Category: Americas

MIL-OSI Europe: Piero Cipollone: Monetary sovereignty in the digital age: the case for a digital euro

Source: European Central Bank

Keynote speech by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Economics of Payments XIII Conference organised by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank

Vienna, 27 September 2024

Money plays a fundamental role in society, driving economic activity and enabling daily transactions.^[1] Money in physical form, cash, remains the most frequently used means of payment in stores, especially for lower value transactions. But more and more people are using money in digital form. An average of 379 million retail transactions are made digitally in the euro area every day.^[2]

Given money’s importance for our material and social well-being, the regulation of money has long been considered a cornerstone of state sovereignty. As the influential French jurist and political philosopher Jean Bodin observed in the 16th century, “only he who has the power to make law can regulate the coinage.”^[3]

Today, legislators continue to regulate the use of money and they have entrusted central banks with issuing public money and maintaining confidence in the monetary system.

At the European Central Bank (ECB), we issue money that can be used to settle wholesale and retail transactions throughout the euro area, thereby guaranteeing the singleness of money across the monetary union. And we ensure that the euro remains a safe, stable and effective medium of exchange and store of value. This provides an essential anchor for the economy and the financial system.

The Eurosystem has made significant progress in integrating wholesale transactions, largely thanks to the robust payment infrastructure it provides. The Eurosystem’s real-time gross settlement system T2, for instance, processes a value close to the entire euro area GDP on a weekly basis, and it has established itself as a leading global payment system.

In parallel, euro banknotes are accepted for retail payments across the euro area. They have become a symbol of European integration and freedom^[4], uniting us and strengthening our collective identity as Europeans.

But while central banks have long offered digital settlement in central bank money for wholesale transactions, we do not yet have a digital form of cash.

This is becoming increasingly problematic because the use and acceptance of cash are declining. In the euro area, cash transactions have fallen below card transactions in value.^[5] And the share of companies reporting that they do not accept cash has tripled in the last three years to 12%.^[6] The European Commission has therefore put forward a legislative proposal to ensure the acceptance of cash^[7] and the ECB is committed to keeping euro cash widely available and accessible.^[8] Still, the trend towards less use of banknotes for daily transactions is likely to continue, reflecting the digitalisation of economic activity and mirroring patterns observed in many advanced economies.

Moreover, digital payments in the euro area remain fragmented, both along national lines and in terms of use cases. Current European digital payment solutions mainly cater to national markets and specific use cases. To pay across European countries, consumers have to rely on a few non-European providers, which now dominate most of these transactions. And even those providers’ payment solutions are not accepted everywhere and do not cover all key use cases (payments in shops, from person to person and online).

So a key objective of central bank money – to offer the public a means of payment backed by the sovereign authority that can be used for retail transactions across the jurisdiction – is not being fulfilled in the euro area’s digital space. This is all the more awkward given that some euro area countries have made it mandatory to accept digital means of payment, for instance in a bid to combat tax evasion.

In addition, European payments have become a prime example of the situation that Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi have described in their recent reports.^[9] The fragmentation of the market, the lack of European payment solutions available on a European scale and the difficulty faced by European payment service providers in keeping pace with technological advances^[10] means that Europe is not competitive within its own market, let alone on a global scale.

Moreover, in an unstable geopolitical environment, we are being left to rely on companies based in other countries. Today’s dependency on US companies could in future develop into reliance on companies from countries other than the United States. Platforms like Ant Group’s Alipay have demonstrated their ability to bridge geographical gaps: during major events like UEFA EURO 2024 they were able to boost their payment app usage among customers in Europe.^[11]

We must move swiftly to address the risks stemming from Europe’s current inability to secure the integration and autonomy of its retail payment system. This is a key motivation behind the digital euro project: bringing central bank money into the digital age would provide a digital equivalent to banknotes and strengthen our monetary sovereignty.

Today, I will outline the policy challenges we face as digitalisation reinforces the two-sided nature of the payments market. I will then discuss how the introduction of a digital euro could make a significant difference. By designing the digital euro to meet the diverse needs of consumers, merchants and payment service providers, we can ensure its widespread adoption. This, in turn, will empower us to pursue strategic goals such as innovation, integration and independence, ultimately enhancing our economic efficiency, resilience and sovereignty.

The retail payments market: a two-sided marketplace

To fully appreciate why we have been failing to overcome fragmentation and why the digital euro would be a game changer, we must first understand the structure of the retail payments market as a two-sided marketplace.

Retail payment systems act as vital intermediaries connecting two key participants – merchants and consumers – whose transactions are facilitated by payment service providers.^[12] The defining feature of this marketplace is that interactions between participants generate network effects, where the value for each group increases as more participants join the other side. Consider the telephone system: its utility grows with each new user. However, on the downside, this also creates a challenging chicken-and-egg dilemma. Platforms need a critical mass of users to attract additional participants, but they struggle to achieve scale without that initial user base.

That is why platforms with existing large user bases have an advantage in entering such markets. Indeed, the strength of network effects is amplified when platforms expand their range of activities, thereby broadening their user base.

Technological innovation and the rise of digital platforms managed by major tech companies are expected to further exacerbate these dynamics. Big techs conduct business in finance in a unique way, drawing on three mutually reinforcing components: data analytics, network effects and interconnected activities.^[13] Network effects help big techs gather more data, which enhances their analytics. Better analytics improve services and attract more users, allowing them to offer more services and gather even more data.

As a result, payment apps provided by big techs have become especially popular in emerging markets and developing economies.^[14] Take China, for example. Its financial system has largely disintermediated banks from payment transactions. Instead, big techs have leveraged the widespread use of mobile apps, integrating social interactions and shopping experiences to offer users seamless digital payment methods.^[15] What is even more problematic is that these companies operate closed-loop payment systems, in contrast to international card schemes’ open-loop systems. In a closed-loop system, consumers load money onto their Alipay account, for example, and pay by scanning the merchant’s Alipay QR code. As a result, funds are transferred directly from the consumer to the merchant, bypassing the traditional system of banks and network processors. Only the owner of the closed-loop system has access to the payment data. This challenges the traditional banking model, which relies on customer data and relationships to function effectively, and also has an impact on how credit is extended to the economy.^[16] There is a risk that the closed-loop systems developed by successful online platforms and big tech companies could, in future, create a parallel economy with their own currencies and distinct units of account.

At global level, big techs such as PayPal and Apple have developed highly successful ecosystems based on the closed-loop financial services model. By encouraging people to use their payment apps, these ecosystems effectively oblige them to use their payment rails. In parallel, payment platforms have tried to become more integrated in social media giants like WhatsApp and Meta^[17]. Platforms like X (formerly Twitter) are considering offering payment functions.^[18] And Amazon is now venturing into the credit card and payment app business too. These examples illustrate how these firms can exploit customer networks to create cross-subsidised links between various services.^[19]

However, while network effects can foster a virtuous cycle of economic growth, they also pose significant risks.

In particular, walled gardens or lack of interoperability between various solutions can result in market fragmentation. Technology can be used to exclude competitors – for example, by preferencing a platform’s own products or restricting competing services – and so can skew the competitive landscape in favour of a dominant player. And these dynamics could further raise the barriers to enter and grow in the two-sided payments market, stifling competition and making it even more difficult for European payment solutions to emerge on a pan-European scale.

There is thus a risk that the current dynamics, where big tech companies seek to exploit the power of their platforms to expand in payments, could exacerbate the challenges facing the European retail payments market in terms of integration and the ability of European solutions to compete and innovate at scale.

Addressing market failures through European policy actions

Since the creation of the monetary union, European policymakers have taken significant steps to foster the development of private European payment initiatives that span the euro area. The hope was that these initiatives could enhance competition within the European payments landscape, providing consumers and businesses with more choice and better services.

From the launch of the Single Euro Payments Area to the recent adoption of the Instant Payments Regulation, the European Commission^[20] and ECB^[21] have worked with the private sector to support integration, innovation and the creation of a pan-European retail payment solution.

Yet, despite these efforts, more than 30 years since the inception of the Single Market and 25 years since the launch of the single currency, most European retail payment solutions remain national in scope, addressing only limited use cases. Moreover, 13 out of 20 euro area countries rely entirely on non-European solutions in the absence of their own domestic payment scheme.

As a result, people who live, work, travel or shop online in other euro area countries find themselves effectively dependent on two international card schemes, which enjoy strong market power. This situation discourages small businesses from expanding across borders or even into their national online markets, ultimately hindering the deepening of the Single Market.^[22] And paradoxically, the benefits from the efforts we make to lower the barriers to trade in European product markets may not fully reach consumers, as they are absorbed in the form of higher profits by the few international players that currently enable payments in stores and online across Europe.

