation strategies that evolve

    As science progresses and new evidence emerges, it is crucial to reexamine conservation strategies and see whether they need to be updated or even scrapped. This ongoing process of refining plans based on evolving knowledge is known as adaptive management and is widely used in ecology and conservation.

    We are not calling for an end to protecting parrotfish. However, no single strategy can be a comprehensive tool for conserving coral reefs, which are very complex ecosystems.

    Rather, we want to encourage people – especially reef managers and scientists – to recognize the different roles that various parrotfish species play and the varying challenges each species faces, and tailor reef protection efforts accordingly. We also believe it is critical to do more to counter the causes of coral mortality, including climate change, coastal development and water pollution. Along with grazers to keep them clean, coral reefs need cleaner waters and cooler oceans to ensure their long-term survival.

    The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Parrotfish support healthy coral reefs, but they’re not a cure-all, and sometimes cause harm – https://theconversation.com/parrotfish-support-healthy-coral-reefs-but-theyre-not-a-cure-all-and-sometimes-cause-harm-242270

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: States that impose severe prison sentences accomplish the opposite of what they say they want

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Leverso, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati

    Prison doors close, but for most people convicted of crimes, they eventually open again. Hans Neleman/Stone via Getty Images

    Across the U.S., tough-on-crime policies are surging again, despite research showing they do little to reduce crime, particularly violent offenses.

    Before the early 1990s, people who were sentenced to 10 years in prison might be released after serving roughly half that long. That’s because of policies that allowed incarcerated individuals to earn credit for good behavior or, in some states, to avoid losing credits they already held toward an early release. These so-called “good time” policies were created by states to encourage good behavior and rehabilitation and to reduce prison overcrowding.

    But in the 1990s, when national politics was focused on crime rates, Congress encouraged states to adopt so-called “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which required people to serve at least 85% of their prison sentence.

    As research highlighted the inefficacy and unintended consequences of these laws, states rolled them back or modified them, mostly by partially repealing them or reducing the severity of mandatory sentences.

    Some efforts to roll back harsh sentencing rules continue: In Illinois, traditionally a leader in criminal justice reform, one bill that would soften truth-in-sentencing requirements has stalled, though another was introduced in January 2025.

    But in many other states, truth-in-sentencing laws and other similar laws that impose longer sentences are making a comeback, particularly for violent crimes.

    Since 2023, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Dakota and Tennessee have passed truth-in-sentencing laws. North Dakota is now considering similar legislation. In November 2024, Colorado voters required people convicted of violent crimes to serve higher percentages of their sentences, which is a similar move, though it didn’t bear the “truth-in-sentencing” label.

    A personal lens on the topic

    These laws have real effects on real people.

    In 1998, I was sentenced to 22 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for a gang-related violent crime I committed as a juvenile. I served just 11 of those years under a long-standing policy that allowed individuals to serve half their sentence with good behavior.

    But if I had been arrested just 100 days later, a truth-in-sentencing law would have taken effect, and I would have had to serve the full 22 years.

    Eleven years is a long time. Since my release in 2012, I’ve earned a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a Ph.D. I’m now a college professor, author, husband and father.

    If I had been required to serve my full sentence, I would have been released in 2023, older and with fewer opportunities for education, rehabilitation and rebuilding my life.

    Instead of being able to start my education at the age of 30, I would have entered the world in my forties, making it much harder to pursue a decade of schooling to become a professor. The delay would have also made it harder to start a family, forcing me to balance career-building with the difficulties of having children later in life.

    Incarcerated graduates, who finished various educational and vocational programs in prison, wait for the start of their graduation ceremony in May 2023.
    AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

    Not deterring crime

    Supporters of truth-in-sentencing laws say they are intended to increase accountability for wrongdoing and deter crime. The logic can seem reasonably intuitive: If people know they will receive a harsher punishment, they will be less likely to commit particular crimes.

    But research finds that those are not the results. There is no compelling evidence that punitive sentencing policies discourage individuals from engaging in criminal activity.

    And states without truth-in-sentencing laws have seen their crime rates fall to roughly the same degree as states that have the laws.

    Harming society at large

    Research also finds that truth-in-sentencing laws cause far-reaching harms to people convicted of crimes and to society at large, undermining both rehabilitation and public safety.

    Because truth-in-sentencing laws focus on deterrence, they do not address the causes of criminal behavior, such as poverty and childhood trauma.

    These laws also make prisons less safe: They remove incentives for people in prison to follow the rules, get an education, participate in psychotherapy or otherwise engage in positive activities while behind bars.

    The vast majority of incarcerated people – six out of every seven inmates – are released into society again. Under truth-in-sentencing laws, they emerge from prison less prepared to follow the laws than they would have been if they had access to educational programs, therapy and an incentive structure that encouraged rehabilitation while incarcerated.

    A study in Georgia, for instance, found that after stricter sentencing requirements were enacted, inmates subject to the new rules committed more disciplinary infractions and participated in fewer rehabilitation programs in prison. And once released, they were more likely to commit new crimes than released inmates who had not been subject to the stricter sentences.

    Costing taxpayers dearly

    Additionally, the financial burden of these laws is significant.

    For example, Arkansas’ truth-in-sentencing law, passed in 2023, is projected to cost the state’s taxpayers at least US$160 million over the next decade to pay for increased prison capacity and staffing.

    Instead of deterring crime, truth-in-sentencing laws lock more people up for longer periods of time without addressing the underlying factors, which strains already overburdened correctional systems.

    These laws also disproportionately affect people of color, exacerbating systemic inequities in the criminal justice system.

    These people incarcerated in a California prison are learning computer programming.
    AP Photo/Eric Risberg

    A different path

    For me, the possibility of earning good-time credit was a powerful motivator to engage in rehabilitative activities and regain lost time after disciplinary infractions.

    When I began my sentence, Illinois law allowed people to receive a 50% reduction in their sentence through good-time credit: I might need to serve only half of my original 22-year sentence, and be released after 11 years, if I maintained good behavior.

    Breaking the rules would cost credit, extending my time in prison beyond that 50% mark. Early in my sentence, I broke the rules and was placed in isolation – also called segregation or restrictive housing, in a cell for 24 hours a day, except for six hours of exercise a week – for a total of 18 months, resulting in a significant loss of my good-time credit. As a result, instead of serving 11 years, my expected time in prison increased to approximately 12.5 years.

    This setback was a turning point. I knew that my actions had directly affected the length of time I would have to spend in prison. I became determined to earn back my lost time. I focused on staying out of trouble, earning my GED, completing my associate degree and enrolling in available programs. I was able to regain my time credit and had to serve only 11 years.

    Under today’s truth-in-sentencing laws, none of this would have been possible. I would have been required to serve my full sentence, regardless of whether I chose to change, rehabilitate or prepare for life after prison. The ability to reduce my sentence through good behavior and educational achievement gave me a tangible incentive to turn my life around, an opportunity that truth-in-sentencing laws eliminate.

    A way forward

    By contrast, investing in rehabilitation not only improves outcomes for those incarcerated but also makes communities safer by reducing the cycle of crime.

    Research shows that in-prison rehabilitation programs – particularly those centered on education and vocational training programs and social-support services such as housing help, mental health care and job placement assistance – reduce recidivism rates. While in prison, people are held accountable while also having opportunities to grow and learn, preparing for successful reintegration into society after their release.

    I believe that in the overwhelming majority of people in prison, there is potential for redemption – but that potential is most likely to emerge when they have opportunities to learn and grow and receive benefits for making changes in their lives.

    Unfortunately, many states are choosing to spend millions locking up more people for longer periods – while giving them less opportunity to improve themselves and their lives, reducing their potential for change and safe, productive reintegration into society upon release.

    John Leverso does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. States that impose severe prison sentences accomplish the opposite of what they say they want – https://theconversation.com/states-that-impose-severe-prison-sentences-accomplish-the-opposite-of-what-they-say-they-want-247550

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How ticket-splitting voters could shape the 2026 midterms

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ian Anson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

    Even in polarized times, some American voters still cross party lines to support both Democratic and Republican candidates. wildpixel/iStock via Getty Images

    With the 2024 U.S. election over and done with, political analysts and both major parties are already turning their attention to the upcoming midterm elections in 2026.

    All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 Senate seats will be up for grabs. The Democrats are as desperate to retake control of Congress as Republicans are to keep it. A Democratic-controlled Congress in 2026 would do everything in its power to halt President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda in its tracks.

    To edge out their opponent, candidates in highly competitive districts will have to win over some voters who rejected their own party’s presidential candidate in 2024. Democratic candidates will need to get support from at least some Trump voters; Republicans will need some support from Kamala Harris voters.

    Despite the intensely polarized U.S. political environment, a significant number of Americans routinely cross party lines to support both Democratic and Republican candidates at the polls. When it happens on the same ballot, this is called ticket-splitting.

    Just who are these voters, and when do they choose to split their tickets?

    I am a political scientist who studies American voting behavior. I see these questions as key to understanding how long Trump’s total control of government will last.

    Split tickets in North Carolina and Arizona

    Ticket-splitting created some surprising election returns in 2024, mostly benefiting down-ballot Democrats.

    For instance, Republican Donald Trump won North Carolina by around 3 percentage points, but voters elected a Democrat, Josh Stein, for governor by a margin of almost 15 percentage points. Several hundred thousand North Carolinians split their tickets to produce this outcome.

    More than 100,000 Arizonans likewise split their tickets in 2024, electing Trump with 52% of the vote, yet rejecting the Trump-aligned Senate candidate Kari Lake in favor of Democrat Ruben Gallego.

    Many experts believe that candidates such as Gallego and Stein were simply perceived as less extreme than their opponents, and so they lured moderate voters and even some Republicans.

    In this theory, extreme MAGA-aligned candidates win primary elections because they attract the most partisan voters. But they turn off many people in the general electorate.

    Marylanders split their tickets

    One of the most extreme examples of ticket-splitting in 2024 was in the race to replace U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland.

    Partyliners or ticket-splitters? Maryland voters cast their ballots in Baltimore on Nov. 5, 2024.
    J. Countess/Getty Images

    Cardin was a retiring three-term Democrat who had last won reelection in 2018 by an astronomical margin of over 34 percentage points. Initially, many expert analysts saw the seat as safe for Democrats.

    Then, in February 2024, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who had previously ruled out a Senate run, surprised political analysts by entering the Republican primary. After winning the primary handily, Hogan eventually squared off against Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat, in the general election.

    Suddenly, a matchup that should have been Alsobrook’s to lose got competitive.

    Hogan, who left office in 2023, was a successful Republican governor who won election twice in reliably blue Maryland. Perceived by many voters as an ideological moderate, he was also a vocal Trump opponent in a state that supported Biden over Trump in 2020 by around 33 percentage points. During his governorship, Hogan routinely outperformed MAGA-aligned Republicans who ran for Congress in Maryland.

    Ultimately, Hogan did lose to Alsobrooks. She became Maryland’s first female U.S. senator and first Black U.S. senator. Yet Hogan came an incredible 17 percentage points closer to winning than Trump did. Kamala Harris beat Trump by 1.9 million votes, winning 63% of the electorate to Trump’s 34%.

    This means that Hogan exceeded Trump’s vote total by over 300,000 votes. That’s an immense amount of ticket-splitting by Marylanders in 2024.

    Who are the Hogan Democrats?

    To better understand ticket-splitting in Maryland’s 2024 election, I analyzed a survey that my university conducted in Baltimore County. Baltimore County is a bellwether county that has backed the winning gubernatorial candidate in every election since 2006.

    The UMBC Battleground Exit Poll surveyed 1,119 voters at election precincts across Baltimore County during early voting and on Election Day 2024. The results were weighted to ensure demographic representativeness.

    This extensive survey shows that around 10% of all voters in Baltimore County supported the surprising combination of the Democrat Harris and the Republican Hogan.

    In contrast, fewer than 2% of Trump voters split their tickets to back the Democratic Senate candidate Alsobrooks.

    My team’s data analysis shows that roughly half of Harris-Hogan voters – 51% – were Democrats. These ticket-splitters included a higher percentage of white voters than the Democrats who supported both Harris and Alsobrooks. Around 37% of Harris-Hogan voters identified as Black, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern or another nonwhite racial category, compared with 55% of Harris-Alsobrooks voters.

    We found virtually no gender differences between Democrats who split their tickets to back a woman for president and a man for Senate and those who backed two women candidates.

    Harris-Hogan Democrats tended to be better educated than other voting groups. Around 68% reported having a college degree, compared with around 51% of all survey respondents.

    Perhaps the most striking feature of Harris-Hogan voters is their self-declared moderation.

    On a seven-point ideological scale ranging from “very liberal” to “very conservative,” around 61% of Harris-Hogan ticket-splitters put themselves at the exact midpoint of the scale. Only around 42% of the full sample of Maryland voters categorized themselves as centrist.

    Can moderates survive in Trump’s shadow?

    As our study shows, Hogan’s popularity in Maryland is due in part to his appeal among moderates. This finding helps to explain how this Republican has remained popular among Democrats and independent voters.

    However, Hogan still lost. Unlike in Arizona, where the Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego won by wooing moderate Republicans, the tenuous balance of power in the U.S. House and Senate may have prevented some Democratic and independent voters in Maryland from crossing the aisle to support a moderate Republican.

    Of course, Hogan also faced a formidable opponent. Alsobrooks had already emerged victorious in a tight primary against a well-funded and popular incumbent U.S. House representative, David Trone. I suspect a less-skilled Democratic candidate would have created even more Harris-Hogan voters.

    Ultimately, my analysis of ticket-splitting in 2024 reveals that even in an era of entrenched polarization, many voters approach congressional and presidential races with different mindsets.

    This dynamic will likely influence the next election cycle, too.

    The party of the president often takes heavy losses in midterm elections. In 2026, congressional candidates – and Democrats in particular – will be doing everything they can to woo moderates.

    This will be especially true if Trump’s aggressive policies, such as widespread government layoffs and mass deportations, prove unpopular.

    Let the campaigning begin.

    Ian Anson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. How ticket-splitting voters could shape the 2026 midterms – https://theconversation.com/how-ticket-splitting-voters-could-shape-the-2026-midterms-246017

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Cutting Medicaid and federal programs are among 4 key Trump administration policy changes that could make life harder for disabled people

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Matthew Borus, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Binghamton University, State University of New York

    Disabled people’s employment rights and access to free health care are among the policy issues that the Trump administration is aiming to change. Catherine McQueen/Moment/Getty Images

    While policy debates on immigration, abortion and other issues took center stage in the 2024 presidential election, the first months of the Trump administration have also signaled major changes in federal disability policy.

    An estimated 20% to 25% of Americans have a disability of some kind, including physical, sensory, psychological and intellectual disabilities.

    Disability experts, myself included, fear that the Trump administration is creating new barriers for disabled people to being hired at a job, getting a quality education and providing for basic needs, including health insurance.

    Here are four key areas of disability policy to watch over the coming years.

    People hold signs at a protest in June 2024 demanding subway elevator reliability for disabled people in New York.
    Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

    1. Rights at work

    The Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990, requires that employers with more than 15 employees not discriminate against otherwise qualified candidates on the basis of their disability. It also requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations to disabled workers. This means, for instance, that a new or renovated workplace should have accessible entrances so that a worker who uses a wheelchair can enter.

    Despite these protections, I have spoken to many disabled workers in my research who are reluctant to ask for accommodations for fear that a supervisor might think that they were too demanding or not worth continuing to employ.

    Trump’s actions in his first days in office have likely reinforced such fears.

    In one of the many executive orders Trump signed on Jan. 20, 2025, he called for the relevant government agencies to terminate what he called “all discriminatory programs,” including all diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility policies, programs and activities that Trump deems “immoral.”

    The next day, Trump put workers in federal DEIA and accessibility positions on administrative leave.

    The following week, a tragic plane crash outside Washington, D.C., killed 67 people. Trump, without any evidence, blamed the crash on unidentified disabled workers in the Federal Aviation Administration, enumerating a wide and seemingly unrelated list of disabilities that, in his mind, meant that workers lacked the “special talent” to work at the FAA.

    Advocates quickly pushed back, pointing out that disabled workers meet all qualifications for federal and private sector jobs they are hired to perform.

    2. The federal workforce

    Many government disability programs have complex rules designed to limit the number of people who qualify for support.