Rather than joining forces and sharing resources to develop successful pan-European solutions, national communities have often preferred to preserve the legacy of investments made in the past.^[23] This reluctance has allowed a few major global players not only to dominate cross-border European payment transactions, but also to steadily capture an even larger share of domestic transactions. The result is that international payment schemes operated by non-European operators today facilitate 64% of all electronically initiated transactions with cards issued in the euro area.^[24]

Merchants – and consumers, to whom costs are eventually passed on – are left to deal with the consequences of the international card schemes’ market dominance.

For instance, the average net merchant service charges in the EU nearly doubled from 0.27% in 2018 to 0.44% in 2022.^[25] This increase occurred despite regulatory efforts to contain it^[26], as international card schemes exploited their strong negotiating position to raise the non-regulated components of the merchant service charge, such as scheme fees.^[27] As a result, every year, European merchants collectively transfer large amounts to international card networks.^[28] The cost falls disproportionately on smaller retailers, who face charges that are three to four times higher than those paid by their larger counterparts.^[29]

This situation has raised concerns among European businesses of all sizes.^[30] While the EU competition authorities can take effective action, they usually do so after dominance has been established. Moreover, they have to deal with the complexities of regulating payment networks.^[31]

This trend highlights broader competitiveness issues that have emerged across various markets. In Canada, class action lawsuits alleging collusion to set higher interchange fees have been filed against certain banks as well as Visa and Mastercard.^[32] In the United Kingdom, the Payment Systems Regulator has provisionally concluded that there is insufficient competition in the card payments market. This lack of competition allows the two largest schemes to raise fees.^[33] Similarly, the United States Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit earlier this week against Visa, claiming that Visa’s exclusionary and anticompetitive conduct undermines choice and innovation in payments and imposes enormous costs on consumers, merchants and the American economy.^[34] It emphasised that Visa extracts fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market and amount to a hidden toll adding up to billions of dollars imposed annually on American consumers and businesses. And because merchants and banks pass on those costs to consumers, Visa’s conduct affects not just the price of one thing, but the price of nearly everything.^[35]

The fact that these issues are not unique to Europe offers little comfort, particularly when considering that, unlike in the United States, this situation poses a risk to our monetary sovereignty.

The excessive dependence on foreign entities in the European payments sector threatens the autonomy and resilience of European payment services. Without decisive public action, this dependence is likely to worsen. New foreign players – including from China^[36], Brazil^[37] and India^[38] – are seeking to enter, or increase their footprint in, the European market.

While foreign competition is welcome, we cannot be satisfied that Europeans do not have their own digital payments solution allowing them to pay throughout the euro area. And we need to be careful that foreign central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) do not end up eroding the international role of the euro, especially as some jurisdictions are thinking about allowing their CBDCs to be used abroad.^[39]

European policymakers – and particularly the ECB – have recognised this challenge. In response, we have initiated the digital euro project, which is currently in the preparation phase.^[40]

Digital euro: addressing fragmentation and delivering tangible benefits

The digital euro project is a crucial step towards enhancing Europe’s payments landscape and safeguarding our monetary sovereignty.

By ensuring everyone across the euro area would have access to central bank money in digital form, the project aims to provide tangible benefits to consumers, merchants and payment service providers alike.

Benefits for consumers and merchants

Complementing banknotes, the digital euro would offer all European citizens and firms the freedom to make and receive digital payments seamlessly.

During my recent hearing before the European Parliament^[41], I extensively discussed the benefits of the digital euro for consumers, particularly in terms of the convenience it would offer. The digital euro would provide a single, easy, secure and universally accepted public solution for digital payments in stores, online and from person to person. It would be available both online and offline. And it would be free for basic use.

At the hearing, I also highlighted how the digital euro would provide merchants with seamless access to Europe’s consumer base. Moreover, it would offer an alternative that would increase competition, thereby lowering transaction costs in a more direct way than regulations and competition authorities can.^[42]

Fostering competition and innovation in a unified payments ecosystem

The digital euro would also generate broader benefits for the euro area economy by fostering competition and innovation.

European payment service providers are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with international card schemes and e-payment solutions. For example, Apple Pay has significantly expanded its reach in Europe, capturing a portion of interchange fees, which represents a “significant expense”^[43] for issuing banks. As a result, banks risk missing out on not only interchange fees but also client relationships and user data.

By contrast, the digital euro would ensure that distribution would remain with payment service providers, allowing them to maintain customer relationships and be compensated for their services, as is currently the case.^[44] It would also offer an alternative to co-branding with international card schemes for cross-border payments in – and potentially beyond – the euro area, thus promoting competition.

The digital euro would also expand opportunities for payment service providers while reducing the cost of rolling out solutions on a European scale. In addition, it would cultivate an environment conducive to the widespread adoption of payment innovations throughout Europe.

Currently, several innovations aimed at simplifying payments are emerging within specific national markets or across a few countries, driven by European payment service providers. Although these innovations are highly commendable and would enhance people’s lives, existing structural barriers mean they would encounter considerable obstacles in trying to achieve pan-European scale. This fragmentation along national lines further impedes private participants’ ability to achieve the scale required in a two-sided market like the payments market.

What is the end result? By failing to implement large-scale innovations accessible to everyone in the euro area, these companies are unable to achieve the optimal scale needed for continuous investment in new technology. This limits their ability to compete effectively with the large international players who can fully leverage economies of scale, even on a global level.

According to the European Commission’s legislative proposal^[45], the digital euro’s legal tender status – which would require merchants to accept the digital euro for electronic payments – and mandatory distribution would help overcome the challenges of achieving sufficient scale in a two-sided marketplace by ensuring widespread accessibility and acceptance across the euro area. This legal tender status, combined with the digital euro rulebook, would establish common standards, which are not in place today.

Let me use an example to explain this in simpler terms. At the moment, in-store payment terminals often use technology known as the “kernel”^[46], provided by Mastercard and Visa, to enable contactless (near field communication) transactions. Although domestic card schemes can currently access this technology for free, multi-country European card schemes cannot. Moreover, this free-of-charge policy could change at any time.

In the future, all stores would be required to accept the digital euro, meaning payment terminals would need to support its standard. According to the draft regulation, the standard would have to be made available for reuse by private parties, who could use it to develop their services. This would mean that all payment terminals in Europe that support digital euro transactions would be equipped with a scheme-agnostic kernel. This open system would be accessible to both regional and domestic European payment schemes, thereby allowing customers to make contactless payments throughout the euro area.

This would advance a more integrated European payments market. As private providers expand their geographical footprint and diversify their product portfolios, they will benefit from cost efficiencies and be better positioned to compete internationally.

In essence, the network effects generated by a digital euro would function as a public good, benefiting both public and private initiatives. This approach is akin to creating a unified European railway network or European energy grid, where various companies could competitively operate their own services and deliver added value to customers.

Instead of requiring significant investment to expand existing services across the euro area, the open digital euro standards would facilitate cost-effective standardisation, making it possible for private retail payment solution providers to launch new products and functionalities on a broader scale.

Ultimately, whether through the digital euro or private solutions, this standardised framework would unlock innovation, create new business opportunities and improve consumer access to a diverse range of goods and services.

Making this vision a shared reality

The design of the digital euro, as well as the key provision in the Regulation proposed by the European Commission, contains all the key elements required to make this vision a reality.

Over the past years, we have extensively engaged with a multitude of market stakeholders, including through the Rulebook Development Group^[47] and the Euro Retail Payments Board, to shape the digital euro value proposition and prepare its implementation. We have collected and discussed the input of the payments ecosystem at large, including from representatives of consumers, merchants, banks and other payment service providers.

In the coming months we will expand our cooperation with the private sector, focusing on three main themes: how to create a more competitive environment to encourage innovation and offer consumers more choice, how to best identify and leverage synergies to enhance efficiency and create mutually beneficial opportunities across the payments ecosystem, and how to strengthen the business models of all stakeholders, ensuring they can adapt and thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Each of these value drivers will be discussed in depth, taking into account the different roles in the payment chain, including those of issuing banks and third-party providers. By adopting this inclusive approach, we can ensure that everyone’s needs and perspectives are addressed, paving the way for a more robust and dynamic payments system.

Conclusion

Let me conclude. Money is key to sovereignty, a reality that resonates more than ever in the digital age.