    For instance, I study supplemental security income, a federal program that provides very modest cash support – on average, totaling US$697 a month in 2024 – to 7.4 million people who are disabled, blind or over 65 if they also have very low income and assets.

    It can take months or even years for someone to go through the process to initially document their disability and finances and show they qualify for SSI. Once approved, many beneficiaries want to make sure they don’t accidentally put their benefits at risk in situations where they are working very limited hours, for example.

    To get answers, they can go to a Social Security office or call an agency phone line. But there are already not enough agency workers to process applications or answer questions quickly. I spoke in 2022 with more than 10 SSI beneficiaries who waited on hold for hours while they tried to get more information about their cases, only to receive unclear or conflicting information.

    Such situations may grow even more severe, as Trump and billionaire Elon Musk try to eliminate large numbers of federal employee positions. So far, tens of thousands of federal workers have been laid off from their jobs in 2025. More layoffs may be coming – on Feb. 12, 2025, Trump instructed federal agency heads to prepare for further “large-scale reductions in force.”

    At the same time, multiple Social Security Administration offices have also been marked for closure since January 2025. An overall effect of these changes will be fewer workers to answer questions from disabled citizens.

    3. Educational opportunities

    Students with disabilities, like all students, are legally entitled to a free public education. This right is guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed in 1975. IDEA is enforced by the federal Education Department.

    But Trump is reportedly in the process of dismantling the Education Department, with the goal of eventually closing it. It is not clear what this will mean for Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act enforcement, but one possibility is laid out in the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, a policy blueprint with broad support in Trump’s administration.

    Project 2025 proposes that Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act funds “should be converted into a no-strings formula block grant.” Block grants are a funding structure by which federal funds are reduced and each state is given a lump sum rather than designating the programs the funds will support. In practice, this can mean that states divert the money to other programs or policy areas, which can create opportunities for funds to be misused.

    With block grants, local school districts would be subject to less federal oversight meant to ensure that they provide every student with an adequate education. Families who already must fight to ensure that their children receive the schooling they deserve will be put on weaker footing if the federal government signals that states can redirect the money as they wish.

    4. Health care

    Before President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, many disabled people lived with the knowledge that an insurer could regard a disability as a preexisting condition and thereby deny them coverage or charge more for their insurance.

    The ACA prohibited insurance companies from charging more or denying coverage based on preexisting conditions.

    Republicans have long opposed the ACA, with House Speaker Mike Johnson promising before the 2024 election to pursue an agenda of “No Obamacare.”

    About 15 million disabled people have health insurance through Medicaid, a federal health insurance program that covers more than 74 million low-income people. But large Medicaid cuts are also on the Republican agenda.

    These deep cuts might include turning Medicaid into another block grant. They could also partly take the form of imposing work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, which could serve as grounds on which to disqualify people from receiving benefits.

    While proponents of work requirements often claim that disabled people will be exempt, research shows that many will still lose health coverage, and that Medicaid coverage itself often supports people who are working.

    Medicaid is also a crucial source of funding for home- and community-based services, including personal attendants who help many people perform daily activities and live on their own. This helps disabled people live independently in their communities, rather than in institutional settings. Notably, Project 2025 points to so-called “nonmedical” services covered under Medicaid as part of the program’s “burden” on states.

    When home- and community-based services are unavailable, some disabled people have no options but to move into nursing homes. One recent analysis found that nursing homes housed roughly 210,000 long-term residents under age 65 with disabilities. Many nursing facilities are understaffed, which contributed to the brutal toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes.

    In response to both the pandemic and years of advocacy, the Biden administration mandated higher staffing ratios at nursing homes receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. But Republicans are eyeing repealing that rule, according to Politico’s reporting.

    U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, right, speaks during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19, 2025, on efforts to protect Medicaid from cuts.
    Nathan Poser/Anadolu via Getty Images

    Daunting task

    Tracking potential changes to disability policy is a complicated endeavor. There is no federal department of disability policy, for example.

    Instead, relevant laws and programs are spread throughout what we often think of as separate policy areas. So while disability policy includes obvious areas such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is also vitally relevant in areas such as immigration and emergency response.

    These issues of health care, education and more could impact millions of lives, but they are far from the only ones where Trump administration changes threaten to harm disabled people.

    Different programs have their own definitions of disability, which people seeking assistance must work to keep track of.

    This was a daunting task in 2024. Now it may become even more difficult.

    Matthew Borus received funding in the past from ARDRAW, a small grant program for graduate students working on disability research. The program was run by Policy Research, Inc. and funded by the Social Security Administration. The opinions and conclusions expressed here are solely the author’s.

    – ref. Cutting Medicaid and federal programs are among 4 key Trump administration policy changes that could make life harder for disabled people – https://theconversation.com/cutting-medicaid-and-federal-programs-are-among-4-key-trump-administration-policy-changes-that-could-make-life-harder-for-disabled-people-244458

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Philadelphia continues long history of Black-led protest meetings aimed at fighting racial inequity and prejudice

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Linn Washington, Jr., Professor of Journalism, Temple University

    Philadelphians attend a meeting at Germantown’s Center in the Park on Feb. 25, 2025, to strategize a new Black agenda. Linn Washington Jr. , CC BY-NC-ND

    A meeting in Philadelphia, held at a senior center on a bitter cold Saturday afternoon in late January 2025, drew nearly 300 people.

    They came for two key reasons.

    One was to voice outrage at the upsurge in policies and proposals nationwide that attack the advances of African Americans – many of which were secured in part through 1960s-era civil rights protests.

    The other was to begin to develop a “Black agenda” to counter those attacks in Philadelphia.

    In gathering communally to voice their concerns, attendees continued a legacy of Black-led protest meetings that spans over two centuries in the city.

    I am a professor of journalism at Temple University and a reporter who has covered racial inequities in America and abroad for 50 years. I was invited to attend the Philadelphia meeting to talk about the history of protest meetings in the city.

    That’s a history of successes and shortfalls that helped shape both Philadelphia and the nation.

    First mass meeting

    Over 200 years ago, what is considered the first mass protest meeting ever held in the United States by African Americans took place in Philadelphia.

    That little-known meeting, held in January 1817, drew 3,000 African Americans to Philadelphia’s historic Mother Bethel AME Church. The attendees came to denounce efforts by the American Colonization Society to relocate free Black Americans to a colony in West Africa. That group, with a predominately white membership that included prominent politicians and preachers, believed free Blacks could not be integrated into white America.

    The attendees at Mother Bethel in 1817 saw relocation as a forced removal of Black Americans from the homeland they supported as patriotically as white Americans. The unanimous opposition that attendees expressed helped change the stance of local Black leaders, such as Mother Bethel founder Richard Allen, from lukewarm supporters of relocation to opponents.

    Successes and shortfalls

    The tradition of mass meetings to address the adversity impacting Philadelphia’s African American community continued from the 19th century into the 20th and now the 21st century.

    The results have been mixed.

    For example, after members of the Pennsylvania state legislature proposed inserting a white-males-only voting restriction into the state’s constitution in 1838, denying voting rights for free Black men, Black Philadelphians held mass meetings to demand the provision be deleted.

    But those demands failed. Pennsylvania restricted voting to white men until 1870 when ratification of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted African American men the right to vote.

    However, mass meetings during the 1860s that had an agenda to desegregate trolleys in Philadelphia were successful. A law signed in 1867 banned segregated seating on public transit statewide.

    Renowned scholar and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois credited “public meetings and repeated agitation” for that statewide ban in his seminal 1899 book “The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study.”

    Demands to end police brutality have been the focus of mass meetings in the city at least since the 1918 formation of Philadelphia’s now-defunct Association for the Protection of Colored People. Abusive policing practices that continue in Philadelphia to this day point to a shortfall in fulfilling those demands.

    And yet, momentum from the key agenda item of mass meetings in the early 1970s – to increase political power – ultimately led to the election of the city’s first Black mayor, Wilson Goode, in 1983.

    Unfinished business

    Since 1817, Black-led protest meetings in Philadelphia have sought to end discrimination against African Americans. That consistent goal remains unrealized.

    The first national political conventions that African Americans staged in the U.S., beginning in September 1830, castigated discrimination. Convention attendees in 1831 sought an end to cruel and oppressive laws devised to disadvantage free Blacks.

    Nearly 150 years later, the “Human Rights Agenda” developed during a Philadelphia mass meeting in December 1978 and later the report from Philadelphia’s 2015 Black Political Summit Coalition both decried racial prejudice against African Americans.

    An observation that Du Bois made in “The Philadelphia Negro” about discrimination against African Americans in the so-called City of Brotherly Love retains contemporary relevance.

    A mural dedicated to Du Bois and the Old Seventh Ward is painted on the corner of 6th and South streets in Philadelphia.
    Paul Marotta/Getty Images Entertainment Collection via Getty Images

    Race prejudice “is a far more powerful social force than most Philadelphians realize,” Du Bois wrote. Most white Philadelphians, he noted, “are quite unconscious” regarding the prejudice that impacts Black residents. Their impulse is emphatically to deny such discrimination.

    Such denial allowed prejudice to persist then – and today.

    To begin to develop a new Black agenda, the organizers of the meeting at the senior center collected suggestions that attendees filed on note cards. They promised to publicly announce an action plan that is expected to involve economic boycotts and actions to strengthen the economic infrastructure in Philadelphia’s African American community.

    Defending rights and progress aroused attendees at that January meeting in 2025 as strongly as denouncing forced colonization aroused attendees at the mass meeting 208 years earlier.

    Read more of our stories about Philadelphia.

    Linn Washington, Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Philadelphia continues long history of Black-led protest meetings aimed at fighting racial inequity and prejudice – https://theconversation.com/philadelphia-continues-long-history-of-black-led-protest-meetings-aimed-at-fighting-racial-inequity-and-prejudice-249117

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What’s the shape of the universe? Mathematicians use topology to study the shape of the world and everything in it

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Etnyre, Professor of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology

    You can describe the shape you live on in multiple dimensions. vkulieva/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    When you look at your surrounding environment, it might seem like you’re living on a flat plane. After all, this is why you can navigate a new city using a map: a flat piece of paper that represents all the places around you. This is likely why some people in the past believed the earth to be flat. But most people now know that is far from the truth.

    You live on the surface of a giant sphere, like a beach ball the size of the Earth with a few bumps added. The surface of the sphere and the plane are two possible 2D spaces, meaning you can walk in two directions: north and south or east and west.

    What other possible spaces might you be living on? That is, what other spaces around you are 2D? For example, the surface of a giant doughnut is another 2D space.

    Through a field called geometric topology, mathematicians like me study all possible spaces in all dimensions. Whether trying to design secure sensor networks, mine data or use origami to deploy satellites, the underlying language and ideas are likely to be that of topology.

    The shape of the universe

    When you look around the universe you live in, it looks like a 3D space, just like the surface of the Earth looks like a 2D space. However, just like the Earth, if you were to look at the universe as a whole, it could be a more complicated space, like a giant 3D version of the 2D beach ball surface or something even more exotic than that.

    A doughnut, also called a torus, is a shape that you can move across in two directions, just like the surface of the Earth.
    YassineMrabet via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA

    While you don’t need topology to determine that you are living on something like a giant beach ball, knowing all the possible 2D spaces can be useful. Over a century ago, mathematicians figured out all the possible 2D spaces and many of their properties.

    In the past several decades, mathematicians have learned a lot about all of the possible 3D spaces. While we do not have a complete understanding like we do for 2D spaces, we do know a lot. With this knowledge, physicists and astronomers can try to determine what 3D space people actually live in.

    While the answer is not completely known, there are many intriguing and surprising possibilities. The options become even more complicated if you consider time as a dimension.

    To see how this might work, note that to describe the location of something in space – say a comet – you need four numbers: three to describe its position and one to describe the time it is in that position. These four numbers are what make up a 4D space.

    Now, you can consider what 4D spaces are possible and in which of those spaces do you live.

    Topology in higher dimensions

    At this point, it may seem like there is no reason to consider spaces that have dimensions larger than four, since that is the highest imaginable dimension that might describe our universe. But a branch of physics called string theory suggests that the universe has many more dimensions than four.

    There are also practical applications of thinking about higher dimensional spaces, such as robot motion planning. Suppose you are trying to understand the motion of three robots moving around a factory floor in a warehouse. You can put a grid on the floor and describe the position of each robot by their x and y coordinates on the grid. Since each of the three robots requires two coordinates, you will need six numbers to describe all of the possible positions of the robots. You can interpret the possible positions of the robots as a 6D space.

    As the number of robots increases, the dimension of the space increases. Factoring in other useful information, such as the locations of obstacles, makes the space even more complicated. In order to study this problem, you need to study high-dimensional spaces.

    There are countless other scientific problems where high-dimensional spaces appear, from modeling the motion of planets and spacecraft to trying to understand the “shape” of large datasets.

    Tied up in knots

    Another type of problem topologists study is how one space can sit inside another.

    For example, if you hold a knotted loop of string, then we have a 1D space (the loop of string) inside a 3D space (your room). Such loops are called mathematical knots.

    The study of knots first grew out of physics but has become a central area of topology. They are essential to how scientists understand 3D and 4D spaces and have a delightful and subtle structure that researchers are still trying to understand.

    Knots are examples of spaces that sit inside other spaces.
    Jkasd/Wikimedia Commons

    In addition, knots have many applications, ranging from string theory in physics to DNA recombination in biology to chirality in chemistry.

    What shape do you live on?

    Geometric topology is a beautiful and complex subject, and there are still countless exciting questions to answer about spaces.

    For example, the smooth 4D Poincaré conjecture asks what the “simplest” closed 4D space is, and the slice-ribbon conjecture aims to understand how knots in 3D spaces relate to surfaces in 4D spaces.

    Topology is currently useful in science and engineering. Unraveling more mysteries of spaces in all dimensions will be invaluable to understanding the world in which we live and solving real-world problems.

    John Etnyre receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Elaine M. Hubbard Distinguished Faculty Award

    – ref. What’s the shape of the universe? Mathematicians use topology to study the shape of the world and everything in it – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-shape-of-the-universe-mathematicians-use-topology-to-study-the-shape-of-the-world-and-everything-in-it-235635

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: AIs flunk language test that takes grammar out of the equation

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rutvik Desai, Professor of Psychology, University of South Carolina

    AIs can sound good without having a clue about what they’re saying. Carol Yepes/Moment via Getty Images

    Generative AI systems like large language models and text-to-image generators can pass rigorous exams that are required of anyone seeking to become a doctor or a lawyer. They can perform better than most people in Mathematical Olympiads. They can write halfway decent poetry, generate aesthetically pleasing paintings and compose original music.

    These remarkable capabilities may make it seem like generative artificial intelligence systems are poised to take over human jobs and have a major impact on almost all aspects of society. Yet while the quality of their output sometimes rivals work done by humans, they are also prone to confidently churning out factually incorrect information. Skeptics have also called into question their ability to reason.

    Large language models have been built to mimic human language and thinking, but they are far from human. From infancy, human beings learn through countless sensory experiences and interactions with the world around them. Large language models do not learn as humans do – they are instead trained on vast troves of data, most of which is drawn from the internet.

    The capabilities of these models are very impressive, and there are AI agents that can attend meetings for you, shop for you or handle insurance claims. But before handing over the keys to a large language model on any important task, it is important to assess how their understanding of the world compares to that of humans.

    I’m a researcher who studies language and meaning. My research group developed a novel benchmark that can help people understand the limitations of large language models in understanding meaning.

    Making sense of simple word combinations

    So what “makes sense” to large language models? Our test involves judging the meaningfulness of two-word noun-noun phrases. For most people who speak fluent English, noun-noun word pairs like “beach ball” and “apple cake” are meaningful, but “ball beach” and “cake apple” have no commonly understood meaning. The reasons for this have nothing to do with grammar. These are phrases that people have come to learn and commonly accept as meaningful, by speaking and interacting with one another over time.

    We wanted to see if a large language model had the same sense of meaning of word combinations, so we built a test that measured this ability, using noun-noun pairs for which grammar rules would be useless in determining whether a phrase had recognizable meaning. For example, an adjective-noun pair such as “red ball” is meaningful, while reversing it, “ball red,” renders a meaningless word combination.

    The benchmark does not ask the large language model what the words mean. Rather, it tests the large language model’s ability to glean meaning from word pairs, without relying on the crutch of simple grammatical logic. The test does not evaluate an objective right answer per se, but judges whether large language models have a similar sense of meaningfulness as people.