Some 63 countries are now operating, piloting, developing or exploring retail CBDCs.^[48] Meanwhile, major private payment solutions are expanding globally and some nations may even seek to leverage crypto-assets, with figures such as US presidential candidate Donald Trump promising to make the United States a “Bitcoin superpower”.^[49]

In this fast-moving environment, Europe cannot stand still. And the role of the ECB in issuing money that is accepted throughout the euro area is particularly crucial in a monetary union where payments markets remain fragmented along national lines.

We are committed to ensuring that people in Europe can continue to use cash.^[50] However, we cannot stand by and watch as individuals are unable to use central bank money for their daily digital transactions.

Bringing central bank money into a digitalised world through the digital euro would safeguard our monetary sovereignty in the digital age. It would overcome fragmentation by offering money that can be used for any digital payments in the euro area, foster competition and innovation by facilitating the development of pan-European payments services and strengthen our autonomy and resilience by helping us avoid becoming over-reliant on foreign payment solutions.

Thank you for your attention.

MIL OSI Europe News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: Update 11: DEP continues to evaluate Brunswick’s soil and water sample results

Source: US State of Maine

September 26, 2024

CONTACT:

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) sampled 34 water supplies for PFAS in the identified target area along Coombs Road, and the Department is in receipt of most of the analysis results. Property owners have been contacted by Department personnel to discuss their results, and they will be provided copies of the laboratory testing report. All samples analyzed to date are below the Maine Interim Drinking Water Guideline of 20 parts per trillion (same as nanograms per liter or ng/L) for the Sum of Six PFAS (PFOS + PFOA + PFHpA + PFNA + PFHxS, + PFDA). These same water supplies will be tested by the DEP every three months for one year. The next round of testing for these water supplies is planned for December 2024. Department staff have evaluated eight rounds of surface water results collected from the Merriconeag Stream watershed documenting conditions following the AFFF release that occurred on August 19, 2024. Most concentrations continue to decline throughout the watershed, and the highest concentrations are still being detected below the Picnic Pond outflow. Four rounds of data from Harpswell Cove have been received by the Department and indicate contamination has reached the marine environment but is quickly being diluted to low concentrations. PFAS levels in the watershed have not yet returned to pre-spill concentrations and testing of surface water will continue to track the trends.

Soil results have been received from four areas that were identified as either the most likely to be impacted from the AFFF release or those with the greatest risk for potential exposure to recreational users. They include the soils adjacent to Hangar Four and immediately around the oil water separator, the field north of the outdoor athletic complex, soils surrounding the outdoor athletic complex, and the field southeast of Pond B where appreciable amounts of wind-blown foam accumulated on the day of the AFFF release. Preliminary review of the analytical results identified some PFAS detections in all area soils that were tested. Soil concentrations at the Hanger Four area and athletic complex were only slightly above background soil levels for urban developed soils and were well below the States Remedial Action Guidelines for a park user exposure scenarios (see the PFAS Soil Remedial Action Guidelines in the Maine PFAS Screening Levels Document). The field southeast of Pond B where appreciable amounts of wind-blown foam accumulated on the day of the AFFF release was found to have the soil concentrations of PFAS well above background levels but still lower than the States Remedial Action Guidelines for the park user exposure scenario. This field is owned by the Navy and is posted with no trespassing signs. A comprehensive evaluation of the soil testing results by the Department and its partner agencies is ongoing.

DEP personnel also sampled four locations on the Androscoggin River in Topsham and Brunswick, following the release of AFFF at the Brunswick Executive Airport. There was concern that PFAS from the spill made its way to the Brunswick wastewater treatment plant (Brunswick Sewer District) and was discharged to the Androscoggin River. Sample results from the Brunswick Sewer District are pending. An upstream control site (ART) was established upstream of the Fort Andros dam and approximately 3.2 km upstream of the discharge. Three sites were established downstream of the discharge, including ARB 1 (~300m downstream of the discharge), ARB2 (~2 km downstream of the discharge), and ARB3 (~3.2 km downstream of the discharge). ARB3 is also downstream of a small stream the drains the north side of the airport and former navy base. The Department also sampled two smaller streams on the south side of the base that were impacted by the AFFF spill. Merriconeag Stream was sampled at one location (MEB), downstream of Picnic Pond and Purinton Road. Merriconeag Stream eventually joins the larger Mare Brook. An upstream control site on Mare Brook (MAB0) was established at Meadowbrook Road and a downstream site was established below the confluence of Mare Brook and Merriconeag Stream (MAB2).

The primary kind of PFAS associated with the AFFF spill is perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). Most rivers and streams in remote parts of the Maine have <1 ng/L (parts per trillion, ppt) of PFOS in the water. In contrast, rivers and streams in more densely populated areas of Maine near landfills, wastewater treatment plants, airports, and agricultural fields with historic spreading of PFAS contaminated biosolids typically have <5 ng/L of PFOS in the water. PFOS samples from all four sites on the Androscoggin River (ART, ARB1, ARB2, and ARB3) had <4 ng/L of PFOS. The upstream site on Mare Brook (MAB0) had 2.84 ng/L of PFOS on 8/28. In contrast, Merriconeag Stream (MEB) had 39,300 ng/L of PFOS on 9/4. The downstream site on Mare Brook (MAB2) had a lower concentration than MEB but still had 6,480 ng/L of PFOS on 9/4. U.S. EPA recently established a standard of 4 ng/L of PFOS for drinking water. All of the samples from the Androscoggin River and the upstream site on Mare Brook (MAB0) had concentrations of <4 ng/L of PFOS.

Fish and shellfish tissue samples inherently take longer to process than water samples. Processing tissue samples requires additional challenging steps, including homogenizing, subsampling, and extracting PFAS from tissue and putting the PFAS in a liquid. In addition, there are fewer labs capable of analyzing fish and shellfish samples compared to the number of labs capable of analyzing water samples. The combination of a more complicated laboratory protocol for tissue samples and a shortage of labs capable of analyzing fish and shellfish samples has resulted in a turn-around time of several months for processing fish and shellfish samples.

The rain that fell today is the first significant precipitation event that has occurred since the August AFFF spill. Increased site inspections were carried out as a result, and no foam was observed or collected at any of the preestablished points. Tomorrow, a second site inspection is planned as a precaution.

The last of the PFAS-impacted water which has been stored in frac tanks near Hanger 4 has been completely removed. Approximately 30,000 gallons of impacted water was collected and transported out of state.

The Town of Brunswick and Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (MRRA) have collaborated to add an opt-in notification list through the Town’s Notify Me service. The “Brunswick Landing/MRRA” notification list will provide information, news, and alerts supplied by MRRA to subscribers via email and/or text message.

To sign up for this notification service, please visit the Towns website (www.brunswickme.gov) and click on the Notify Me link.

Brunswick Landing receives its public drinking water supply from the Brunswick-Topsham Water District (BTWD), and has been confirmed safe to drink. The public water supply has not been impacted by this incident. Homes and businesses served by the BTWD can safely use the water.

The Maine CDC advises the public to exercise caution and abstain from any recreational activities (such as swimming, boating, and wading) that may come into contact with the foam or waters until the possible effects of the AFFF release on waterbodies in the vicinity have been thoroughly evaluated.

The next update will be issued as soon as additional test results become available.

For additional information, contact: David R. Madore, Deputy Commissioner david.madore@maine.gov

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Economics: Co-Chairs’ Press Release 7th ASEAN-Pacific Alliance Ministerial Meeting

Source: ASEAN

New York, 25 September 2024 – ASEAN and the Pacific Alliance welcomed the Ministerial Meeting between the two regional mechanisms during the 7th ASEAN-Pacific Alliance Ministerial Meeting, held on 25 September 2024 on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City, USA. The Meeting was co-chaired by H.E. Enrique A. Manalo, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines, and H.E. Alberto van Klaveren, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Chile and was the first high level in-person interaction between ASEAN and the Pacific Alliance after their last Ministerial Meeting in September 2019.
Acknowledging global challenges including post-pandemic economic recovery, climate change and disruptive technologies, the Ministers stressed the importance of continued inter-regional cooperation in mutually beneficial areas for the peoples of the two regions. In particular, the Ministers emphasised the importance of promoting free trade, digital economy, and people-to-people exchange. They also expressed continued support to the Micro, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (MSMEs) as a vital driving force of the economies of both regions.
The Ministers reviewed the progress of the implementation of the ASEAN-Pacific Alliance (PA) Work Plan (2021-2025), following its adoption in November 2021, and underscored the need to further enhance ASEAN-Pacific Alliance cooperation in the areas of mutual interest, as may be mutually agreed, including trade and investment, digital economy, MSMEs, tourism, education and cultural exchange, people-to-people engagement, science and technology, and sustainable development. The Ministers also took special note of the virtual forum held on 26 June 2024, under the working theme “Mainstreaming Gender Equality: Sharing best practices between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Pacific Alliance”, where both regional blocs reviewed the importance of sex disaggregated data to push forward women’s economic empowerment, and shared the efforts made to mainstreaming the gender perspective in our regions, including the main regional strategies on inclusive trade.
The Ministers updated the ASEAN-Pacific Alliance Framework Agreement for Cooperation (FAC), adopted in September 2016, by endorsing the addendum to formally acknowledge that the National Coordinators of the Pacific Alliance subsumed the role of the Group of External Relations of the Pacific Alliance since July 2019. Both sides shared the relevance of institutionalizing the changes by revisiting the FAC periodically.
The Ministers noted the recent developments in ASEAN and the Pacific Alliance, including the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and Related Meetings in July 2024, the upcoming 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits in October 2024 and the Pacific Alliance Presidential Summit next December in Chile, and the progress on the accession process of Costa Rica as a PA member and Singapore as a PA-associated state.

The post Co-Chairs’ Press Release 7th ASEAN-Pacific Alliance Ministerial Meeting appeared first on ASEAN Main Portal.

MIL OSI Economics –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Economics: stockstrends.co: BaFin warns consumers about website

Source: Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – In English

The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) warns consumers about the website stockstrends.co. According to information available to BaFin, financial and investment services are being provided on this website without the required authorisation.

The operator of the website is StocksTrends Ltd. It provides business addresses in London, United Kingdom, and the British Virgin Islands.
BaFin has warned consumers about several almost identical websites that have come to its attention recently. The homepage of each website begins with the following sentence: “Step Into the Trading Arena With Confidence & [name of website]”.

Anyone providing financial or investment services in Germany may do so only with authorisation from BaFin. However, some companies offer these services without the necessary authorisation. Information on whether a particular company has been granted authorisation by BaFin can be found in BaFin’s database of companies.

The information provided by BaFin is based on section 37 (4) of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz – KWG).

Please be aware:

BaFin, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt – BKA) and the German state criminal police offices (Landeskriminalämter) recommend that consumers seeking to invest money online should exercise the utmost caution and do the necessary research beforehand in order to identify fraud attempts at an early stage.

MIL OSI Economics –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI: OTC Markets Group Welcomes G Mining Ventures Corp. to OTCQX

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of regulated markets for trading 12,000 U.S. and international securities, today announced G Mining Ventures Corp. (TSX: GMIN; OTCQX: GMINF), a precious metals mining company, has qualified to trade on the OTCQX^® Best Market. G Mining Ventures Corp. upgraded to OTCQX from the Pink^® market.

On April 22, 2024, G Mining TZ Corp. (formerly G Mining Ventures Corp.) (“Former GMIN”), Reunion Gold Corporation (“Reunion Gold”) and Greenheart Gold Inc. (“Greenheart”, and collectively with GMIN and Reunion Gold, the “Parties”), entered into an arrangement agreement under which the Parties agreed to complete a plan of arrangement under Section 192 of the Canada Business Corporations Act (the “Arrangement”). Pursuant to the Arrangement, which closed on July 15, 2024, a newly incorporated successor issuer, G Mining Ventures Corp. (“New GMIN”), now holds and manages the combined business of Former GMIN and Reunion Gold.

As a result, shares of Former GMIN ceased trading on the OTCQX on July 17, 2024, and New GMIN shares begins trading today on OTCQX under the symbol “GMINF,” in substitution for the Former GMIN shares. U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the company on www.otcmarkets.com.

Upgrading to the OTCQX Market is an important step for companies seeking to provide transparent trading for their U.S. investors. For companies listed on a qualified international exchange, streamlined market standards enable them to utilize their home market reporting to make their information available in the U.S. To qualify for OTCQX, companies must meet high financial standards, follow best practice corporate governance and demonstrate compliance with applicable securities laws.

“We have seen significant and growing investor interest as our flagship Tocantinzinho Gold Mine in Brazil commenced commercial production in September, the Oko West Project in Guyana delivered a positive Preliminary Economic Assessment, and the acquisition of the CentroGold Project from BHP is targeting completion by Q1 2025. We are very pleased that our graduation to the OTCQX^® Best Market will provide enhanced visibility to U.S. investors and help meet the significant interest from U.S. based investors,” commented Louis-Pierre Gignac, President and CEO of G Mining Ventures.

About G Mining Ventures Corp.
G Mining Ventures Corp. is a mining company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of precious metal projects to capitalize on the value uplift from successful mine development. GMIN is well-positioned to grow into the next mid-tier precious metals producer by leveraging strong access to capital and proven development expertise. GMIN is currently anchored by the Tocantinzinho Gold Project in Brazil and Oko West Project in Guyana, both mining friendly and prospective jurisdictions.

About OTC Markets Group Inc.
OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates regulated markets for trading 12,000 U.S. and international securities. Our data-driven disclosure standards form the foundation of our three public markets: OTCQX^® Best Market, OTCQB^® Venture Market and Pink^® Open Market.

Our OTC Link^® Alternative Trading Systems (ATSs) provide critical market infrastructure that broker-dealers rely on to facilitate trading. Our innovative model offers companies more efficient access to the U.S. financial markets.

OTC Link ATS, OTC Link ECN and OTC Link NQB are each an SEC regulated ATS, operated by OTC Link LLC, a FINRA and SEC registered broker-dealer, member SIPC.

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The MIL Network –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: MHRA approves first medicine for rare immune disease APDS
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has today approved leniolisib phosphate (Joenja) to treat a rare immune disease known as activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta syndrome or APDS in adults and adolescents aged 12-years-old and older who weigh 45kg or more.
APDS is an inherited disorder where the patient is unable to fight infections because the immune system (the body’s natural defences) does not work properly.

The main symptoms usually occur in the first two years of life and include repeated lung infections and a failure to grow and develop normally.

APDS is a long-term debilitating and life-threatening condition due to repeated lung infections that can lead to bronchiectasis (enlargement and inflammation of part of the airways). Patients with APDS are more prone to develop blood cell cancers, like lymphoma.

The recommended dose is 1 tablet twice daily, approximately 12 hours apart in adults and adolescents from 12 years weighing 45 kg or more.

This is also the first time the MHRA has approved a new medicine following an approval by the US Food and Drug Administration FDA. This is because the medicine was approved via a fast-track approval process for medicines, known as the International Recognition Procedure (IRP).

This allows the MHRA to consider the expertise and decision-making of trusted regulatory partners for the benefit of UK patients. In this case, the regulatory partner was the FDA. As a sovereign regulator, the MHRA retains ultimate authority to accept or reject applications submitted under the IRP, ensuring that all medicines meet safety, quality and effectiveness standards to be licensed in the UK.

The MHRA considered the assessment made by the US regulator as part of its own review, facilitating a rapid approval process.

Julian Beach, MHRA Interim Executive Director of Healthcare Quality and Access, said:

We are focused on providing UK patients access to safe and effective medicines in the shortest possible time.

Approval of leniolisib through the IRP means we have facilitated access for people suffering from this serious disease to an effective medicine to fight infections and reduce symptoms of the disease.

This approval means the appropriate regulatory standards of safety, quality and effectivenessof this new medicine have been met.

As with all medicines, we will keep its safety under close review.

The MHRA’s approval of the medicine is supported by evidence from a placebo-controlled study, carried out over 12-weeks. This study was blind and randomised. Thirty-one adult and paediatric patients participated.

During the study, 21 patients received 70 mg of leniolisib and 10 received placebo twice daily. The co‑primary efficacy endpoints were improvement in the reduction in the size of lymph nodes and the normalisation of immunophenotype.

By day 85 of the study, patients taking leniolisib saw a reduction in lymph node size and a correction of the underlying immune defect.

As with any medicine, the MHRA will keep the safety and effectiveness of leniolisib under close review.

A full list of all side effects reported with this medicine are available in the patient information leaflet or from the product information published on the MHRA website.

If a patient experiences any side effects, they should talk to their doctor, pharmacist, or nurse. This includes any possible side effects not listed in the product information leaflets.

Anyone who suspects they are having a side effect from this medicine is encouraged to talk to their doctor, pharmacist or nurse and report it directly to the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme.