    We used a collection of 1,789 noun-noun pairs that had been previously evaluated by human raters on a scale of 1, does not make sense at all, to 5, makes complete sense. We eliminated pairs with intermediate ratings so that there would be a clear separation between pairs with high and low levels of meaningfulness.

    Large language models get that ‘beach ball’ means something, but they aren’t so clear on the concept that ‘ball beach’ doesn’t.
    PhotoStock-Israel/Moment via Getty Images

    We then asked state-of-the-art large language models to rate these word pairs in the same way that the human participants from the previous study had been asked to rate them, using identical instructions. The large language models performed poorly. For example, “cake apple” was rated as having low meaningfulness by humans, with an average rating of around 1 on scale of 0 to 4. But all large language models rated it as more meaningful than 95% of humans would do, rating it between 2 and 4. The difference wasn’t as wide for meaningful phrases such as “dog sled,” though there were cases of a large language model giving such phrases lower ratings than 95% of humans as well.

    To aid the large language models, we added more examples to the instructions to see if they would benefit from more context on what is considered a highly meaningful versus a not meaningful word pair. While their performance improved slightly, it was still far poorer than that of humans. To make the task easier still, we asked the large language models to make a binary judgment – say yes or no to whether the phrase makes sense – instead of rating the level of meaningfulness on a scale of 0 to 4. Here, the performance improved, with GPT-4 and Claude 3 Opus performing better than others – but they were still well below human performance.

    Creative to a fault

    The results suggest that large language models do not have the same sense-making capabilities as human beings. It is worth noting that our test relies on a subjective task, where the gold standard is ratings given by people. There is no objectively right answer, unlike typical large language model evaluation benchmarks involving reasoning, planning or code generation.

    The low performance was largely driven by the fact that large language models tended to overestimate the degree to which a noun-noun pair qualified as meaningful. They made sense of things that should not make much sense. In a manner of speaking, the models were being too creative. One possible explanation is that the low-meaningfulness word pairs could make sense in some context. A beach covered with balls could be called a “ball beach.” But there is no common usage of this noun-noun combination among English speakers.

    If large language models are to partially or completely replace humans in some tasks, they’ll need to be further developed so that they can get better at making sense of the world, in closer alignment with the ways that humans do. When things are unclear, confusing or just plain nonsense – whether due to a mistake or a malicious attack – it’s important for the models to flag that instead of creatively trying to make sense of almost everything.

    If an AI agent automatically responding to emails gets a message intended for another user in error, an appropriate response may be, “Sorry, this does not make sense,” rather than a creative interpretation. If someone in a meeting made incomprehensible remarks, we want an agent that attended the meeting to say the comments did not make sense. The agent should say, “This seems to be talking about a different insurance claim” rather than just “claim denied” if details of a claim don’t make sense.

    In other words, it’s more important for an AI agent to have a similar sense of meaning and behave like a human would when uncertain, rather than always providing creative interpretations.

    Rutvik Desai receives funding from NIH/NIDCD.

    – ref. AIs flunk language test that takes grammar out of the equation – https://theconversation.com/ais-flunk-language-test-that-takes-grammar-out-of-the-equation-247177

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI: Applied Systems Shines in Built In’s 2025 Best Places to Work Awards

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Chicago, IL., Feb. 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Applied Systems® today announced its recognition in Built In’s 2025 Best Places to Work Awards. Each year, Built In celebrates tech companies of all sizes across the U.S. that offer exceptional total rewards packages, highlighting the innovative workspaces and employee-centric programs that set them apart. Applied secured impressive rankings on Built In’s “100 Best Large Companies” and “100 Best Places to Work” lists.

    100 Best Large Companies (1,000+ employees):

    • Dallas: #18
    • Austin: #23
    • Atlanta: #29
    • Boston: #34
    • Chicago: #36

    100 Best Places to Work:

    • Dallas: #25
    • Austin: #34
    • Atlanta: #32
    • Boston: #49
    • Chicago: #61

    “Being recognized as a Best Place to Work is a testament to these companies’ commitment to building a workplace where individuals and innovation thrive,” said Maria Christopoulos Katris, founder and chief executive officer, Built In. “At Built In, we understand that great companies are powered by great teams, and this achievement showcases their dedication to fostering a culture of growth, inclusivity, and excellence. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor.”

    Built In selects its Best Places to Work winners using an algorithm that analyzes company data on compensation, benefits, remote work, DEI initiatives, and other cultural factors, reflecting the benefits most valued by tech professionals in the workplace.  

    “We are incredibly proud to be recognized in Built In’s 2025 Best Places to Work Awards,” said Bridget Penney, chief people officer, Applied Systems. “This acknowledgment reflects our commitment to our people and delivering better outcomes for each other and our customers, fostering an environment where amazing career moments are made possible.”

    # # #

    The Applied products and logos are trademarks of Applied Systems, Inc., registered in the U.S.

    About Applied Systems
    Applied Systems is the leading global provider of cloud-based software that powers the business of insurance. Recognized as a pioneer in insurance automation and the innovation leader, Applied is the world’s largest provider of agency and brokerage management systems, serving customers throughout the United States, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom. By automating the insurance lifecycle, Applied’s people and products enable millions of people around the world to safeguard and protect what matters most.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Latest CarGurus Brand Campaign Celebrates Life’s Big Deal Moments, Like Buying a Car

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    The “Big Deal” campaign pays tribute to the momentous experience of car shopping, along with the trusted digital tools from CarGurus that help consumers find the best deal on their big deal

    BOSTON, Feb. 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — CarGurus, Inc. (Nasdaq: CARG), the fastest-growing automotive shopping site in Canada1, today announced the launch of its latest national brand campaign, “Big Deal”, recognizing the important role cars play in people’s lives. The new spots empathize with the big decisions drivers make along the buying journey, underscoring CarGurus’ role in helping consumers find the best deal on their big deal.

    “CarGurus has helped drivers along this important journey for nearly two decades, developing the best tools and information to help consumers feel confident in their decisions,” noted Dafna Sarnoff, CarGurus Chief Marketing Officer. “As a result, CarGurus has earned the trust of millions of Canadian users who turn to our site each month to make sure they find the best deal for their needs.”

    CarGurus connects buyers to the best deals by providing complete vehicle history and unbiased deal ratings on a wide selection of new and used vehicles. Added tools like an easy-to-use app, price drop alerts, and the ability to start financing online enable confident decision-making in one of the biggest purchases of a person’s life. The platform also supports sellers with car pricing tools and the ability to receive an instant offer to sell their car completely online.

    “Although CarGurus makes the process easy with all the tools and information you need to get the best deal, we don’t want to lessen the gravity of the purchase and its significant impact on people’s lives,” said Carter Collins, Partner and Managing Director of Bindery. “Buying or selling a car is a huge decision, an emotional experience that we wanted to reflect in this campaign.”

    The “Big Deal” campaign will run across TV networks and connected TV providers. The spots will be supplemented with digital and social executions throughout the year. View the full campaign video library here.

    Creative Credits:

    CarGurus

    • Dafna Sarnoff, Chief Marketing Officer
    • Evan Jones, Creative Director
    • Allison Conroy, Brand Marketing Director
    • Carli Riibner, Sr Brand Marketing Specialist
    • Maggie Meluzio, Director of Public Relations

    Creative and Production – Bindery

    • Carter Collins, Partner, Managing Director
    • Kim Devall, Executive Creative Director
    • Laura Hockstad, Producer
    • Chris Hilk, Editor

    Production – Ruffian

    • Bubble & Squeak, Director
    • Robert Herman, Founder, EP
    • Leslie Vaughn, Line Producer
    • Paul Meyers, Director of Photography
    • Craig Pinckes, 1st Assistant Director

    Production Services – Habitant

    • Arturo Arroyo, Managing Director
    • Montserrat Becerril, Chief of Staff
    • Elizabeth Tapia, Head of Production
    • Ivan Perez, Executive Producer
    • Andrea Fumero, Line Producer
    • Rodrigo Sánchez, Production Manager

    Color + VFX – Trafik

    • Daniel de Vue, Senior Colorist
    • Ali Soofi, Assistant Colorist
    • Geoff Linville, Color Producer
    • Greer Bratschie, Head of Production
    • Karena Ajamian, Executive Producer
Ciaran Birks, VFX Producer
    • Jaime Aguirre, Flame Lead
    • Ben Fall, Flame Assist

    Animation and Text Graphics – Buff Motion

    Sound – Antfood

    • Wilson Brown, Partner, Executive Creative Director
    • Sue Lee, Executive Producer
    • Joshua Heath, Creative Lead
    • Dalton Harts, Composer, Mix Engineer
    • Linton Smith, Mix Engineer
    • Trevor Haimes, Senior Producer
    • Charlie Blasberg, Music Supervisor
    • Katie Hansen, Production Coordinator

    About CarGurus, Inc.
    CarGurus (Nasdaq: CARG) is a multinational, online automotive platform for buying and selling vehicles that is building upon its industry-leading listings marketplace with digital retail solutions. The CarGurus platform gives consumers the confidence to purchase and/or sell a vehicle either online or in-person, and it gives dealerships the power to accurately price, effectively market, and quickly sell vehicles, all with a nationwide reach. The company uses proprietary technology, search algorithms, and data analytics to bring trust, transparency, and competitive pricing to the automotive shopping experience. CarGurus is the fastest-growing automotive shopping site in Canada. 1

    CarGurus operates online marketplaces under the CarGurus brand in the U.K., Canada, and U.S., where it is the most visited automotive shopping site2. The CarGurus network of brands also includes PistonHeads, the largest online motoring community in the U.K.3; Autolist, a U.S.-based online marketplace; and CarOffer, a digital wholesale marketplace serving the U.S.

    To learn more about CarGurus, visit www.cargurus.ca.

    CarGurus® is a registered trademark of CarGurus, Inc., and CarOffer® is a registered trademark of CarOffer, LLC. All other product names, trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

    1Similarweb: Traffic Insights, Q4 2024, Canada
    2Similarweb: Traffic Report [Cars.com, Autotrader, TrueCar, CARFAX Listings (defined as CARFAX Total visits
    minus Vehicle History Reports traffic)], Q4 2024, U.S.
    3Similarweb: Traffic Insights, Q4 2024, U.K.

    Media Contact:
    Maggie Meluzio
    Director, Public Relations & External Communications
    pr@cargurus.com

    Investor Contact:
    Kirndeep Singh
    Vice President, Investor Relations
    investors@cargurus.com

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f1267674-ed08-44a3-a107-cde3ff19ccdb

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Relm Insurance and Liva Group Empower Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Web3 and AI Through Strategic Insurance Partnership

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    • Liva and Relm focus on businesses in high-growth innovative sectors often not covered by traditional insurance products.
    • From digital asset insurance to AI-related risk management and solutions, the partnership ensures businesses operating in these industries can secure the coverage they need to thrive.
    • Partnership will initially support companies in the UAE and Bahrain, with plans to extend services to Oman, Saudi Arabia, and other key markets in MENA.

    Dubai, UAE, Feb. 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Liva Group, a leading insurance group operating across the GCC, and Relm Insurance — the only insurer dedicated to dedicated to emerging sectors — today signed a strategic partnership aimed at empowering innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging sectors such as digital assets, biotech, and AI.

    The union will deliver tailored insurance solutions that address the unique and complex needs of tech companies.

    The partnership was formally signed by Martin Rueegg, CEO of Liva Group, and Joseph Ziolkowski, Global CEO and Founder of Relm Insurance, at DIFC AI Campus as part of DFS Dialogues. DFS Dialogues are exclusive strategic conversations that take place in invite-only gatherings in the lead-up to the Dubai FinTech Summit.

    Whether they’re start-ups or established players, firms in emerging sectors often struggle to get the right insurance due to a lack of understanding of their industries’ rapidly evolving landscape, which stifles innovation and deters investment. By combining Liva Group’s deep market knowledge with Relm’s deep expertise in specialised insurance, the partnership will provide unparalleled support to these companies, empowering them to tackle complex challenges and seize new opportunities.

    The alliance will initially support companies in the UAE and Bahrain, with plans to extend services to Oman, Saudi Arabia, and other key markets in MENA, supporting the region’s development as a leader in digital transformation, AI innovation, and blockchain technology.

    Martin Rueegg, Group CEO of Liva Group, said: “Sectors such as digital assets and AI are critical to the next phase of growth in this region. We believe that unlocking their full potential requires fostering an environment where creativity, collaboration, and innovation can thrive. At Liva, we recognise that technology is a key enabler of this transformation. By leveraging data-driven insights and digital solutions, we are not only improving customer experiences but also enhancing our ability to anticipate and respond to evolving market needs. A key aspect of this is providing entrepreneurs and investors with the confidence to embrace new challenges and explore fresh ideas. This mission is at the heart of our partnership with Relm.”

    Joseph Ziolkowski, Global CEO & Founder of Relm Insurance, added: “Our priority is to support clients and brokers by providing the insurance solutions tailored for innovative businesses in this region. This collaboration enables brokers to offer their clients the security they need to thrive in complex and dynamic sectors.”

    Operating through its Dubai-based affiliate, Relm Insurance holds a Category 4 licence issued by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA). With its new headquarters in DIFC and regulation under the Bermuda Monetary Authority, Relm is well-positioned to provide its specialised insurance solutions in the region.

    -ENDS-

    About Liva Group

    Liva is an insurance group operating across the GCC, founded on the belief that insurance is a pillar that supports both personal and professional lives. As one of the pioneering insurance players in the region, Liva’s team of 1,200 employees is dedicated to offering products and services centred on customer needs, empowering individuals, businesses, and communities to thrive. Serving more than 1.5 million customers, Liva has a strong and growing presence in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain across motor, home travel, health, life, and commercial insurance, as well owning subsidiaries such as NSSPL (India) and Inayah TPA (UAE), supporting its long-term strategy to scale and diversify the business. The word “Liva” signifies “protection” or “life”, reflecting the Group’s commitment to protecting what matters most to its people, its partners, and, most of all, its customers.

    About Relm Insurance

    Relm Insurance Ltd. (Relm) is a Bermuda-domiciled specialty insurance carrier that supports emerging industries driving innovation and next-generation technologies. Launched in 2019, Relm offers a wide range of insurance products to high-growth markets, including digital assets, blockchain, AI, biotech, and the space economy. With a Financial Stability Rating of ‘A, Exceptional’ from Demotech, Relm is widely recognised for its industry expertise and solutions-driven approach, making it a trusted risk partner for businesses operating at the frontier of technological innovation.

    Media Contacts

    Sarah Abdelbary
    Brunswick Group
    sabdelbary@brunswickgroup.com

    Reannah Smith  
    Luna PR  
    reannah@lunapr.io

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How poetry can help us understand mass extinction events

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kate Simpson, PhD Candidate, Extinction Studies, University of Leeds

    Photo by Bea Vallejo on Unsplash.

    Extinction is inevitable. Expected. Almost all (99%) species that have ever existed have died out. Those disappearances have largely occurred at consistent background rates. But in the context of mass extinctions, ecosystems are placed under immense pressure, at above-average speeds. Here, the language changes from the commonplace to the exceptional.

    The most recent of these events occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago, following an asteroid collision off the shore of Mexico. And 252 million years ago, at the Permian-Triassic boundary, Earth experienced its most severe loss of animal species to date when mass volcanisms pumped carbon into the air, suffocating life and acidifying oceans, killing off up to 96% of all marine species.

    It is widely accepted that we are currently witnessing the start of a sixth mass extinction. Humans are dramatic ecosystem engineers – irrevocably altering environments and habitats. Past extinction events offer clues about how the Earth has previously responded to being placed under such severe pressure.

    But how can we better understand this extinction? How does this knowledge reach us, as humans, readers, engineers?

    In my anthology Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency (2021), I argued that poetry has a unique power to explore the stakes and potential of a sixth mass extinction event. In poetry, each mechanism is part of a larger conceptual machine designed to evoke and provoke in boundless, generous ways. As I wrote, poetry “distils ideas … into their most refined and impacting state”. It’s “synaesthetic, with the freedom to join the senses and activate our understanding of a given subject in innate, unsettling, and inexplicable ways”. And it’s “economical … a compressed world ready to be opened up and expanded by the reader”.