ENDS

Notes to editors 

The marketing authorisation was granted for leniolisib (Joenja) on 26 September 2024 to Pharming Technologies B.V via the International Recognition Procedure.

The IRP is open to applicants that have already received an authorisation for the same product from one of MHRA’s specified trusted regulators. These are the regulatory authorities from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore and the United States.

Applications under the International Recognition Procedure (IRP) can be received via the MHRA website. Time horizons for authorisations are set at 60 to 110 days – considerably shorter than the current 150-day time horizon for applications. To further streamline the IRP application process, the MHRA launched an ‘Eligibility Checker’ tool on 20 November 2023.

More information can be found in the Summary of Product Characteristics and Patient Information leaflets which will be published on the MHRA Products website within 7 days of approval.

The MHRA is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for regulating all medicines and medical devices in the UK by ensuring they work and are acceptably safe.  All our work is underpinned by robust and fact-based judgements to ensure that the benefits justify any risks.

For media enquiries, please contact the newscentre@mhra.gov.uk, or call on 020 3080 7651.

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Published 27 September 2024
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI: Calian collaborates with Microsoft to offer scalable cloud-native cybersecurity solutions

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

OTTAWA, Ontario, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — With only days until Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Calian Group Ltd. (TSX: CGY) has announced a new collaboration with Microsoft. Through Calian’s adoption of Microsoft Sentinel, an intelligent, comprehensive security information and event management (SIEM) solution, Calian is strengthening its market position in Canada and the U.S. by providing customers access to a globally recognized cybersecurity platform that provides holistic threat protection with collection, detection, investigation and response capabilities.

This collaboration positions Calian to capture a growing share of the global cybersecurity market which continues to rise as organizations take more responsibility to protect their business. The 2023 Cybersecurity Ventures Cybercrime Report released this year predicts that global cybercrime damage will hit $10.5 trillion annually by 2025 and global cybersecurity spending will exceed $175 trillion.

“Adopting Microsoft Sentinel marks a major milestone in Calian’s strategic enhancement of our cybersecurity defences,” says Mike Tremblay, President of Calian’s IT & Cyber Solutions. “This collaboration allows us to use cutting-edge AI technologies to deliver security measures that are critical in protecting our customers’ operations against increasingly complex threats—representing our commitment to providing the best possible solutions because we recognize that our customers cannot afford to fail.”

The increasing sophistication and frequency of global cybersecurity attacks, especially using artificial intelligence, is leading organizations to modernize their security operations centres (SOC). The leading-edge, cloud-native Microsoft Sentinel platform not only optimizes operational efficiency, but also supports scalable deployments, ensuring that Calian can continue to grow and innovate to stay ahead of its customers’ evolving needs.

“This collaboration with Calian reflects our shared commitment to protect a company’s business by providing advanced security solutions that guard critical operations and foster innovation,” says Chris Barry, President of Microsoft Canada. “Together, we can protect a company’s cloud and multiplatform digital estate with a modern, comprehensive SIEM solution built on the cloud and enriched by AI to rapidly uncover sophisticated cyberthreats and respond at machine speed.”

Calian anticipates this collaboration will drive significant growth in its cybersecurity business over the next few years, attracting new customers and expanding its service offerings to existing clients in mission-critical industries such as healthcare, defence, and other critical infrastructure industries.

Learn more about Calian’s world-class cyber solutions.

About Calian
www.calian.com
We keep the world moving forward. Calian® helps people communicate, innovate, learn and lead safe and healthy lives. Every day, our employees live our values of customer commitment, integrity, innovation, respect and teamwork to engineer reliable solutions that solve complex challenges. That’s Confidence. Engineered. A stable and growing 40-year company, we are headquartered in Ottawa with offices and projects spanning North American, European and international markets. Visit calian.com to learn about innovative healthcare, communications, learning and cybersecurity solutions.

Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Media inquiries:
media@calian.com
613-599-8600 x 2298

Investor Relations inquiries:
ir@calian.com

DISCLAIMER
Certain information included in this press release is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties. The results or events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual results or events. Such statements are generally accompanied by words such as “intend”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect” or similar statements. Factors which could cause results or events to differ from current expectations include, among other things: the impact of price competition; scarce number of qualified professionals; the impact of rapid technological and market change; loss of business or credit risk with major customers; technical risks on fixed price projects; general industry and market conditions and growth rates; international growth and global economic conditions, and including currency exchange rate fluctuations; and the impact of consolidations in the business services industry. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, please see the Company’s most recent annual report and other reports filed by Calian with the Ontario Securities Commission. Calian disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. No assurance can be given that actual results, performance or achievement expressed in, or implied by, forward-looking statements within this disclosure will occur, or if they do, that any benefits may be derived from them.

Calian · Head Office · 770 Palladium Drive · Ottawa · Ontario · Canada · K2V 1C8
Tel: 613.599.8600 · Fax: 613-592-3664 · General info email: info@calian.com

The MIL Network –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: Hubble Captures Steller Nurseries in a Majestic Spiral

Source: NASA

2 min read

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy IC 1954, located 45 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Horologium. It sports a glowing bar in its core, majestically winding spiral arms, and clouds of dark dust across it. Numerous glowing, pink spots across the disc of the galaxy are H-alpha regions that offer astronomers a view of star-forming nebulae, which are prominent emitters of red, H-alpha light. Some astronomers theorize that the galaxy’s ‘bar’ is actually an energetic star-forming region that just happens to lie over the galactic center.

The data featured in this image come from a program that extends the cooperation among multiple observatories: Hubble, the infrared James Webb Space Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, a ground-based radio telescope. By surveying IC 1954 and over 50 other nearby galaxies in radio, infrared, optical, and ultraviolet light, astronomers aim to fully trace and reconstruct the path matter takes through stars, mapping the interstellar gas and dust in each galaxy. Hubble’s observing capabilities form an important part of this survey: it can capture younger stars and star clusters when they are brightest at ultraviolet and optical wavelengths, and its H-alpha filter effectively tracks emission from nebulae. The resulting dataset will form a treasure trove of research on the evolution of stars in galaxies, which Webb can build upon as it continues its science operations into the future.
Download this image

Media Contact:

Claire AndreoliNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MDclaire.andreoli@nasa.gov

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: Rep. Mike Levin’s Statement Regarding the House Vote on Republicans’ Extremist Government Funding Bill

Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Levin (CA-49)

September 18, 2024

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Mike Levin today released the following statement regarding his vote opposing Speaker Mike Johnson’s extremist government funding bill.

“I voted against Speaker Johnson’s bill to extend government funding because it is an unserious bill riddled with extremist provisions that has no chance of becoming law. The bill fails to support our veterans or strengthen our national security, and it attempts to push through undemocratic voter restrictions that would harm our service members at home and abroad.

“The current bill does nothing to address the VA’s $12 billion budget shortfall that would jeopardize veterans’ medical care and the health services they have earned.

“Additionally, Speaker Johnson’s extremist bill aims to alter voter registration laws that could make it more difficult to vote. It would make it harder for countless Americans, including service members, women, and Native Americans, to vote in upcoming elections.

“It’s shameful that a handful of extreme House Republicans want to add anti-democratic provisions to a government funding bill just to push a harmful agenda that is detrimental to the American people.

“I will continue working in good faith with my colleagues to find bipartisan resolution to fund the government for Fiscal Year 2025. It is imperative that we pass a government funding package that protects our service members and veterans, and ensures all Americans continue to receive the services and benefits they rely on.”

###

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: UConn Releases Annual Safety Reports

Source: US State of Connecticut

UConn is releasing two reports detailing its response to reports of criminal activity, sexual violence, serious on-campus injuries, and other issues it monitors to ensure the safety of its campus communities.

The first, the Clery Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, is required from all U.S. universities that receive federal financial aid funds. It includes data about certain crimes identified by the Clery Act, including violations of the Violence Against Women Act; arrests and disciplinary referrals for drug and alcohol violations; and hate crimes reported on property that UConn owns or controls, and on public property within or immediately adjacent to campus.

It also includes a comprehensive overview of safety policies and prevention programs available to UConn’s campus communities. It is compiled by the UConn Division of University Safety.

The second report, compiled by UConn’s Office of Institutional Equity (OIE), is a state-mandated annual overview in which all Connecticut colleges and universities outline their policies and data on sexual assault, stalking, and intimate partner violence.

It captures a wider range of data in those categories than the Clery report because the data collected is not limited to incidents reported to have occurred on UConn property, and because it includes incidents reported even in the absence of a UConn connection.

Some categories listed in the Clery and OIE reports might appear to capture data about the same kinds of crimes and incidents, including some regarding sexual assault and related crimes.

However, the numbers will differ between the two reports because of the differences in how the incidents are defined, and the locations for which incidents must be captured.

In addition, some categories listed in the Clery reports and federally required Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) – from which crime rates are calculated – might appear to reflect the same kinds of crimes and incidents. However, the Clery and UCR numbers will also differ because they use different metrics on the populations and places for what is included in each report’s calculations.

Importantly, some figures involving sexual assault and related crimes may differ because the University prioritizes the wishes of the complainant in whether that person wants an investigation to be pursued. That helps them regain a sense of agency over their circumstances and is part of the process to help them make the journey to survivor.

The Clery report also includes an appendix with additional data required under Connecticut Public Act 21-184, which directs colleges and universities to report accidents on their campuses that result in serious injuries or deaths.

It is similar to the proposed federal COREY Act (College Operational Reporting of Emergencies Involving Teens and Young Adults), named for Corey Hausman, a Connecticut native who died of a head injury shortly after a skateboarding accident on his campus as a freshman at the University of Colorado.

—

2023 Clery Annual Security and Fire Safety Report

UConn is posting the report for calendar year 2023 on its website and distributing the link electronically in compliance with federal and state law, and in the interest of informing all enrolled students, faculty, and staff on this important subject.

The Clery data includes reports from complainants made directly to UConn Police, along with information that comes to the attention of campus officials beyond law enforcement.
Those officials, known as “campus security authorities,” comprise more than 1,200 people who regularly interact with students in their roles as resident assistants, coaches, faculty advisers, and other on-campus authorities.

The university has significantly increased training for those officials so that they better understand what they are legally required to report and the proper way to do so. In the case of sexual violence crimes, UConn’s Clery numbers reflect a large amount of input from campus security authorities, along with significant outreach services university-wide to encourage reporting of this traditionally underreported crime.

Of the eight sexual assaults reported at Storrs in calendar year 2023 – the same number as in 2022 – police received six reports directly from individuals. The rest were reported by campus security authorities, including Residential Life and Student Affairs, to be included in the Clery report.

UConn takes an expansive view on what is included in the data by counting all sexual assault reports received in a given year, regardless of the level of detail known to the university; regardless of when the assault is reported to have occurred; and even when the report comes from a third party in the absence of a complainant.

This is an important part of UConn’s commitment to creating and maintaining a campus free from all forms of sexual harassment, sexual violence, relationship violence, and stalking.

Under a University policy, nearly all UConn employees are “responsible employees” to report sexual assault. Because that policy is specific to UConn and other institutions might take different approaches, comparisons are difficult to make against other universities whose policies are not as robust and whose reporting requirements are not as stringent.

The University provides information online for all individuals impacted by sexual assault to receive support and file reports, including through its website on sexual violence, relationship violence, and stalking awareness.

It also launched the UConn InForm site (inform.uconn.edu) to simplify and streamline reporting processes, offering an avenue through which students, faculty, staff and others can more easily locate and use the University’s many resources to report concerns and find support.

This year’s Clery report reflects a decrease in the number of reports of fondling to three reported to UConn Police in 2023, compared to 11 in the previous year.

Twelve motor vehicle thefts were reported in 2023 on campus, of which 11 were scooters. Those numbers are similar to 2022 figures, which showed 12 thefts that included nine scooters.

UConn’s 2023 Clery report also captures data on reports of domestic violence, which is defined differently in Connecticut than in many other states. The 2023 figure of nine events reported is up from seven in 2022.

Before June 2019, Connecticut’s domestic violence laws afforded protection to any people who lived together, including college roommates in non-romantic relationships, but the law was changed to include two exemptions.

The first exception clarified that platonic roommates are not subject to mandatory arrest when they are attending higher education and live on campus or in off-campus housing that is owned, managed, or operated by the institution.

The second exception extends to platonic roommates anywhere who are making payments pursuant to a written or oral rental agreement, also excluding them from mandatory arrest.
The secondary exception would apply to sororities or fraternities who are owned and operated by individual organizations.

However, roommates who are in a dating relationship, married, formerly married, related by blood or by marriage, or who have a child in common are still subject to the family violence mandatory arrest laws.

In reviewing Clery data, it is also vital to understand that the ways in which domestic violence is defined and application of the applicable laws vary from state to state, making comparisons to other states’ institutions invalid.

For instance, UConn’s domestic violence reporting process captures figures for the number of victims, not the number of incidents. Therefore, if two people involved in one incident both report it separately, the same incident appears twice in the data as two separate offenses if both individuals are the victim of a crime. One overall event can generate two or more statistics.

University officials promote awareness of UConn’s bystander intervention programs, which help increase awareness of sexual violence on campus and empower students to be effective, proactive bystanders.

One such program, Protect Our Pack, is presented to all incoming first-year and transfer students at the Storrs and regional campuses during fall orientation as students settle in for the new academic year.

In addition, UConn Police also offers many initiatives tackling difficult conversations about stalking, intimate partner violence, consent, and effective communications. The programs are offered throughout the year to students at all academic levels.

Under a state law that went into effect in 2021, UConn’s Clery report includes an appendix reporting serious accidental injuries or deaths that it can identify on its campuses for 2023.

Those incidents can include, but are not limited to, injuries or deaths that resulted from vehicle collisions, and in which pedestrians were hurt or killed while walking, jogging, bicycling, skateboarding, and similar activities.

The data must also include injuries and deaths from on-campus slips and/or falls such as tripping at ground level or falling from heights, including off bunk beds; alcohol or drug overdoses; choking or drowning; and other accidental incidents. The UConn Division of University Safety quantifies such incidents by reviewing reports from its police and fire/EMS records, Student Health & Wellness, and other sources.

UConn also proactively included information this year for the first time that explains the University’s Bias Reporting system and reflects its numbers for the past three years.

Although none of the incidents met the threshold to be criminally prosecutable as a hate crime, UConn encourages members of its community to report incidents they believe exhibit bias based on race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, a past or present history of mental disorders, or physical, mental, and intellectual disabilities.

By encouraging members of the community to report these incidents under the bias protocol, the University can better provide support to people and groups who are affected, and to determine if those who exhibited the behavior – if they can be identified – violated the Student Code of Conduct.

2023 UConn OIE Report Pursuant to State Statute Section 10a-55m

In addition to the annual federally mandated Clery report, UConn also submits a yearly report to the General Assembly specifically on sexual violence policies and data.

Figures in this report exceed those in the Clery data because it captures all incidents disclosed to UConn, regardless of on or off-campus location or the year in which they are reported to have occurred.

It also includes information on prevention, awareness, and risk reduction programs and campaigns provided in the community throughout the year. This year’s report outlines more than 500 such initiatives, constituting a 23% increase in education and prevention programs.

The 2023 OIE report indicates that OIE received 118 reports of sexual assault, of which 68 were reported to have occurred during 2023. The University’s definition of sexual assault is broad and can include incidents such as unwanted touching (sexual contact) along with more physically invasive offenses categorized in criminal law.

The sexual assault disclosure numbers also include reports of incidents from many years ago, including childhood abuse – all of which helps the university provide appropriate, compassionate, and trauma-informed services to students and employees if and whenever they choose to share their experience with the University.

Among the 118 reports of sexual assault logged in the newest report, 42 of the respondents were identified as being connected to UConn; three of the reports came in anonymously or confidentially; and in nine cases, the complainant chose to participate in a University investigation.

Those who report an incident can request a University investigation at a later time should they wish, not only at the time they make a report.

The University takes steps to follow the wishes of the complainant whenever possible and does not investigate unless that individual wants the University to do so. Only in limited circumstances will the University proceed with an investigation against a complainant’s wishes.

Factors considered within this determination include the age of the complainant, whether there is evidence of a pattern of misconduct, the severity of the misconduct, and whether there is a safety risk to the complainant or the campus community.

In matters where an investigation does not occur, the University may still take responsive or preventative actions, such as meetings with the alleged respondent and/or additional training and prevention work with impacted communities.

UConn’s OIE report for 2023 also includes 48 reported incidents of stalking, of which 44 were reported to have occurred in 2023. In 28 of the stalking cases, the respondent was identified as being connected to UConn.

None of the complainants chose to participate in a university investigation at the time of making the report, but they all retain the right to request an investigation later if they wish.