    However, poetry is also a space of necessary complication and conflict, being both expansive and limited, affective and affected by human bias. As the poet Ben Lerner notes in The Hatred of Poetry (2016) “you’re moved to write … but as soon as you move from that impulse to the actual poem, the song of the infinite is compromised by the finitude of its terms … you’re back in the human world with its inflexible laws and logic”. This inflexible logic is invaluable, given that it shapes, defines and influences our actions on the planet.

    The geologist Marcia Bjornerud has attributed rapid anthropogenic destruction, and its role in triggering a sixth mass extinction event, to narrow perspectives and shallow, linear thinking. The solution, she suggests, is in attending to the layers of an ancient Earth, contextualising differing rates of change (or tempos) with a “polytemporal” worldview.

    In 2022, I joined the UK’s first Extinction Studies doctoral training programme. I sought to explore how, and to what extent, I could cultivate a “polytemporal” perspective through palaeontological study and poetic practice.

    I set out to understand how words can help us to develop a deeper frame of reference that not only acknowledges but attempts to conceive of immense timescales. This work has taken me from Iceland’s melting glaciers to the ancient geological formations of the Scottish small isles, exploring chronostratigraphic boundaries – sites where eras are thought to start and end.

    Engineering intersections

    Poetry and palaeontology both work with strata. Strata is both literal and literary, sedimentary and metaphoric: it is to be read, to be interpreted, to be imagined around. In poetry, lines function as units of meaning: they can be categorised and contained, but they are part of a larger whole. And in poems (unlike most prose) words offer as much meaning as the silence that surrounds them; the page is not blank, but a negative space through which words resonate, into which meaning is made, or borne from.

    As the poet Don Paterson writes: “Silence is the poet’s ground. Silence delineates the formal borders of the poem, and the formal arrangement of silences puts language under pressure … underwrites the status of the poem as significant mark”. Likewise, fossils offer as much meaning as the negative space that surrounds them, the sediment from which they are excavated. Absence is evidential. It may denote where species moved from extant to extinct. It may denote the environmental pressures that caused this.

    The poet Jorie Graham states that silence “is the sound of the earth … [it] does not need you to interrupt it”. It’s true. Earth, and its ecosystems, do not require us to write, do not require us to make meaning of the past: to name and categorise epochs, eras and events as they layer and compress into strata. However, if we are to alter ecosystems so exceptionally, it is required that we understand the deep time context of our actions, as well as how context provides meaning; how meaning provides emotional value; how emotions drive action.

    Poems are ecosystems that we engineer. They are not spaces where images are created, but where images are transformed from pre-existing vocabularies, cast into meaning against the blank space. Poems may not be so sufficiently affective or effective that they can bring an end to anthropogenic destruction. But, they do demonstrate, on a small scale, how nothing can be made, read, or understood in isolation. That human thinking is bound by certain margins: spatial, temporal, conceptual.

    To comprehend extinction requires us to know how imagination works; where it reaches its limits. Poetry, as an anthropogenic art and process, shows us how to read. Poetry shows us how to recognise connections that occur on both visible and invisible levels.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Kate Simpson receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.

    – ref. How poetry can help us understand mass extinction events – https://theconversation.com/how-poetry-can-help-us-understand-mass-extinction-events-238813

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Starmer announces aid cuts to fund defence – but Britain’s days as an aid superpower are already long over

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Balazs Szent-Ivanyi, Reader in Politics and International Relations and Deputy Director Aston Centre for Europe, Aston University

    Keir Starmer’s announcement that the UK will cut foreign aid in order to fund more defence spending seems like smart politics. With the US’s commitment to European security in question, it is clear that European countries, including the UK, need to spend more on defence.

    The US president, Donald Trump, with whom the prime minister is meeting on Thursday, has long called out Europeans for free-riding on America’s security guarantee. Credible promises of more British defence spending (including on American kit) may also deter Trump from introducing tariffs on UK imports.

    Building up the UK’s and Europe’s defence capabilities comes with a hefty price tag, and finding the money is tricky. The UK economy has weak growth prospects, and Labour has made a pledge not to increase taxes “on working people”. This leaves budget cuts in other areas as the only approach. The government seems to have decided that cutting foreign aid may be the least painful option for voters.

    Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.

    Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.

    Foreign aid has generally been seen as an area of government spending which has relatively weak groups of domestic supporters. Charities and companies that directly benefit from aid spending through government contracts are a smallish group, and many receive funding from several sources.

    Hostility to aid among the general public is relatively high. According to a 2024 survey by the British Foreign Policy Group, 46% of Britons surveyed thought that UK aid should not return to its previous high of 0.7% of gross national income (GNI), or should be cut even further below the 0.5% at the time of that survey.

    A frequent argument made by successive British governments is that aid, by targeting poverty and conflict, can address the root causes of migration. The public, however, is sceptical about aid’s ability to reduce irregular migration or make the UK safer.



    Read more:
    Why many policies to lower migration actually increase it

    Although Labour voters are more positive about aid’s benefits, it is unlikely that the government would see any major electoral harm from reductions to the aid budget.

    Where aid is really used

    While cutting aid may be a smart move politically, it will have longer-term consequences for the UK’s global influence and its ability to achieve positive change in the world. Many charities were quick to point this out, arguing that it will hurt the lives of the poorest across the world.

    Aid is now set to shrink from 0.5% of GNI to 0.3%, which implies the UK will still have a substantial aid programme. On average, rich countries spent 0.37% of their GNI on aid in 2023 – not much more than what the UK will spend now.

    In practice, however, 23% of the British aid budget in 2023 was made up by Home Office spending on housing refugees in the UK. This is unlikely to decline quickly, even though the government has said it aims to reduce it. A further 34% consisted of contributions to multilateral organisations like the United Nations and World Bank. While there is scope to cut some of this, large savings are difficult without the UK leaving some organisations.

    Given these two fixed items, very little will remain for “genuine” development programmes in partner countries – the kind of funding that is actually visible as UK aid.



    Read more:
    The UK spent a third of its international aid budget on refugees in the UK – what it’s paying for, and why it’s a problem

    Such a small genuine aid programme will undoubtedly mean lower development impact and lower British influence. But the UK’s standing and soft power, particularly in poorer countries, was already in tatters well before Starmer’s announcement.

    The merger between the Foreign Office and Department for International Development in 2020, followed by budget cuts and the re-allocation of aid to the Home Office, has destroyed the UK’s reputation as an “aid superpower” and champion of the global poor.

    Across-the-board cuts have even devastated programmes which the UK has declared as priority areas, such as support for women and girls. Some would argue that after these cuts, the UK did not have much of a reputation left to lose.

    But this story of UK aid is not unique. Indeed, the world has entered a new era of aid fatigue. The populist right portrays aid as wasteful and ineffective, as shown by the Trump administration’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development.



    Read more:
    USAID’s freeze has thrust the entire global aid system into uncertainty

    Many Africans see aid as a neocolonial enterprise aimed at spreading western ideologies, a sentiment often echoed by the progressive left. Western countries themselves are increasingly open about their selfish reasons for providing aid, such as boosting business, while many non-western donors have emerged as alternatives.

    It is not a surprise that the west’s influence in the world has waned, as evidenced by its failure to build a global anti-Russia coalition following the invasion of Ukraine.

    The UK will need to adapt to these realities. Designing a smarter and highly targeted aid programme, perhaps from the ground up, is now more important than ever to rebuild Britain’s reputation.

    Balazs Szent-Ivanyi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Starmer announces aid cuts to fund defence – but Britain’s days as an aid superpower are already long over – https://theconversation.com/starmer-announces-aid-cuts-to-fund-defence-but-britains-days-as-an-aid-superpower-are-already-long-over-250873

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Improving Workers’ Access to Medical Treatment

    Source: US State of New York

    Governor Kathy Hochul today announced growing support for a significant element of her 2025 State of the State proposals to markedly improve access to health care for injured workers. The four legislative proposals and one regulatory change are designed to give injured workers more options for timely, high-quality medical treatment.

    “New Yorkers who are injured or become ill on the job need more options for care,” Governor Hochul said. “My proposals do just that, giving injured workers freedom to see the providers they want, including their own primary care providers whom they already know and trust. Injured workers will no longer need to travel long distances or seek treatment from an unfamiliar provider just because their medical issue is work-related.”

    First among these proposals is universally authorizing all eligible licensed health care providers to treat workers’ compensation claimants. Currently, only providers who are authorized by the NYS Workers’ Compensation Board may treat injured workers. While there are thousands of eligible medical providers in New York State, only about 10 percent have taken the additional steps required to become Board-authorized. Now they wouldn’t have to; authorization would be automatic as part of their licensing.

    A second proposal allows resident and fellow physicians to treat injured workers, under a supervising provider, the same way they do for regular health insurance. This expansion could significantly increase provider participation at academic hospitals and health care systems.

    Today, 40 percent of injured workers travel to a different county to receive care from a Board-authorized provider. On average, those in rural or suburban counties travel 35 miles or more to their workers’ compensation-related medical appointment. This proposal would allow for more, and closer, options for care.

    While the first two proposals make it so more providers can treat injured workers, a third is aimed at making it more compelling to do so, and the remaining proposals will reduce delays in getting injured workers prompt medical treatment. These include:

    • A proposed increase to workers’ compensation fee schedules (the amounts paid to health care providers for services in treating injured workers), to ensure that high quality providers in our system are paid at rates comparable to private health insurance.
    • Legislation amending the Insurance Law to direct health care insurers to pay for medical treatment for workers’ compensation claimants when and while a workers’ compensation claim is disputed. Providers will be prohibited from collecting copays or coinsurance from the patient while the claim is under dispute. This ensures workers are no longer caught in the crosshairs of a dispute and can get the timely treatment they need, while also ensuring providers will get paid.
    • Legislation amending the workers’ compensation law to permit workers’ compensation insurers to pay for medical treatment, without accepting liability, for up to one year. In addition to helping injured workers get timely medical care, the provision provides more transparency, requiring insurers to notify injured workers that such payments are being made and that their claim will automatically be accepted by the insurer at the one-year mark, unless the claim is controverted.

    Governor Hochul’s latest proposals complement the many recent actions the Board has taken to increase provider participation. This includes eliminating custom forms and transitioning to a universal billing form to reduce administrative burden, use of an online system for prior authorization and requests to review medical billing disputes, quicker resolution of billing disputes and a significantly reduced need for provider depositions, among other improvements.

    New York State Workers’ Compensation Board Chair Clarissa Rodriguez said, “The proposals put forth by the Governor are a win-win-win — great for workers, great for providers, and great for employers. Workers will have far more options for care, providers can expand their practices and provide continuity of care to their existing patients, and employers will benefit from injured workers getting timely treatment so they can recover and return to work.”

    Board Certified Occupational Medicine Physician Dr. Marc Wilkenfeld said, “It’s critically important that injured and ill workers get prompt medical care by professionals who understand their needs. The universal authorization that Governor Hochul has proposed will drastically increase the number of health care providers who can treat injured and ill workers in the workers’ compensation system. Additionally, New York State has top-notch teaching hospitals, so the Governor’s proposal to allow fellow and resident physicians to treat, under the supervision of a faculty physician, will further enhance the quality of care. Combined, these proposals will enable workers to get treated faster, increasing the likelihood that they will recover sooner and more fully.”

    Worker Justice Center of New York Executive Director Alaina Evelyn Varvaloucas said, “Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers labor in the state’s most dangerous industries and then find it nearly impossible to access adequate care for workplace injuries. In many cases, left untreated, these injuries lead to lifetime problems and can limit workers’ ability to continue working and supporting their families. These proposals enhance access for workers, particularly those in our upstate communities, as well as compensate our medical providers at a rate far more attuned to the reality of providing care. They are a critical step on the road toward real access to Workers’ Compensation benefits for all injured workers in New York.”

    Occupational Medicine and Workers’ Compensation Expert Warren Silverman, MD, FACOEM, FACPM said, “Having a worker remain out of work due to a lack of sufficient healthcare providers when they might otherwise be rehabilitated rapidly and return to work is an unnecessary burden on the patient, cost to the system and to all parties, and a disruption to commerce in general. Opening up workers’ compensation to all physicians and providing a better reimbursement rate will benefit the injured or ill employee, the employer, the provider, the carrier and in general New York State. It is most clearly a win-win situation for all.”

    The new workers’ compensation proposals are detailed in Governor Hochul’s 2025 State of the State Book, as part of an ambitious agenda to make New York safer, healthier, cleaner and more affordable for New York families.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Video: Imagine 4 wheeling with THIS! | U.S. Army

    Source: US Army (video statements)

    : AEMO

    About the U.S. Army:
    The Army Mission – our purpose – remains constant: To deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars by providing ready, prompt & sustained land dominance by Army forces across the full spectrum of conflict as part of the joint force.

    Interested in joining the U.S. Army?
    Visit: spr.ly/6001igl5L

    Connect with the U.S. Army online:
    Web: https://www.army.mil
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/USarmy/
    X: https://www.twitter.com/USArmy
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/usarmy/
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/us-army
    #USArmy #Soldiers #Military #ISV

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=968mokhJpyc

    MIL OSI Video –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Pipeline companies deliver most of the U.S. electric power sector’s natural gas

    Source: US Energy Information Administration

    In-brief analysis

    February 26, 2025

    According to our Natural Gas Annual Respondent Query System, 1,653 natural gas delivery companies delivered natural gas to end-use customers in 2023 in the United States. A delivery company is defined as any entity that delivers natural gas directly to end users. Natural gas deliveries by pipeline companies to the electric power sector made up the largest share of deliveries to end-use consumers, accounting for 33% of all natural gas delivered to end-use consumers in 2023.

    Pipeline companies generally deliver large volumes of natural gas to high-volume end users, accounting for most of the deliveries to industrial facilities and electric power plants. The electric power sector and industrial sector are the largest and second-largest consuming sectors, respectively. Pipeline companies delivered 75%, or 27.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), of the natural gas used to generate electric power in the United States, and 51%, or 11.9 Bcf/d, of the natural gas used in the industrial sector in 2023.

    Conversely, local distribution companies (LDCs) are the primary providers of natural gas to homes and businesses, delivering 94% (20.3 Bcf/d) of end-use natural gas to the residential and commercial sectors. LDCs often operate networks of small pipelines that connect to homes and businesses; however, they are distinct from pipeline companies, which operate wide-diameter, high-pressure pipelines that transport large volumes of natural gas to predominantly industrial and electric facilities. Natural gas distributors operated by municipalities, referred to here as municipals, are the most common type of natural gas distributor in the United States, but they deliver relatively small volumes of end-use natural gas, accounting for only 4% of all end use.

    Natural gas consumption to generate U.S. electric power has increased significantly in recent years. Warmer weather has increased the demand for electricity for space cooling in the summer, increasing natural gas use by electricity providers. Low natural gas prices and improving efficiency from combined-cycle plants have also contributed to increased natural gas-fired power generation. As natural gas consumption in the electric power sector has increased, natural gas deliveries via pipeline companies to electric power plants have also increased, rising by 17% (3.9 Bcf/d) since 2018 and accounting for 75% of the total increase in deliveries to the electric power sector between 2018 and 2023. Pipeline companies do not typically sell natural gas to end users, but instead they deliver the natural gas on behalf of the end user in exchange for a transportation fee.

    LDCs deliver most of the natural gas consumed in the U.S. residential and commercial sectors. However, nearly half of their deliveries (47%, or 15.2 Bcf/d) go to the industrial and electric power sectors. LDCs are typically regulated by state public utility commissions, which ensure that the LDCs maintain reliability of service and stable prices for customers. LDCs receive natural gas from a pipeline near their service area and then transport it through their own network to end users.

    LDCs with interstate pipelines, the least common type of distributor, deliver the most natural gas to end users per facility, at an average of 0.5 Bcf/d per facility. An LDC with interstate pipelines can have a large distribution area that sometimes spans several states and may serve millions of customers in a region.

    Municipals typically serve one specific city or town and, as a result, deliver comparatively small volumes of natural gas to end users, averaging less than 3 Bcf/d of deliveries in 2023. Despite delivering relatively small volumes of natural gas, municipals accounted for more than half of all delivery companies, numbering 886 in 2023.

    More information on company-level data on natural gas distributors is available in EIA’s Natural Gas Annual Respondent Query System.

    Principal contributors: Mike Kopalek, Grace Wheaton

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: 26 February 2025 UHC-Partnership: Namibia tackles antimicrobial resistance

    Source: World Health Organisation

    In June 2024, a 66-year-old woman was admitted to the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Intermediate Hospital Katutura in Windhoek, Namibia. She was diagnosed with pneumonia, and tests showed that the organism responsible for her severe illness was resistant to all antibiotics except tigecycline. At the hospital, the pharmacy department had to obtain a compassionate clearance permit to procure and import tigecycline for the patient.

    “The patient completed the course, stabilized, and was discharged from the intensive care unit to a general ward. Unfortunately, due to various complicated comorbidities, the patient eventually passed away”, said Ms Taimi Ipinge, a Chief Pharmacist at Intermediate Hospital Katutura.

    Tragically, this type of resistance to antibiotics is all too common in Namibia, as with elsewhere in the world.

    Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness, and death. As a result, the medicines become ineffective and infections persist in the body, increasing the risk of spread to others.

    AMR is one of the top global public health and development threats. It is estimated that bacterial AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019 and contributed to 4.95 million deaths.

    In 2019, Namibia recorded 451 deaths attributable to AMR and 1,900 deaths were associated with AMR.

    Acting to stop AMR

    The Government of Namibia recognizes that AMR is a threat to health security across the country and region and that a range of health system interventions are necessary to protect the population’s health and ensure good progress towards universal health coverage (UHC).

    The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS), with support from WHO through the UHC Partnership and others, is implementing various activities in line with the AMR National Action Plan in compliance with the Global Action Plan to address AMR.

    The Government responded to the overuse of antibiotics by setting up a national multi-sectoral AMR governance to guide, oversee, coordinate, and monitor AMR-related activities in all sectors to ensure a systematic and comprehensive implementation of Namibia’s National Action Plan on AMR.

    In November 2021, Namibia commemorated its first World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW). In 2023, MoHSS in collaboration with AMR quadripartite organizations, commemorated the week under the theme of ‘Preventing antimicrobial resistance together’ with the slogan ‘Antimicrobials: handle with care’. The event brought together the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, and the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.

    Namibia launched its infection prevention and control action plan and national guidelines. WHO provided support to a range of activities for this including distribution of information, education and communication materials around infection prevention and control, regional orientation on quality standards, in-service training focal points, and training on water, sanitation, and hygiene for hospital quality improvement plans. Thanks to capacity-building support from WHO, Namibia also reached a significant milestone for the first submission of data on AMR to GLASS in December 2023.

    “AMR is extremely serious. If left unchecked it means we are heading to a world where medical treatment of routine ailments or operations is life threatening and a greater number of people might stop responding to drugs. It challenges all our efforts to strengthen health systems and achieve universal health coverage. WHO commends the Namibian Government for the strategic and multiple approaches taken through collaboration between sectors and work across the region to raise awareness amongst the public,” said Dr Richard Banda, WHO Representative to Namibia.

    Strengthening health security

    Namibia’s response to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is part of the broader effort to strengthen health security across the country. By integrating a One Health approach and engaging key sectors, Namibia is actively working to strengthen its health systems, improve surveillance, and ensure that it is prepared to respond to emerging health threats. The launch of the National Tripartite One Health Strategy 2024-2028 further underlines the government’s commitment to safeguarding public health, both within the country and in collaboration with regional and international partners.

    The UHC Partnership operates in over 125 countries, representing over 3 billion people. It is supported and funded by Belgium, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Japan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and WHO.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: UConn Senior’s Organization Takes Aim at Food Insecurity

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    A UConn senior is battling food insecurity on both sides of the Atlantic with a program he started to provide meals for low-income families in New Haven and in Ghana.

    Anthony Mensah ‘25 (CAHNR) started AJANO Cooperative in 2021 with his friends Akosua Asante, John Mensah, and Nee Ashitey Boateng, with a mission to provide people with high-quality food.

    “We want to prioritize finding a way to help these people get access to healthy proteins,” says Mensah, an Economics of Sustainable Development and Management (ESDM) major. “A diet full of just carbs and unhealthy food limits your life’s potential, and that’s something we want to help.”

    Mensah grew up in Ghana, and his family moved to New Haven in 2017. He said the idea to start AJANO was sparked by a friend who came from a lower-income background. She showed Mensah the need for greater access to high-quality proteins, and then they started the program together.

    AJANO held its first food drive in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Mensah and his colleagues reached out to the principal of a high school in a low-income area of the city. The principal was able to conduct an anonymous survey of students facing food insecurity. “We made sure it was anonymous so that there would be no shame in making sure that these people had access to the food that they needed,” says Mensah.

    The second food drive was in New Haven in the summer of 2024. “It was a little bit bigger in scale,” says Mensah.

    That might be an understatement: the group partnered with three food banks in New Haven and was able to source and give out a whopping 6,000 pounds of chicken and 1,000 pounds of beef.

    “It was one of the best experiences in the world, just being able to see the numbers. There’s something that people really care about,” says Mensah.

    AJANO has plans to host a food drive every two years, with expectations of growth each time. Putting together a food drive specifically to provide high-quality protein, though, isn’t easy.

    Anthony Mensa ’25 has plans to make future food drives even more successful (courtesy of Anthony Mensah)

    “Most food banks don’t have access to meat, and if they do, it’s very processed, which just defeats the whole purpose,” Mensah says.

    Adding to the challenge was finding foods low in sodium, and finding people willing to work with the young organization. Luckily, Mensah and his colleagues were able to connect with Ashitey Owusu, a food economist who recommended specific combinations to maximize the nutritional value of the food packages AJANO distributed.

    And AJANO isn’t limiting the help it provides young Ghanaians to food drives. The organization’s Think Deeper Writing Competition “was created to promote critical literacy and inspire Ghanaian high school students to engage with philosophical texts and think critically about our role in the world,” according to the AJANO website. Winners receive cash prizes.

    As far as his own studies, Mensah says UConn has helped grow AJANO. Courses like Food Policy (ARE 2260) helped him understand the processes and complexities of food as an industry, and shaped his goals for the organization. Associate Professor Tatiana Andreyeva, who taught the class and is also director of economic initiatives at the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health, provided context for the kinds of institutions that run food banks, Mensah says, and helped him connect with resources and organizations to help AJANO source 6,000 pounds of chicken.

    Mensah says his advisor, Associate Professor Nathan Fiala, has also helped him stay motivated with AJANO while taking high-level courses at UConn. He considered taking a break from the food drives while in school. “He gave me the motivation to keep doing it,” says Mensah.

    “It’s kind of sad to see the people coming up and then seeing them be a little bit shy,” Mensah says, reflecting on the first two successful food drives. “But then when they get the high-quality meat that they need, seeing the relief on their face because you know this is going to feed someone’s family, that’s just that feeling – just knowing that you’re helping someone out there. It’s just priceless.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Influence of Technology, Science Shapes Latest Show at Contemporary Art Galleries

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    While it’s true John Simon Jr. has a daily drawing practice, one he describes as meditative not just for clarity but also creativity, the artist might be best known for the digital art he’s produced, pieces sold in cyberspace and displayed on LED screens instead of canvas in places like the Whitney and Guggenheim.

    Among the first pieces of art sold as NFTs came from Simon, the 1997 work he titled “Every Icon,” because, as the squares in a grid of 32 by 32 change from black to white in a pattern shift that will take trillions of years to cycle through, the full image eventually will form the outline of any and all familiar pictures.

    Simon also is known for other pieces like “ComplexCity,” a series of digital works in which the street grid, traffic pattern, and height of skyscrapers continually shape shift, a representation of the constant change of a city.

    But Simon might not be as well known for his undergraduate degree in geology, his master’s in earth and planetary science, and an MFA in computer art.

    Artist John F. Simon Jr.’s “Traffic Jam” is part of “ComplexCity,” a digital work that explores contemporary urbanism through animated visual outputs containing abstract elevators, clogged intersections, and other interactive and dynamic forms. It hangs as part of the exhibition, “Data Infused,” at the Contemporary Art Galleries in UConn’s Fine Arts Complex. (Contributed photo)

    The place between art and science, that’s where early in his career Simon says he thought he’d be – “where art and science would kind of meld, where you’d see some sculpture, a painting, and things that are kind of like art done with a scientific concept that’s output in an artistic way.

    “But that was never deeply satisfying enough for me,” he says, “and I felt eventually that the categorization of science and art, this kind of academic categorization, was made to separate the two. My approach [now] is creativity.”

    And that’s something both scientists and artists must have in abundant supply.

    “If we look back to the Renaissance period especially, science and art weren’t as separate as they are now,” says Wendy Wischer, visiting director of UConn’s Contemporary Art Galleries, where a reimagined version of Simon’s “ComplexCity” is on display as part of the exhibition, “Data Infused.”

    “Artists and scientists do the same thing,” she says, summarizing a sentiment from writer K.C. Cole. “They start by observation and then recognize patterns that are often overlooked by others. That kind of imagination, seeking out of patterns, connecting threads of what may initially seem like separate entities is one of the things that artists and scientists do all the time.”

    “Data Infused” is Wischer’s first curation at the Galleries, after coming to UConn in the fall. In it, she’s included works from artists like Simon who’ve each studied subjects including computer science, architecture, graphic design, and artificial intelligence, all of which have influenced their creative outputs.

    Take Nettrice Gaskins, for instance, whose piece “Afro-Generative Tableaux Variations” uses AI to remix the colorful swirls that dance around the side profile of a Black woman who remains stationary in the center.

    “Variations,” Wischer explains, shows how AI moves through the variations of color and shape to help an artist, or an observer as in this case, assess the infinite options. Gaskins made the piece specifically for this show to give people a look at how AI aids in art making.

    Richard Garet used bits of sound in his two pieces, “Perceptual; Star” and “Perceptual; Glowing Wedge,” to create images of pulsing colors, then stripped away the auditory component, leaving only the moving image.

    The act of using what many would call scientific data for such artistic inspiration is what links the pieces, Wischer says, along with the fact that all the artists, as with Simon, maintain a traditional art practice that includes drawing and painting despite producing work that hinges on technology.

    That’s something, she says, that UConn graduate students asked for when she surveyed them about what they’d like to see in the gallery. AI, data visualization, and Afrofuturism topped the list. They also wanted to see novel ways artists make art and viewers consume it, such as those pieces sold as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens that live on the blockchain.

    “Scientists are great at data visualization. But their role is to be removed from any kind of emotional or personal attachment,” Wischer says about the art-science connection. “Artists can come in and ask questions without having an answer. Art can provoke emotions. It can link personal experience with the scientific in a way that makes it more digestible.”

    Ira Greenburg – whose “CyberStructures” depicts a bird’s eye view of a computer’s architecture, its chips and cards and CPU rising and falling like the towers and low-rises of a city – not only writes the computer code needed to generate his work but uses AI to influence it as he processes the thousands of iterations technology provides.

    Wischer says all the artists in the show are at the forefront of using technology like AI in the development of their work. It’s one reason she hopes people from other departments at UConn outside Art and Art History visit the show.

    “I’m hoping there’s something for everyone and that it evokes a curiosity to learn more,” she says. “Whether someone is attracted to the digital and they find something new in the physical, or someone who is attracted to the physical finds something in the digital, one of my goals was to bring together these various communities.”

    And she means that literally.

    She’s arranged a series of artist talks to be held throughout the semester, starting with Simon in late January who drew about two dozen people to the Galleries for the show’s opening.

    Garet will visit Feb. 27, Gaskins on March 13, and Courtney Starrett and Susan Reiser wrap the series on April 3. The full exhibition closes April 25.

    Artist Ira Greenburg used creative coding and artificial intelligence to create “Cyberstructures,” a piece that considers computer architecture as a landscape. It hangs as part of the exhibition, “Data Infused,” at the Contemporary Art Galleries in UConn’s Fine Arts Complex. (Contributed photo)

    “I see the Contemporary Art Galleries as a place to bring together different ideas and be a little more experimental than it has in the past,” Wischer says. “This exhibition is a very traditional, polished exhibition. But we might have a rotating schedule that allows for a variety of experimentation that moves away from just a traditional gallery space.”

    That may include becoming home for the annual BFA show or serving as a place for graduate students to practice their own curation skills. It might be possible to host a show that coordinates with a specific class or have a visiting artist use the space as their workshop, in a sort of messy exhibition that gets revealed over time, she suggests.

    Though not all future shows will emphasize the use of technology as strongly as “Data Infused,” this semester the focus is on its influence.

    “We know that data doesn’t move people. Facts don’t move people, but there are other ways that people can be moved. Artwork is a way that somebody can enter at a more personal level and discover why this is important to them or the meaning behind it,” Wischer says.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: Intermex Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Company delivers ~10% EPS growth in 2024

    Company to Host Conference Call Today at 9 a.m. ET

    MIAMI, Feb. 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMXI) (“Intermex” or the “Company”), one of the nation’s leading omnichannel money transfer services to Latin America and the Caribbean, today reported operating results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2024.

    Financial performance highlights for the full-year:

    • Revenues of $658.6 million
    • Net income of $58.8 million
    • Diluted EPS of $1.79 per share
    • Adjusted Diluted EPS of $2.14 per share
    • Adjusted EBITDA of $121.3 million

    Financial performance highlights for the fourth quarter of 2024:

    • Revenues of $164.8 million
    • Net income of $15.4 million
    • Diluted EPS of $0.49 per share
    • Adjusted Diluted EPS of $0.57 per share
    • Adjusted EBITDA of $30.9 million

    Bob Lisy, Chairman, President, and CEO of Intermex, stated “We have delivered another year of strong EPS growth and continued providing solid operating results for our shareholders. As a highly efficient provider of the premium product at retail, we are now turning our attention to invest and expand our high margin digital business. We continue to be a highly profitable operator, and a strong generator of cash. At this afternoon’s Investor Day, we look forward to sharing our 2025 plan which will scale our digital business while continuing to leverage the strength of the underlying retail model we have built.”

    The Company also reported that, consistent with the recommendation of its independent Strategic Alternatives Committee (“SAC”), the Board of Directors (“Board”) has unanimously determined to suspend the Company’s previously announced assessment of strategic alternatives.

    The Board conducted the review of strategic alternatives through the SAC, composed solely of independent members of the Board. The SAC, along with its independent financial advisor, Lazard Freres, the Company’s financial advisor, FT Partners, and the assistance of its independent legal counsel, evaluated a comprehensive range of strategic alternatives to maximize stockholder value and held discussions with a wide array of strategic and financial investors since the process was announced in November of 2024 regarding potential alternatives, including a sale or merger of the Company and other transactions. The robust strategic review did not, however, result in a definitive offer at a price that offered a superior alternative to the long-term stockholder value potentially created by Intermex’s current business model and its strategic plan, which includes a significant investment to increase the revenue from the Company’s digital services.

    Accordingly, after considering views of Company stockholders, significant internal discussion and consultation with external financial and legal advisors, and the recommendation of the SAC, the Board concluded that the best interests of all stockholders are served by continuing to focus on the execution of the Company’s strategic plan, including opportunities to drive growth and enhance value as an independent public company.   As such, the Board has suspended the review process. The Intermex’s Board and management team are committed to maximizing stockholder value and remain open to all opportunities to achieve this objective.

    Mr. Lisy commented, “Since becoming a public company, we have built Intermex into one of the nation’s leading omnichannel money transfer services to Latin America and expanded our reach to additional markets while consistently generating strong and recurring bottom line results and free cash generated.   We are committed to building upon that foundation of success, which has been driven by our retail service offerings, by applying our cash resources and liquidity to invest in the expansion of our digital services and products that offer the potential for increased revenue and wider margins.   In addition, we have ample financial resources and flexibility to provide liquidity to our stockholders through share repurchases under our previously authorized share repurchase program.

    Our 2025 guidance reflects a large and aggressive investment on digital customer capture, along with additional staff and marketing to bolster our profitable, cash-generating retail engine. We will discuss how these – and the political and macro backdrop – impact our outlook at our Investor Day later this afternoon.”

    Financial Results for full-year 2024 (all comparisons are to the full-year 2023)
    Revenues remained relatively flat at $658.6 million, primarily due to slowing of the overall remittance market growth to Latin America, partially offset by our continued growth of our agent base and of our digital offering. Total principal sent from remittance activity decreased slightly by approximately 0.8% to $24.4 billion. Foreign exchange gains increased by 1.1% primarily due to improved foreign currency spreads.