A total of 66 cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) were reported, including 63 reported to have occurred in 2023. In 15 of the intimate partner violence cases, the respondent was identified as being connected to UConn; and in one of those cases, the complainant chose to participate in a University investigation.

As with other categories, those who reported intimate partner violence but chose not to participate in a University investigation can still request one later if they wish.

In addition to providing data, the OIE report outlined 510 awareness and prevention programs and campaigns during the year. They include the “Protect Our Pack” bystander intervention training provided at new student orientation; UConn’s Violence Against Women Prevention Program (VAWPP) Consent 201 courses; the widespread training provided to employees; and many others.

In addition to Storrs-specific brochures and programs, the University provides programs and publications tailored to the regional campus communities and UConn Health.

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: UConn at the UN

Source: US State of Connecticut

Three UConn student leaders recently traveled to United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York City to participate in international discussions on the future of multilateralism and international cooperation. The event covered topics including sustainable development, international science cooperation, science diplomacy, and other urgent global solutions, as part of the Summit of the Future Action Days.

“Attending the Summit of the Future at the United Nations was an inspiring and insightful experience that deepened my passion for environmental science and international relations,” says Eliana Raes ’25 (CAHNR), an environmental science major concentrating in global change. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to see how young voices are driving global sustainability efforts and shaping a brighter future for all!”

The Action Days were part of the Summit of the Future, a world gathering to agree and launch the Pact for the Future. The Pact for the Future is a landmark, forward-looking global declaration meant to address sustainable development; international peace and security; science and technology; youth and future generations; and transforming global governance.

Last week, countries gathered in New York to adopt the Pact, as well as to push progress on the Pact’s priorities and other urgent global issues through meetings of the UN General Assembly. UConn support for the student to attend was provided by the Office of Global Affairs, the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR), and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS).

“Attending the Summit of the Future Action Days […] allowed me to acquire a different perspective of how we should combat our world’s issues, especially related to the environment and sustainability. All the speakers and panelists were so knowledgeable and contributed to such thought-provoking conversations,” says Judith Otunnu ’27 (CLAS), also an environmental sciences major.

While at the Summit, the students joined discussions with stakeholders from around the world on important issues central to UConn’s mission, as well as CAHNR’s strategic vision, particularly around the themes of a Sustainable Future for All, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), strategic foresight, and research synthesis, sharing, and support.

“It was inspiring to personally witness the work that can happen when people get together with such ambitious goals. It was especially energizing to be part of the work that the UN is doing to include youth in decision making on climate action,” says Alice Sztabinski ’27 (CAHNR), an environmental sciences and art major.

“As a campus community, we are incredibly proud of these students, both as individuals and for the way they represented UConn on the world stage at a pivotal moment for international cooperation on science and sustainable development,” says Meg Boyle, assistant professor in residence in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment.

This work relates to CAHNR’s Strategic Vision area focused Fostering Sustainable Landscapes.

Follow UConn CAHNR on social media

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: At Visit to Dodd Center, Former Members of Congress Discuss Bridging Divides – and Issue a Call to Action

Source: US State of Connecticut

By all appearances, the two former longtime members of the U.S. House of Representatives who visited UConn Storrs on Thursday morning could not have been more different.

The first, a Latino woman from Orange County, California.

The second, a white man from southeast Michigan.

The first, a Democrat who won her seat in Congress by defeating a long-serving Republican by less than 1,000 votes in 1997.

The second, a Republican from a swing district who worked as a congressional staffer and a member of Ronald Reagan’s administration before his own election in 1987.

But on the stage of the Konover Auditorium at The Dodd Center for Human Rights – before a crowd of mostly UConn students – it wasn’t the differences between former Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA, 1997-2017) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI, 1987-2023) that were on display.

It was, instead, the similarities that they share after two long careers in public service.

In a comfortable conversation moderated by NBC Connecticut reporter and anchor Amber Diaz ’11 (CLAS) and punctuated by anecdotes from their own personal lives and experiences, Sanchez and Upton talked about the challenges in bridging divides at a time when politics feel increasingly polarized, and misinformation is rampant.

“Sadly, today, it’s different from when I was in the Congress even a year ago,” said Upton.

Both Sanchez and Upton stressed the importance of listening to other viewpoints, of being an educated voter, and electing leaders – regardless of political affiliation – who believe in and uphold democratic institutions.

“People come and go, personalities come and go, but institutions are the mainstay of what makes us a good society,” said Sanchez.

Former members of Congress Fred Upton and Loretta Sanchez participate in a discussion with NBC CT anchor and reporter Amber Diaz ’11 (CLAS) during Congress to Campus at the Dodd Center on Sept. 26, 2024. (Sydney Herdle/UConn Photo)

They also discussed what it means to “meet people where they are” – something that feels even more relevant at a time of political division.

“When people come to the Congress, when people come to positions of power at the city or state level, they come with their own baggage,” Sanchez said. “They come with their own history, what their experiences are. Everybody has a story. Everybody can be an interesting person. You just have to take the time to listen to who they are, and if you take that time, then I believe you can find common ground.”

“Finding out about other people’s districts, what they cared about – whether it’s energy policy or health policy, whether you could help them, whether they be a Republican or Democrat, being able to go to the other side of the aisle and being able to have a conversation with them, talk about amendments – that’s, to me, how you meet people where they’re at,” said Upton. “And that’s how things ought to get done.”

Sanchez and Upton visited UConn through Congress to Campus – the flagship program of the nonprofit organization FMC, a bipartisan, voluntary alliance of former U.S. Senators and Representatives who advocate for representative democracy at home and abroad.

Congress to Campus offers a unique civic educational experience by engaging honest dialogue with bipartisan teams of former members of Congress, congressional staff, and American diplomats. Sessions have been held on 183 campuses in 43 states and seven countries, reaching more than 57,000 students in the last 10 years alone.

“Today’s conversation is important, because it is a reminder of what our discourse can be,” said Nick Lanza, ’25 (CLAS), the director of external affairs for UConn’s Undergraduate Student Government. “That we can have civil discussions. That we can debate different opinions, without getting personal. Today is about a better way forward.”

The need for civic participation is crucial every year, UConn’s President Radenka Maric said in her welcoming remarks before the discussion. But this year, in the midst of a presidential election, participation feels especially urgent.

“We live in a time when Americans seem divided in an almost unprecedented way,” she said. “Across social media and the traditional news media, there is no shortage of angry, aggrieved voices denouncing there fellow Americans on the other side of the ideological divide.

“And yet, as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently found, in reality, there is more common ground among Americans on policy issues than many people believe,” Maric continued.

James Waller – the inaugural Christopher J. Dodd Chair in Human Rights Practice at UConn and director of Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs, which hosted the Congress to Campus event – said it’s true that democracy is on the ballot in the U.S. this year.

“But, in truth, democracy is always on the ballot,” Waller said. “Every federal election, every state election, every local election, every election at every level asks us the collective question of who we aspire to be.

“True democracy is never absolutely sure of itself. In other words, true democracy is always interrogating itself. It’s always asking itself hard questions,” Waller said. “Indeed, the biggest threat to democracy is when it becomes so sure of itself that it stops asking those hard questions, when we take it so much for granted that we stop actively nurturing and sustaining our democratic institutions, when we take it so much for granted that we choose not to exercise our right to vote, that we choose not to civically engaged because we feel so powerless and things feel so distant from us.”

But Upton and Sanchez also had an overarching message for the students in attendance: Your action is needed.

“We’re really here to tell the young people in the room run for office, work on campaigns, get involved locally,” Sanchez said. “We need you. We need you to decide that public service is really worth it and bring your ideas. Bring your new energy. Help us to solve the issues that are affecting your lives every day.”

UConn President Radenka Maric gives opening remarks during Congress to Campus at the Dodd Center on Sept. 26, 2024. (Sydney Herdle/UConn Photo)

“You’re our future, and you’ve got to be part of it,” said Upton. “Because if we’re going to turn this ship around, it starts with you.”

That call to action is also what Diaz, who studied journalism and English as an undergrad at UConn, hopes that students will take away from the event.

“I really hope that they took away the power of a vote and that they will get involved, because it’s very, very imperative that they get involved,” Diaz said. “And I hope they get involved in politics, because honestly, nowadays, people turn off the TV. Or they turn off the radio. They don’t want to hear it. Or it’s the other extreme, and they want to argue about it.

“I really hope that people start researching, and getting more information, and really come out and vote, because it’s in their hands. The power is in their hands.”