    The Company reported net income of $58.8 million, a decrease of 1.2%. Diluted earnings per share were $1.79, an increase of 9.8%. The decrease in net income was driven primarily by the items noted above for revenues, partly offset by lower services charges from agents and banks. Lower salaries and benefits and income tax provision also positively impacted net income. The Company also incurred $1.8 million in transaction costs for the full year, primarily legal and professional fees incurred in relation to the evaluation of strategic alternatives. Diluted earnings per share was positively impacted by the reduction in share count from the Company’s stock repurchases.

    Adjusted net income totaled $70.4 million, a decrease of 0.8%. Adjusted diluted earnings per share totaled $2.14, an increase of 9.7%. Adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share were impacted by the items noted above, adjusted for certain items detailed in the reconciliation tables below. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was positively impacted by the reduction in share count from the Company’s stock repurchases.

    Adjusted EBITDA increased 1.1% to $121.3 million, attributable to the higher net effect of the adjusting items detailed in the reconciliation tables below following the consolidated financial statements.

    Fourth Quarter 2024 Financial Results (all comparisons are to the Fourth Quarter 2023)
    Total revenues for the Company were $164.8 million, down 4.1% versus last year due to slowing of the overall remittance market growth to Latin America – especially in retail. Revenue was positively impacted by 48.3% growth in revenues for digitally-sent money transfers. The Company’s user base generated 14.8 million money transfer transactions, down 3.2% from last year. The total principal amount transferred for the period was $6.1 billion, down 1.6%.

    Net income was $15.4 million, a decrease of 12.1%. Diluted earnings per share was $0.49, the same as in the prior year. The decrease in net income was driven primarily by the items noted above for revenues, partly offset by the same items noted above for the full year. The Company also incurred $1.7 million in transaction costs in the fourth quarter alone, primarily legal and professional fees incurred in relation to the evaluation of strategic alternatives. Diluted earnings per share was positively impacted by the reduction in share count from the Company’s stock repurchases.

    Adjusted net income decreased 10.6% to $17.8 million, and adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.57, an increase of 1.8%. Adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share were impacted by the items noted above, adjusted for certain items detailed in the reconciliation tables below. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was positively impacted by the reduction in share count from the Company’s stock repurchases.

    Adjusted EBITDA decreased 7.2% to $30.9 million, driven primarily by business operating results discussed above.

    Adjusted and other non-GAAP measures discussed above and elsewhere in this press release are defined below under the heading, Non-GAAP Measures.

    Other Items
    The Company ended the fourth quarter of 2024 with $130.5 million in cash and cash equivalents. Net free cash generated for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $4.5 million, down from the fourth quarter of 2023, mainly due to the acquisition of the Amigo Paisano brands (“Amigo Paisano”) for $12.0 million and the $1.7 million in transaction costs incurred in the fourth quarter. The decrease in year-over-year net free cash generated reflects the fourth quarter factors mentioned above, the impact of assets placed into service as a result of the Company’s move to its new U.S. headquarters facility, and the impact of costs incurred in relation to business restructuring of the Company’s acquisitions.

    The Company repurchased 1,025,821 shares of its common stock for $20.2 million during the fourth quarter of 2024 through its share repurchase program and $63.2 million remains currently available for future share repurchases under the share repurchase program. During the full-year 2024, the Company purchased 3,765,320 shares for $75.1 million, which repurchases are expected to resume in the current quarter.

    In the year ended December 31, 2024, the Company incurred restructuring costs of approximately $3.1 million. The charges were primarily related to the Company’s foreign operations and constituted reorganizing the workforce, streamlining operational processes, and integrating technology.

    Guidance
    The Company provides the following full-year and first quarter guidance:

    Full-year 2025:

    • Revenue of $657.5 million to $677.5 million
    • Diluted EPS of $1.76 to $1.91
    • Adjusted Diluted EPS of $2.09 to $2.26
    • Adjusted EBITDA of $113.8 million to $117.3 million

    First quarter 2025:

    • Revenue of $145.5 million to $149.9 million
    • Diluted EPS of $0.32 to $0.34
    • Adjusted Diluted EPS of $0.40 to $0.43
    • Adjusted EBITDA of $23.3 million to $24.0 million

    The above guidance does not reflect an estimate of transaction costs related to the now suspended process to review strategic alternatives.

    Non-GAAP Measures
    Adjusted Net Income, Adjusted Earnings per Share, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin and Net Free Cash Generated, each a Non-GAAP financial measure, are the primary metrics used by management to evaluate the financial performance of our business. We present these Non-GAAP financial measures because we believe they are frequently used by analysts, investors, and other interested parties to evaluate companies in our industry. Furthermore, we believe they are helpful in highlighting trends in our operating results, because certain of such measures exclude, among other things, the effects of certain transactions that are outside the control of management, while other measures can differ significantly depending on long-term strategic decisions regarding capital structure, the jurisdictions in which we operate and capital investments.

    Adjusted Net Income is defined as Net Income adjusted to add back certain charges and expenses, such as non-cash amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisition transactions, non-cash compensation costs, and other items outlined in the reconciliation table below, as these charges and expenses are not considered a part of our core business operations and are not an indicator of ongoing future Company performance.

    Adjusted Earnings per Share – Basic and Diluted is calculated by dividing Adjusted Net Income by GAAP weighted-average common shares outstanding (basic and diluted).

    Adjusted EBITDA is defined as Net Income before depreciation and amortization, interest expense, income taxes, and adjusted to add back certain charges and expenses, such as non-cash compensation costs and other items outlined in the reconciliation table below, as these charges and expenses are not considered a part of our core business operations and are not an indicator of ongoing future Company performance.

    Adjusted EBITDA Margin is calculated by dividing Adjusted EBITDA by Revenues.

    Net Free Cash Generated is defined as Net Income before provision for credit losses and depreciation and amortization adjusted to add back certain non-cash charges and expenses, such as non-cash compensation costs, and reduced by cash used in investing activities and servicing of our debt obligations.

    Adjusted Net Income, Adjusted Earnings per Share, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, and Net Free Cash Generated are non-GAAP financial measures and should not be considered as an alternative to operating income, net income, net income margin or earnings per share, as a measure of operating performance or cash flows, or as a measure of liquidity. Non-GAAP financial measures are not necessarily calculated the same way by different companies and should not be considered a substitute for or superior to U.S. GAAP.

    Reconciliations of Net Income, the Company’s closest GAAP measure, to Adjusted Net Income, Adjusted EBITDA, and Net Free Cash Generated, as well as a reconciliation of Earnings per Share (Basic and Diluted) to Adjusted Earnings per Share (Basic and Diluted) and Net Income Margin to Adjusted EBITDA Margin, are outlined in the tables below following the consolidated financial statements. A quantitative reconciliation of projected Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Diluted EPS to the most comparable GAAP measure is not available without unreasonable efforts because of the inherent difficulty in forecasting and quantifying the amounts necessary under GAAP guidance for operating or other adjusted items including, without limitation, costs and expenses related to acquisitions and other transactions, share-based compensation, tax effects of certain adjustments and losses related to legal contingencies or disposal of assets. For the same reasons, we are unable to address the probable significance of the unavailable information.

    Investor and Analyst Conference Call / Presentation
    Intermex will host a conference call and webcast presentation at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time today. Interested parties are invited to join the discussion and gain firsthand knowledge about Intermex’s financial performance and operational achievements through the following channels:

    • A live broadcast of the conference call may be accessed via the Investor Relations section of Intermex’s website at https://investors.intermexonline.com/.
    • To participate in the live conference call via telephone, please register HERE. Upon registering, a dial-in number and unique PIN will be provided to join the conference call.
    • Following the conference call, an archived webcast of the call will be available for one year on Intermex’s website at https://investors.intermexonline.com/.

    Safe Harbor Compliance Statement for Forward-Looking Statements
    This press release contains certain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, which reflect our current views concerning certain events that are not historical facts but could have an effect on our future performance, including but without limitation, statements regarding our plans, objectives, financial performance, business strategies, projected results of operations, restructuring initiatives and expectations for the Company. Such forward-looking statements include all statements regarding the Board’s evaluation of strategic alternatives, including exploring options for a potential sale in a private transaction. These statements may include and be identified by words or phrases such as, without limitation, “would,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “believes,” “anticipates,” “continues,” “could,” “may,” “might,” “plans,” “possible,” “potential,” “predicts,” “projects,” “forecasts,” “intends,” “assumes,” “estimates,” “approximately,” “shall,” “our planning assumptions,” “future outlook,” “currently,” “target,” “guidance,” and similar expressions (including the negative and plural forms of such words and phrases). These forward-looking statements are based largely on information currently available to our management and our current expectations, assumptions, plans, estimates, judgments, projections about our business and our industry, and macroeconomic conditions, and are subject to various risks, uncertainties, estimates, contingencies, and other factors, many of which are outside our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and liquidity. Such factors include, among others: potential adverse effects on the Company’s stock price from the suspension of the Company’s strategic alternatives evaluation process; our success in expanding customer acceptance of our digital services and infrastructure, as well as developing, introducing and marketing new digital and other products and services; new technology or competitors that disrupt the current money transfer and payment ecosystem, including the introduction of new digital platforms; loss of, or reduction in business with, key sending agents; our ability to effectively compete in the markets in which we operate; economic factors such as inflation, the level of economic activity, recession risks and labor market conditions, as well as volatility in market interest rates; international political factors, including ongoing hostilities in Ukraine and the Middle East, political instability, tariffs, including the effects of tariffs on domestic markets and industrial activity and employment, border taxes or restrictions on remittances or transfers from the outbound countries in which we operate or plan to operate; volatility in foreign exchange rates that could affect the volume of consumer remittance activity and/or affect our foreign exchange related gains and losses; changes in applicable laws and regulations; changes in immigration laws and their enforcement, including its effects on the level of immigrant employment and earning potential; consumer confidence in our brands and in consumer money transfers generally; expansion into new geographic markets or product markets; our ability to successfully execute, manage, integrate and obtain the anticipated financial benefits of key acquisitions and mergers; the ability of our risk management and compliance policies, procedures and systems to mitigate risk related to transaction monitoring; consumer fraud and other risks relating to the authenticity of customers’ orders or the improper or illegal use of our services by consumers, sending agents or digital partners; cybersecurity-attacks or disruptions to our information technology, computer network systems, data centers and mobile devices applications; our ability to maintain favorable banking and paying agent relationships necessary to conduct our business; bank failures, sustained financial illiquidity, or illiquidity at the clearing, cash management or custodial financial institutions with which we do business; changes to banking industry regulation and practice; credit risks from our agents, digital partners and the financial institutions with which we do business; our ability to recruit and retain key personnel; our ability to maintain compliance with applicable laws and regulatory requirements, including those intended to prevent use of our money remittance services for criminal activity, those related to data and cybersecurity protection, and those related to new business initiatives; enforcement actions and private litigation under regulations applicable to money remittance services; changes in tax laws in the countries in which we operate; our ability to protect intellectual property rights; our ability to satisfy our debt obligations and remain in compliance with our credit facility requirements; public health conditions, responses thereto and the economic and market effects thereof; the use of third-party vendors and service providers; weakness in U.S. or international economic conditions; and other economic, business, and/or competitive factors, risks and uncertainties, including those described in the “Risk Factors” and other sections of periodic reports and other filings that we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Accordingly, we caution investors and all others not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date such statement is made and we undertake no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements.

    About International Money Express, Inc.
    Founded in 1994, Intermex applies proprietary technology enabling consumers to send money from the United States, Canada, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany to more than 60 countries. The Company provides the digital movement of money through a network of agent retailers in the United States, Canada, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany; Company-operated stores; our mobile apps; and the Company’s websites. Transactions are fulfilled and paid through thousands of retail and bank locations around the world. Intermex is headquartered in Miami, Florida, with international offices in Puebla, Mexico, Guatemala City, Guatemala, London, England, and Madrid, Spain. For more information about Intermex, please visit www.intermexonline.com.

    Alex Sadowski
    Investor Relations Coordinator
    ir@intermexusa.com
    tel. 305-671-8000

    Consolidated Balance Sheets
     
        December 31,   December 31,
    (in thousands of dollars)   2024   2023
    ASSETS   (Unaudited)    
    Current assets:        
    Cash and cash equivalents   $ 130,503   $ 239,203
    Accounts receivable, net of allowance of $3,546 and $2,610, respectively     107,077     155,237
    Prepaid wires, net     49,205     28,366
    Prepaid expenses and other current assets     10,998     10,068
    Total current assets     297,783     432,874
             
    Property and equipment, net     50,354     31,656
    Goodwill     55,195     53,986
    Intangible assets, net     26,847     18,143
    Other assets     32,198     40,153
    Total assets   $ 462,377   $ 576,812
             
    LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY        
    Current liabilities:        
    Current portion of long-term debt, net   $ —   $ 7,163
    Accounts payable     19,520     36,507
    Wire transfers and money orders payable, net     85,044     125,042
    Accrued and other liabilities     47,434     54,661
    Total current liabilities     151,998     223,373
             
    Long-term liabilities:        
    Debt, net     156,623     181,073
    Lease liabilities, net     18,582     22,670
    Deferred tax liability, net     250     659
    Total long-term liabilities     175,455     204,402
             
    Stockholders’ equity:        
    Total stockholders’ equity     134,924     149,037
    Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity   $ 462,377   $ 576,812
             
    Consolidated Statements of Income
     
      Three Months Ended December 31,   Year Ended December 31,
    (in thousands of dollars, except for per share data) 2024   2023   2024   2023   2022
      (Unaudited)   (Unaudited)        
    Revenues:                  
    Wire transfer and money order fees, net $ 137,443   $ 145,185   $ 554,801   $ 561,540   $ 469,162
    Foreign exchange gain, net   21,843     23,669     88,944     87,908     72,920
    Other income   5,472     2,929     14,904     9,287     4,723
    Total revenues   164,758     171,783     658,649     658,735     546,805
                       
    Operating expenses:                  
    Service charges from agents and banks   106,317     110,882     428,968     430,865     364,804
    Salaries and benefits   16,010     18,606     68,247     70,203     52,224
    Other selling, general and administrative expenses   12,010     11,181     47,894     47,652     34,394
    Restructuring costs   322     69     3,060     1,214     —
    Transaction costs   1,733     33     1,819     445     3,005
    Depreciation and amortization   3,664     3,355     13,645     12,866     9,470
    Total operating expenses   140,056     144,126     563,633     563,245     463,897
                       
    Operating income   24,702     27,657     95,016     95,490     82,908
                       
    Interest expense   2,748     2,783     11,745     10,426     5,629
                       
    Income before income taxes   21,954     24,874     83,271     85,064     77,279
                       
    Income tax provision   6,569     7,375     24,450     25,549     19,948
                       
    Net income $ 15,385   $ 17,499   $ 58,821   $ 59,515   $ 57,331
                       
    Earnings per common share:                  
    Basic $ 0.50   $ 0.51   $ 1.81   $ 1.67   $ 1.52
    Diluted $ 0.49   $ 0.49   $ 1.79   $ 1.63   $ 1.48
                       
    Weighted-average common shares outstanding:                  
    Basic   30,998,252     34,638,245     32,430,755     35,604,582     37,733,047
    Diluted   31,406,360     35,426,435     32,850,497     36,429,714     38,625,390
                                 
    Reconciliation from Net Income to Adjusted Net Income
     
      Three Months Ended December 31,   Year Ended December 31,
    (in thousands of dollars, except for per share data) 2024   2023   2024   2023   2022
      (Unaudited)   (Unaudited)
                       
    Net income $ 15,385     $ 17,499     $ 58,821     $ 59,515     $ 57,331  
                       
    Adjusted for:                  
    Share-based compensation (a)   186       1,894       7,043       8,111       7,118  
    Restructuring costs (b)   322       69       3,060       1,214       —  
    Transaction costs (c)   1,733       34       1,819       445       3,005  
    Legal contingency settlement (d)   —       —       (570 )     —       —  
    Loss on bank closure (e)   —       —       —       —       1,583  
    Other charges and expenses (f)   308       294       1,239       1,850       1,141  
    Amortization of intangibles (g)   926       1,178       3,820       4,740       4,102  
    Income tax benefit related to adjustments (h)   (1,047 )     (1,042 )     (4,820 )     (4,914 )     (4,376 )
    Adjusted net income $ 17,813     $ 19,926     $ 70,412     $ 70,961     $ 69,904  
                       
    Adjusted earnings per common share:                  
    Basic $ 0.57     $ 0.58     $ 2.17     $ 1.99     $ 1.85  
    Diluted $ 0.57     $ 0.56     $ 2.14     $ 1.95     $ 1.81  
                                           
    (a) Represents share-based compensation relating to equity awards granted primarily to employees and independent directors of the Company.
     
    (b) Represents primarily severance, write-off of assets and, legal and professional fees related to the execution of restructuring plans.
     
    (c) Represents primarily financial advisory, professional and legal fees related to business acquisition transactions and strategic alternatives.
     
    (d) Represents a gain contingency related to a legal settlement.
     
    (e) Represents losses related to the closure of a financial institution in Mexico during 2021.
     
    (f) Represents primarily loss on disposal of fixed assets.
     
    (g) Represents the amortization of intangible assets that resulted from business acquisition transactions.
     
    (h) Represents the current and deferred tax impact of the taxable adjustments to Net Income using the Company’s blended federal and state tax rate for each period. Relevant tax-deductible adjustments include all adjustments to Net Income.
     
    Reconciliation from GAAP Basic Earnings per Share to Adjusted Basic Earnings per Share
     
      Three Months Ended December 31,   Year Ended December 31,
      2024   2023   2024   2023
      (Unaudited)   (Unaudited)
    GAAP Basic Earnings per Share $ 0.50     $ 0.51     $ 1.81     $ 1.67  
    Adjusted for:              
    Share-based compensation   0.01       0.05       0.22       0.23  
    Restructuring costs   0.01       —       0.09       0.03  
    Transaction costs   0.06       —       0.06       0.01  
    Legal contingency settlement   —       —       (0.02 )     —  
    Other charges and expenses   0.01       0.01       0.04       0.05  
    Amortization of intangibles   0.03       0.03       0.12       0.13  
    Income tax benefit related to adjustments   (0.03 )     (0.03 )     (0.15 )     (0.14 )
    Non-GAAP Adjusted Basic Earnings per Share $ 0.57     $ 0.58     $ 2.17     $ 1.99  
     
    The table above may contain slight summation differences due to rounding
     
    Reconciliation from GAAP Diluted Earnings per Share to Adjusted Diluted Earnings per Share
     
      Three Months Ended December 31,   Year Ended December 31,
      2024   2023   2024   2023
      (Unaudited)   (Unaudited)
    GAAP Diluted Earnings per Share $ 0.49     $ 0.49     $ 1.79     $ 1.63  
    Adjusted for:              
    Share-based compensation   0.01       0.05       0.21       0.22  
    Restructuring costs   0.01       —       0.09       0.03  
    Transaction costs   0.06       —       0.06       0.01  
    Legal contingency settlement   —       —       (0.02 )     —  
    Other charges and expenses   0.01       0.01       0.04       0.05  
    Amortization of intangibles   0.03       0.03       0.12       0.13  
    Income tax benefit related to adjustments   (0.03 )     (0.03 )     (0.15 )     (0.13 )
    Non-GAAP Adjusted Diluted Earnings per Share $ 0.57     $ 0.56     $ 2.14     $ 1.95  
     
    The table above may contain slight summation differences due to rounding
     
    Reconciliation from Net Income to Adjusted EBITDA
     
      Three Months Ended December 31,   Year Ended December 31,
    (in thousands of dollars) 2024   2023   2024   2023   2022
      (Unaudited)   (Unaudited)
    Net income $ 15,385   $ 17,499   $ 58,821     $ 59,515   $ 57,331
                       
    Adjusted for:                  
    Interest expense   2,748     2,783     11,745       10,426     5,629
    Income tax provision   6,568     7,375     24,450       25,549     19,948
    Depreciation and amortization   3,664     3,355     13,645       12,866     9,470
    EBITDA   28,365     31,012     108,661       108,356     92,378
    Share-based compensation (a)   186     1,894     7,043       8,111     7,118
    Restructuring costs (b)   322     69     3,060       1,214     —
    Transaction costs (c)   1,733     34     1,819       445     3,005
    Legal contingency settlement (d)   —     —     (570 )     —     —
    Loss on bank closure (e)   —     —     —       —     1,583
    Other charges and expenses (f)   308     294     1,239       1,850     1,141
    Adjusted EBITDA $ 30,914   $ 33,303   $ 121,252     $ 119,976   $ 105,225
     
    (a) Represents share-based compensation relating to equity awards granted primarily to employees and independent directors of the Company.
     
    (b) Represents primarily severance, write-off of assets, and legal and professional fees related to the execution of restructuring plans.
     
    (c) Represents primarily financial advisory, professional and legal fees related to business acquisition transactions and strategic alternatives.
     
    (d) Represents a gain contingency related to a legal settlement.
     
    (e) Represents losses related to the closure of a financial institution in Mexico during 2021.
     
    (f) Represents primarily loss on disposal of fixed assets.
     
    Reconciliation from Net Income Margin to Adjusted EBITDA Margin
     
      Three Months Ended December 31,   Year Ended December 31,
      2024   2023   2024   2023
      (Unaudited)   (Unaudited)
    Net Income Margin 9.3 %   10.2 %   8.9 %   9.0 %
    Adjusted for:              
    Interest expense 1.7 %   1.6 %   1.8 %   1.6 %
    Income tax provision 4.0 %   4.3 %   3.7 %   3.9 %
    Depreciation and amortization 2.2 %   2.0 %   2.1 %   2.0 %
    EBITDA Margin 17.2 %   18.1 %   16.5 %   16.4 %
    Share-based compensation 0.1 %   1.1 %   1.1 %   1.2 %
    Restructuring costs 0.2 %   — %   0.5 %   0.2 %
    Transaction costs 1.1 %   — %   0.3 %   0.1 %
    Legal contingency settlement — %   — %   (0.1 )%   — %
    Other charges and expenses 0.2 %   0.2 %   0.2 %   0.3 %
    Adjusted EBITDA Margin 18.8 %   19.4 %   18.4 %   18.2 %
     
    The table above may contain slight summation differences due to rounding
     
    Reconciliation of Net Income to Net Free Cash Generated
     
      Three Months Ended December 31,   Year Ended December 31,
    (in thousands of dollars) 2024   2023   2024   2023   2022
      (Unaudited)   (Unaudited)
                       
    Net income for the period $ 15,385     $ 17,499     $ 58,821     $ 59,515     $ 57,331  
                       
    Depreciation and amortization   3,664       3,355       13,645       12,866       9,470  
    Share-based compensation   186       1,894       7,043       8,111       7,118  
    Provision for credit losses   1,375       1,227       6,411       4,997       2,572  
    Cash used in investing activities   (16,087 )     (5,092 )     (43,946 )     (18,280 )     (12,529 )
    Term loan pay-downs   —       (1,641 )     (3,281 )     (5,469 )     (4,375 )
                       
    Net free cash generated during the period $ 4,523     $ 17,242     $ 38,693     $ 61,740     $ 59,587  

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: ICE Boston arrests illegal Jamaican national charged with assault, battery in Massachusetts

    Source: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement

    BOSTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement apprehended an illegally present Jamaican alien charged in Massachusetts with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a family member when officers arrested Jahmari Taffari Westcarth, 26, in Boston Jan. 25.

    “Jahmari Taffari Westcarth stands accused of assaulting and victimizing a family member in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He represents a significant threat to the residents of our community,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde. “We simply refuse to tolerate such dangers to the law-abiding residents of our New England neighborhoods. ICE Boston stands firm in our commitment to prioritizing public safety by arresting and removing illegal alien offenders from our neighborhoods.”

    The U.S. Border Patrol arrested Westcarth after he illegally entered the United States near San Ysidro, California, Dec. 30, 2022, and served him with a notice to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge.

    The Dorchester District Court arraigned Westcarth Jan. 8 for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a family member.

    ICE lodged an immigration detainer against Westcarth with later that day with the Dorchester District Court but the court refused to honor the immigration detainer and released Westcarth from custody.

    Westcarth remains in ICE custody following his arrest.

    Members of the public can report crimes and suspicious activity by dialing 866-DHS-2-ICE (866-347-2423) or completing the online tip form.

    Learn more about ICE’s mission to increase public safety in our New England communities on X: @EROBoston.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Video: One Month of Secretary Noem: Making America Safe Again

    Source: United States of America – Federal Government Departments (video statements)

    In one month, Secretary Kristi Noem has taken dramatic steps to address the crisis at the southern border and make America safe again. This just the beginning.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzOuwiW_ep0

    MIL OSI Video –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Secretary Noem Announces Agency Will Enforce Laws That Penalize Aliens in the Country Illegally

    Source: US Federal Emergency Management Agency

    Headline: Secretary Noem Announces Agency Will Enforce Laws That Penalize Aliens in the Country Illegally

    lass=”text-align-center”>DHS Will Use Every Available Tool to Compel Illegal Aliens to Self-Deport 
    WASHINGTON – Today, Secretary Kristi Noem announced the Department of Homeland Security will fully enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act, which created multiple tools to track illegal aliens and compel them to leave the country voluntarily. These tools include criminal penalties for certain aliens who:   

    Willfully fail to depart the United States. 
    Fail to register with the federal government and be fingerprinted. 
    Fail to apprise the federal government of changes to their address. 

    An alien’s failure to depart the U.S. is a crime that could result in significant financial penalty. An alien’s failure to register is a crime that could result in a fine, imprisonment, or both. For decades, this law has been ignored—not anymore.  
    Compelling mass self-deportation is a safer path for aliens and law enforcement, and saves U.S. taxpayer dollars, in addition to conserving valuable Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resources needed to keep Americans safe.  
    Statement Attributable to a DHS Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin 
    “President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message for those in our country illegally: leave now. If you leave now, you may have the opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream. 
    “The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws—we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce.  We must know who is in our country for the safety and security of our homeland and all Americans.”  
    Aliens can register here.  
    This announcement comes on the heels of a nationwide and international ad campaign warning illegal aliens to self-deport and stay out.   

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Sols 4461-4463: Salty Salton Sea?

    Source: NASA

    Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 21, 2025
    Since first encountering the sulfate-bearing unit around Sol 3540, we have detected minerals and elemental concentrations consistent with the presence of various salts and a general drying out of Mars climate (read ”NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Reaches Long-Awaited Salty Region”). Salton Sea in California is a saline lake, meaning it has high concentrations of salty minerals formed as a result of evaporation processes dominating over input of fresh water. As such, we thought it would be a fitting name for one of our rock targets to be analyzed by the APXS and MAHLI instruments in this weekend plan. We have observed a variety of different textures and colors associated with the sulfate-bearing unit. The target “Salton Sea” is an example of one such texture — a dark-toned, relatively smooth, platy layer. Will the chemistry indicate the presence of salty minerals, some of which may be the same as those found at Salton Sea? Other rock targets to be analyzed in this busy weekend plan include “Wellman Divide,” another APXS and MAHLI target on a thicker, dark-toned, rougher textured layer, and “Goodykoontz” and “Paseo del Mar,” both ChemCam LIBS targets, on a nodule and a dark, platy layer, respectively.
    We also continue to document the layers of rock exposed within several buttes and mesas around us (“Dragon Tooth” and “Texoli” buttes, and “Gould Mesa”) with CCAM RMI and Mastcam imaging. Curiosity will hopefully climb though equivalent layers as we continue our ascent of Mount Sharp, so these images can help with interpretation when we finally encounter them on the ground. Mastcam will also image a trough in the sand surrounding one of the bedrock blocks — a feature that has been observed relatively frequently lately.
    The atmospheric scientists also have an action-packed plan with coordinated APXS atmospheric and ChemCam passive-sky observations to measure argon and oxygen, respectively, as well as standard activities. These observations help to track changes in seasonal atmospheric flow from equatorial to polar regions on Mars. Standard atmospheric monitoring activities included in the plan are: Navcam dust devil movies (x2), suprahorizon movies (x2), a zenith movie, line of sight observations (x2), and a cloud altitude observation, as well as Mastcam tau observations (x2).
    After a planned drive of about 49 meters (about 161 feet) on the second sol of this three-sol weekend plan, the MARDI camera will take an image of the terrain beneath the rover. The plan is rounded out with standard REMS, DAN and RAD activities.
    Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA Names Stephen Koerner as Acting Director of Johnson Space Center

    Source: NASA

    NASA has selected Stephen Koerner as acting director of Johnson Space Center. Koerner previously served as Johnson’s deputy director.
    “It is an honor to accept my new role as acting director for Johnson,” Koerner said. “Our employees are key to our nation’s human spaceflight goals. I am continually impressed with what our workforce accomplishes and am proud to be named the leader of such an incredible team dedicated to mission excellence.”
    Koerner previously served as deputy director of NASA Johnson beginning in July 2021, overseeing strategic workforce planning, serving as Designated Agency Safety Health Officer (DASHO), and supporting the Johnson Center Director in mission reviews. Before his appointment to deputy director, Koerner served as director of the Flight Operations Directorate (FOD) for two years. In that role, he was responsible for selecting and protecting astronauts, and for the planning, training, and execution of human space flight and aviation missions. He managed an annual budget of $367 million, 600 civil servants and military personnel, and 2300 contractor personnel.  He oversaw the Astronaut Office, the Flight Director Office, the Mission Control Center, human spaceflight training facilities, and Johnson’s Aviation Operations Division. During this tenure he was also responsible for FOD’s flight readiness of the first commercial human spaceflight mission, ushering in a new era of domestic launch capability and the return of American astronauts launching from American soil. 
    Prior to assuming his position as director of Flight Operations, Koerner served in several senior executive roles, including:

    Johnson Space Center Associate Director from 2018 to 2019
    Johnson Space Center Chief Financial Officer (CFO) from 2017 to 2018
    Deputy Director of Flight Operations from 2014 to 2017
    Deputy Director Mission Operations from 2007 to 2014

    Koerner joined Johnson full-time in 1992. He has extensive operations experience including serving as an environmental systems space shuttle flight controller, where he supported 41 space shuttle flights in Mission Control. Since that time, he has served in a series of progressively more responsible positions, including lead for two International Space Station flight control groups, chief of the space station’s Data Systems Flight Control Branch, chief of the Mission Operations Directorate’s Management Integration Office, and as the Mission Operation Directorate’s manager for International Space Station operations.
    Additional special assignments throughout his career include:

    Project manager for Johnson’s Crew Exploration Vehicle Avionics Integration Lab (June 2007 –June 2008)
    Member of NASA’s Human Exploration Framework Team (April 2010 –October 2010)
    Member of NASA’s Standing Review Board that provided an independent assessment at life cycle review milestones for the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Program, the Space Launch System Program and the Ground Systems Development and Operations Program (October 2011 – August 2014)
    Lead of NASA’s Mission Operations Capability Team (October 2015 –April 2017)

    “Steve has an accomplished career serving human spaceflight. His vision and dedication to the Johnson workforce makes him the perfect person to lead the Johnson team forward as acting director,” said Vanessa Wyche, NASA acting associate administrator. “Steve is an asset to the center and the agency—as both a proven technical expert and a leader.”
    Throughout his career, Koerner has been recognized for outstanding technical achievements and leadership, receiving two Superior Accomplishment Awards, the Outstanding Leadership Medal, the Johnson Space Center Director’s Commendation Award, two group achievement awards, the Exceptional Service Medal, and the Presidential Rank Award.
    Koerner is a native of Stow, Ohio. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Akron in Ohio, and a master’s degree in business administration from LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA’s X-59 Completes Electromagnetic Testing

    Source: NASA

    NASA’s quiet supersonic X-59 research aircraft has cleared electromagnetic testing, confirming its systems will work together safely, without interference across a range of scenarios.
    “Reaching this phase shows that the aircraft integration is advancing,” said Yohan Lin, NASA’s X-59 avionics lead. “It’s exciting to see the progress, knowing we’ve cleared a major hurdle that moves us closer to X-59’s first flight.”
    Electromagnetic interference occurs when an electric or magnetic field source affects an aircraft’s operations, potentially impacting safety. This interference, whether from an external source or the aircraft’s own equipment, can disrupt the electronic signals that control critical systems – similar to effects that lead to static or crackling on a radio from a nearby emitting device, like a phone.
    The tests, conducted at contractor Lockheed Martin Skunk Works’ facility in Palmdale, California, ensured that the X-59’s onboard systems – such as radios, navigation equipment, and sensors – did not interfere with one another or cause unexpected problems. During these tests, engineers activated each system on the aircraft one at a time while they monitored the other systems for possible interference.

    “This testing helped us determine whether the systems within the X-59 are interfering with each other,” Lin said. “It’s called a source-victim test – essentially, we activate one system and monitor the other for issues like noise, glitches, faults, or errors.”
    The X-59 will generate a quieter thump rather than a loud boom while flying faster than the speed of sound. The aircraft is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which will provide regulators with information that could help lift current bans on commercial supersonic flight over land. Currently, the aircraft is progressing through ground tests to ensure safety and performance. These included the recent, successful completion of a set of engine tests. The electromagnetic interference testing to examine the X-59’s internal electronic systems followed.
    Other electromagnetic interference testing involved the team looking at the operation of the X-59’s landing gear, ensuring this critical component can extend and retract without affecting other systems. And they tested that the fuel switch shutoff was functioning properly without interference.
    Electromagnetic compatibility was also assessed during this testing – making sure the X-59’s systems will function properly when it eventually flies near NASA research aircraft.

    Researchers staged the X-59 on the ground in front of NASA’s F-15D, placing them 47 feet apart, then 500 feet apart. The proximity of the two aircraft replicated conditions needed for the F-15D to use a special probe to gather measurements about the shock waves the X-59 will produce.
    “We want to confirm there’s compatibility between the two aircraft, even at close proximity,” Lin said.
    For the electromagnetic compatibility testing, the team powered up the X-59’s engine while turning on the F-15D’s radar, C-band radar transponder, and radios. Data from the X-59 were transmitted to NASA’s Mobile Operations Facility, where control room staff and engineers monitored for anomalies.
    “You want to make discoveries of any potential electromagnetic interference or electromagnetic compatibility issues on the ground first,” Lin said. “This reduces risk and ensures we’re not learning about problems in the air.”
    Now that electromagnetic testing is complete, the X-59 is ready to move on to aluminum bird tests – during which data will be fed to the aircraft on the ground under both normal and failure conditions – and then taxi tests before flight.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA’s EZIE Launching to Study Magnetic Fingerprints of Earth’s Aurora

    Source: NASA

    High above Earth’s poles, intense electrical currents called electrojets flow through the upper atmosphere when auroras glow in the sky. These auroral electrojets push about a million amps of electrical charge around the poles every second. They can create some of the largest magnetic disturbances on the ground, and rapid changes in the currents can lead to effects such as power outages. In March, NASA plans to launch its EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) mission to learn more about these powerful currents, in the hopes of ultimately mitigating the effects of such space weather for humans on Earth.
    Results from EZIE will help NASA better understand the dynamics of the Earth-Sun connection and help improve predictions of hazardous space weather that can harm astronauts, interfere with satellites, and trigger power outages.
    The EZIE mission includes three CubeSats, each about the size of a carry-on suitcase. These small satellites will fly in a pearls-on-a-string formation, following each other as they orbit Earth from pole to pole about 350 miles (550 kilometers) overhead. The spacecraft will look down toward the electrojets, which flow about 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the ground in an electrified layer of Earth’s atmosphere called the ionosphere.
    During every orbit, each EZIE spacecraft will map the electrojets to uncover their structure and evolution. The spacecraft will fly over the same region 2 to 10 minutes apart from one another, revealing how the electrojets change.

    Previous ground-based experiments and spacecraft have observed auroral electrojets, which are a small part of a vast electric circuit that extends 100,000 miles (160,000 kilometers) from Earth to space. But for decades, scientists have debated what the overall system looks like and how it evolves. The mission team expects EZIE to resolve that debate. 
    “What EZIE does is unique,” said Larry Kepko, EZIE mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “EZIE is the first mission dedicated exclusively to studying the electrojets, and it does so with a completely new measurement technique.”

    EZIE is the first mission dedicated exclusively to studying the electrojets.

    Larry Kepko
    EZIE mission scientist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

    This technique involves looking at microwave emission from oxygen molecules about 10 miles (16 kilometers) below the electrojets. Normally, oxygen molecules emit microwaves at a frequency of 118 Gigahertz. However, the electrojets create a magnetic field that can split apart that 118 Gigahertz emission line in a process called Zeeman splitting. The stronger the magnetic field, the farther apart the line is split.
    Each of the three EZIE spacecraft will carry an instrument called the Microwave Electrojet Magnetogram to observe the Zeeman effect and measure the strength and direction of the electrojets’ magnetic fields. Built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, each of these instruments will use four antennas pointed at different angles to survey the magnetic fields along four different tracks as EZIE orbits.
    The technology used in the Microwave Electrojet Magnetograms was originally developed to study Earth’s atmosphere and weather systems. Engineers at JPL had reduced the size of the radio detectors so they could fit on small satellites, including NASA’s TEMPEST-D and CubeRRT missions, and improved the components that separate light into specific wavelengths.

    The electrojets flow through a region that is difficult to study directly, as it’s too high for scientific balloons to reach but too low for satellites to dwell.
    “The utilization of the Zeeman technique to remotely map current-induced magnetic fields is really a game-changing approach to get these measurements at an altitude that is notoriously difficult to measure,” said Sam Yee, EZIE’s principal investigator at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.
    The mission is also including citizen scientists to enhance its research, distributing dozens of EZIE-Mag magnetometer kits to students in the U.S. and volunteers around the world to compare EZIE’s observations to those from Earth. “EZIE scientists will be collecting magnetic field data from above, and the students will be collecting magnetic field data from the ground,” said Nelli Mosavi-Hoyer, EZIE project manager at APL.

    EZIE scientists will be collecting magnetic field data from above, and the students will be collecting magnetic field data from the ground.

    Nelli Mosavi-Hoyer
    EZIE project manager, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

    The EZIE spacecraft will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as part of the Transporter-13 rideshare mission with SpaceX via launch integrator Maverick Space Systems.
    The mission will launch during what’s known as solar maximum — a phase during the 11-year solar cycle when the Sun’s activity is stronger and more frequent. This is an advantage for EZIE’s science.
    “It’s better to launch during solar max,” Kepko said. “The electrojets respond directly to solar activity.”
    The EZIE mission will also work alongside other NASA heliophysics missions, including PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere), launching in late February to study how material in the Sun’s outer atmosphere becomes the solar wind.
    According to Yee, EZIE’s CubeSat mission not only allows scientists to address compelling questions that have not been able to answer for decades but also demonstrates that great science can be achieved cost-effectively.
    “We’re leveraging the new capability of CubeSats,” Kepko added. “This is a mission that couldn’t have flown a decade ago. It’s pushing the envelope of what is possible, all on a small satellite. It’s exciting to think about what we will discover.”
    The EZIE mission is funded by the Heliophysics Division within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA Goddard. APL leads the mission for NASA. Blue Canyon Technologies in Boulder, Colorado, built the CubeSats.
    by Vanessa ThomasNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
    Header Image:An artist’s concept shows the three EZIE satellites orbiting Earth.Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Newsom issues statement on federal investments in Sites Reservoir

    Source: US State of California 2

    Feb 25, 2025

    What you need to know: Governor Newsom today issued a statement in response to the Trump administration’s announcement that it had released more than $315 million of obligated money to create new water storage at the future Sites Reservoir and at the existing San Luis Reservoir. 

    SACRAMENTO — Today, Governor Newsom celebrated the release of funding by the Trump Administration for the state’s Sites Reservoir Project and the existing San Luis Reservoir

    “We are grateful for this shared priority with the Trump Administration as we move forward together to build critical infrastructure to improve water storage.”

    Governor Gavin Newsom

    The Sites Reservoir will capture water during wet seasons and store it for use during drier seasons – holding up to 1.5 million acre-feet of water, enough to supply over 4.5 million homes for a year. It has received a total of $46.75 million in early funding from the state. In all, Sites is eligible for $875.4 million of Proposition 1 funding. The total project cost is estimated at $4 billion. Governor Newsom streamlined the project late last year, defeating a CEQA legal challenge and preserving that victory on appeal. Today’s funding was awarded during the Biden administration and released by President Trump today. More information about the project can be found at build.ca.gov.

    Recent news

    Feb 25, 2025

    News What you need to know: More than 9,000 properties were cleared of hazardous materials in less than 30 days – marking the fastest-ever hazardous debris removal effort in the nation. LOS ANGELES – In less than 30 days, federal and state crews have substantially…

    Feb 25, 2025

    News 23 new sites now available for development What you need to know: Governor Newsom is expanding access to the state’s program to create new housing on underutilized state property by streamlining the effort. Today the Governor launched a revamped Excess Sites…

    Feb 24, 2025

    News Releases $920 million in additional homelessness funding   What you need to know: Governor Newsom today announced stronger accountability measures to hold local governments accountable if they fail to make progress in addressing homelessness. The Governor also…

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Akamai Arrival

    Source: US State of Hawaii

    Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture Declaration Form

    ALOHA AND WELCOME TO HAWAI‘I!

    Many plants and animals from elsewhere in the world can be harmful to our unique environment, agriculture, and communities. Please help to protect Hawai‘i by not bringing harmful pests into our state.

    YOU ARE REQUIRED BY STATE LAW TO FILL OUT THIS AGRICULTURAL DECLARATION FORM FOR ALL INBOUND FLIGHTS FROM THE CONTINENTAL U.S. TO HAWAIʻI.

    Any person who defaces this declaration form, gives false information, or fails to declare, prohibited or restricted articles in their possession, including baggage, or fails to declare these items on cargo manifests is in violation of Chapter 150A, Hawaii Revised Statutes, and may be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable, in certain instances, by a maximum penalty of $25,000 and/or up to one year imprisonment. Intentionally smuggling a snake or other prohibited or restricted article into Hawaiʻi is, in certain circumstances, a Class C felony punishable by a maximum penalty of $200,000 and/or up to five years imprisonment.

    One adult member of a family may complete this declaration for other family members.

    The Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture (“HDOA”) is committed to maintaining an environment free from discrimination, retaliation, or harassment on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, or disability, or any other class as protected under federal or state law, with respect to any program or activity. For more information, including language accessibility and filing a complaint, please contact the HDOA Non-Discrimination Coordinator at (808) 973-9560, or visit HDOA’s website at https://hdoa.hawaii.gov/non-discrimination-notice/#english

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Los Angeles wildfire hazardous debris cleanup reaches substantial completion in record time

    Source: US State of California 2

    Feb 25, 2025

    What you need to know: More than 9,000 properties were cleared of hazardous materials in less than 30 days – marking the fastest-ever hazardous debris removal effort in the nation.

    LOS ANGELES – In less than 30 days, federal and state crews have substantially completed wildfire hazardous debris cleanup for the Eaton and Palisades fires, as part of broader efforts to help Los Angeles firestorm survivors recover and rebuild at a record pace. 

    U.S. EPA crews, working alongside state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) personnel and the U.S. Department of Defense, have reached 99% completion, with around 100 harder-to-access properties remaining. Crews have assessed and cleaned up thousands of residential parcels – clearing more than 9,000 properties of hazardous materials. 

    Phase 1 prioritizes the removal of household hazardous waste, which was necessary to begin Phase 2 clearing of structural debris. Governor Gavin Newsom joined federal, state and local leaders to launch that important second phase of work and mark the swift progress of cleanup efforts.   

    Thanks to the hard work and dedication of hundreds of federal and state crews, the first phase of debris cleanup is coming to a close and we can turn our focus fully to structural debris removal. Under the leadership of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, crews cleaned hazardous waste from thousands of properties in less than 30 days, a record pace never seen before at this scale.

    We’re working hand-in-hand with President Trump and his administration to clear debris as fast as possible to get Angelenos back to their properties to start rebuilding.

    Governor Gavin Newsom

    By the numbers

    Historic recovery and rebuilding efforts — faster than ever before

    • Cutting red tape to help rebuild Los Angeles faster and stronger. Governor Newsom issued an executive order to streamline the rebuilding of homes and businesses destroyed — suspending permitting and review requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the California Coastal Act. The Governor also issued an executive order further cutting red tape by reiterating that permitting requirements under the California Coastal Act are suspended for rebuilding efforts and directing the Coastal Commission not to issue guidance or take any action that interferes with or conflicts with the Governor’s executive orders. Additionally, he signed an executive order to cut more red tape and continue streamlining rebuilding, recovery, and relief for survivors. The Governor also issued an executive order removing bureaucratic barriers, extending deadlines, and providing critical regulatory relief to help fire survivors rebuild, access essential services, and recover more quickly.
    • Providing tax and mortgage relief to those impacted by the fires. California postponed the individual tax filing deadline to October 15 for Los Angeles County taxpayers. Additionally, the state extended the January 31, 2025, sales and use tax filing deadline for Los Angeles County taxpayers until April 30 — providing critical tax relief for businesses. Governor Newsom suspended penalties and interest on late property tax payments for a year, effectively extending the state property tax deadline. The Governor also worked with state– and federally-chartered banks that have committed to providing mortgage relief for survivors in certain zip codes. For additional relief, Governor Newsom is sponsoring new legislation to allow homeowners who receive insurance payments for lost or damaged property to receive the interest accrued rather than lenders. The Governor is also proposing to create an over $125 million mortgage relief program to assist homeowners whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged by recent natural disasters, placing them at risk of foreclosure.  
    • Fast-tracking temporary housing and protecting tenants. To help provide necessary shelter for those immediately impacted by the firestorms, the Governor issued an executive order to make it easier to streamline construction of accessory dwelling units, allow for more temporary trailers and other housing, and suspend fees for mobile home parks. Governor Newsom also issued an executive order that prohibits landlords in Los Angeles County from evicting tenants for sharing their rental with survivors displaced by the Los Angeles-area firestorms.
    • Mobilizing debris removal and cleanup. With an eye toward recovery, the Governor directed fast action on debris removal work and mitigating the potential for mudslides and flooding in areas burned. He also signed an executive order to allow expert federal hazmat crews to start cleaning up properties as a key step in getting people back to their properties safely. The Governor also issued an executive order to help mitigate risk of mudslides and flooding and protect communities by hastening efforts to remove debris, bolster flood defenses, and stabilize hillsides in affected areas. Governor Newsom joined federal and local partners to begin work on structural debris removal — just 35 days after the start of the fires, a record-breaking pace for cleanup. 
    • Safeguarding survivors from price gouging. Governor Newsom expanded restrictions to protect survivors from illegal price hikes on rent, hotel and motel costs, and building materials or construction. Report violations to the Office of the Attorney General here.
    • Directing immediate state relief. The Governor signed legislation providing over $2.5 billion to immediately support ongoing emergency response efforts and to jumpstart recovery efforts for Los Angeles. California quickly launched CA.gov/LAfires as a single hub of information and resources to support those impacted and bolsters in-person Disaster Recovery Centers. That website features a dashboard tracking recovery efforts and a recovery services finder to help connect survivors with help. The Governor also launched LA Rises, a unified recovery initiative that brings together private sector leaders to support rebuilding efforts. Governor Newsom announced that individuals and families directly impacted by the recent fires living in certain zip codes may be eligible to receive Disaster CalFresh food benefits.
    • Getting kids back in the classroom and supporting childcare providers. Governor Newsom signed an executive order to quickly assist displaced students in the Los Angeles area and bolster schools affected by the firestorms. Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to ensure that childcare providers are aware of their potential eligibility for Disaster Unemployment Assistance and have the support needed to apply.
    • Protecting victims from real estate speculators. The Governor issued an executive order to protect firestorm victims from predatory land speculators making aggressive and unsolicited cash offers to purchase their property.

    Helping businesses and workers get back on their feet. The Governor issued an executive order to support small businesses and workers, by providing relief to help businesses recover quickly by deferring annual licensing fees and waiving other requirements that may impose barriers to recovery.

    Press Releases, Recent News

    Recent news

    Feb 25, 2025

    News 23 new sites now available for development What you need to know: Governor Newsom is expanding access to the state’s program to create new housing on underutilized state property by streamlining the effort. Today the Governor launched a revamped Excess Sites…

    Feb 24, 2025

    News Releases $920 million in additional homelessness funding   What you need to know: Governor Newsom today announced stronger accountability measures to hold local governments accountable if they fail to make progress in addressing homelessness. The Governor also…

    Feb 23, 2025

    News Pilot program to help LA recover and rebuild together What you need to know: Governor Newsom will debut a first-in-the-nation deliberative democracy program to help community members directly influence and inform the ongoing Los Angeles firestorm rebuilding and…

    MIL OSI USA News –