The Congress to Campus event was co-sponsored by UConn’s Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, School of Public Policy, Department of Political Science, Undergraduate Student Government, Department of Residential Life, Community Outreach, Office of Outreach and Engagement, and the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work. It was supported by Citizen Travelers, the nonpartisan civic engagement initiative of Travelers.

The outreach and engagement arm of human rights at UConn, Dodd Human Rights Impact works to develop and support programs and initiatives that seek to directly impact local and global communities by helping them meet their human rights challenges.

For more information about Dodd Impact, visit humanrights.uconn.edu/dodd-impact-programs.

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI: EQV Ventures Acquisition Corp. Announces the Separate Trading of its Class A Ordinary Shares and Warrants

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

PARK CITY, UT, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — EQV Ventures Acquisition Corp. (“EQV” or the “Company”) announced today that, effective immediately, holders of the units sold in the Company’s initial public offering may elect to separately trade the Class A ordinary shares and warrants included in the units. The Class A ordinary shares and warrants that are separated will trade on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) under the symbols “EQV” and “EQVW,” respectively. Those units not separated will continue to trade on NYSE under the symbol “EQVU.” Holders of units will need to have their brokers contact Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company, the Company’s transfer agent, to separate the units into Class A ordinary shares and warrants.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. The offering was made solely by means of a prospectus, copies of which may be obtained from BTIG, LLC, 65 East 55th Street, New York, New York 10022, Attn: Syndicate Department, BTIGSyndicateCoverage@btig.com. Copies of the registration statement relating to the offering are also available on the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov.

About EQV Ventures Acquisition Corp.

EQV is a blank check company incorporated as a Cayman Islands exempted company for the purpose of effecting a merger, amalgamation, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses or entities. EQV is led by Chief Executive Officer Jerry Silvey and President and Chief Financial Officer Tyson Taylor, and is sponsored by an affiliate of the EQV Group, a group of companies focused on the acquisition, management and optimization of predictable cash-flowing asset bases across the traditional energy spectrum. While the Company is not limited to a particular industry or geographic region in its identification and acquisition of a target company, the Company seeks to effect a merger, amalgamation, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with an oil and gas exploration and production company in North America or Europe. The Company expects to benefit from its affiliation with the EQV Group through access to corporate relationships, industry sector expertise and value creation capabilities. For more information, please visit www.eqvventures.com.

Cautionary Note Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements that constitute “forward-looking statements,” including with respect to the search for an initial business combination. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the Company’s registration statement and prospectus for the Company’s initial public offering filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Copies are available on the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release, except as required by law.

Investor Contacts

IR@eqvventures.com

The MIL Network –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI: American Rebel Light Beer is Primary Sponsor of Tony Stewart Racing Team’s SRT Hellcat Funny Car driven by Matt Hagan at the NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

Nashville, TN, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — American Rebel Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: AREB) (“American Rebel” or the “Company”), the creator of American Rebel Beer (www.americanrebelbeer.com), and branded safes, personal security and self-defense products and apparel, announced they are the primary sponsor of Tony Stewart’s National Hot Rod Association (“NHRA”) Funny Car, driven by Matt Hagan, at the Midwest Nationals in St. Louis, MO the weekend of September 27 – September 29.

“We’re excited to be sponsoring the Tony Stewart NHRA racing team and having Matt Hagan, who won last year at this event in St. Louis, as the driver of the American Rebel Light Beer Dodge//SRT Hellcat Funny Car,” said Andy Ross, Chief Executive Officer of American Rebel. “The American Rebel Light Beer Dodge//SRT Hellcat Funny Car is quickly becoming a fan favorite within the NHRA racing community. The NHRA events allow us to engage with the fans throughout the weekend and we are excited to be able to introduce the millions of viewers on television to American Rebel Light Beer. We’ve got a winning team with Tony and Matt and we’re looking forward to the race weekend, celebrating their success while promoting American Rebel Light, America’s Patriotic, God-Fearing, Constitution-Loving, National Anthem-Singing, Stand Your Ground Beer.”

Hagan is currently fourth in the Funny Car championship standings, 153 points behind leader Austin Prock. Hagan is a four-time season-long champion (2011, 2014, 2020 and 2023) and is the defending event winner at St. Louis. “We have some good luck at St. Louis, so hopefully we can continue our momentum from Charlotte with the final-round appearance,” said Matt Hagan, driver of the American Rebel Light Beer Dodge//SRT Hellcat Funny Car. “We’re going to have a few Dodge executives there and our friends from American Rebel Beer, so I’d really like to have good performance and put on a good show for them to show them what we’re capable of.”

American Rebel Light is produced in partnership with AlcSource, the largest integrated provider of beverage development, sourcing, and production solutions in the U.S. American Rebel Light Beer just completed its first production run and is now available in 12oz and 16oz cans in several states across the USA.

For an updated list of locations featuring American Rebel Light, visit www.americanrebelbeer.com

About American Rebel Holdings, Inc.

American Rebel Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: AREB) has operated primarily as a designer, manufacturer and marketer of branded safes and personal security and self-defense products and has recently transitioned into the beverage industry through the introduction of American Rebel Beer. The Company also designs and produces branded apparel and accessories. To learn more, visit www.americanrebel.com and www.americanrebelbeer.com. For investor information, visit www.americanrebel.com/investor-relations.

Company Contact:
info@americanrebel.com

Investor Relations:
Brian Prenoveau
MZ North America
+1 (561) 489-5315
AREB@mzgroup.us

Attachment
- American Rebel Holdings Inc
The MIL Network –
September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Canada: Minister Khera to speak about Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate and Canada Community Security Program

Source: Government of Canada News

Minister Khera will explain the details on Canada’s first-ever Action Plan on Combatting Hate and Canada Community Security Program

BRAMPTON, Ontario – The Honourable Kamal Khera, Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, will be in Brampton to explain the details of Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate and Canada Community Security Program on Sunday.

Please note that all details are subject to change. All times are local.

The details are as follows:

DATE:
Sunday, September 29, 2024

TIME:
11:00 a.m.

Journalists wishing to attend the announcement in person must confirm their participation by submitting their full name and the name of their organization to media@pch.gc.ca by 9 a.m. on Saturday, September 28. Information on how to attend will be provided afterward.

Waleed Saleem
Press Secretary
Office of the Honourable Kamal Khera
Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities
waleed.saleem@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca

Gabriel Brunet
Press Secretary
Office of the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc
Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs
gabriel.brunet@iga-aig.gc.ca

MIL OSI Canada News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Video: Secretary Blinken hosts a Ministerial of the Foreign Ministry Channel meeting – 9:00 AM

Source: United States of America – Department of State (video statements)

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken hosts a Ministerial of the Foreign Ministry Channel for Global Health Security in New York City, New York, on September 27, 2024.
———-
Under the leadership of the President and Secretary of State, the U.S. Department of State leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity. On behalf of the American people we promote and demonstrate democratic values and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.

The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President’s chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President’s foreign policies through the State Department, which includes the Foreign Service, Civil Service and U.S. Agency for International Development.

Get updates from the U.S. Department of State at www.state.gov and on social media!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/statedept
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StateDept
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Flickr: https://flickr.com/photos/statephotos/

Subscribe to the State Department Blog: https://www.state.gov/blogs
Watch on-demand State Department videos: https://video.state.gov/
Subscribe to The Week at State e-newsletter: http://ow.ly/diiN30ro7Cw

State Department website: https://www.state.gov/
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Terms of Use: https://state.gov/tou

#StateDepartment #DepartmentofState #Diplomacy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH4DzmJXBAQ

MIL OSI Video –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Translation: Minister Khera to speak about Canada’s Action Plan to Combat Hate and Canada’s Community Safety Agenda

MIL OSI Translation. Canadian French to English –

Source: Government of Canada – in French 1

Minister Khera to unveil details of Canada’s first-ever Action Plan to Combat Hate and Canada’s Community Safety Agenda

BRAMPTON, ON – The Honourable Kamal Khera, Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, will be in Brampton on Sunday to unveil details of Canada’s Action Plan to Combat Hate and Canada’s Community Safety Agenda.

Please note that information is subject to change without notice and all times are local.

Here are the details:

DATE: Sunday, September 29, 2024

TIME: 11 a.m.

Journalists who wish to attend the announcement in person are requested to confirm their participation by submitting their full name and the name of the media outlet they represent to media@pch.gc.ca by 9 a.m. on Saturday, September 28. Information on how to attend will be provided at a later date.

Waleed SaleemPress SecretaryOffice of the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilitieswaleed.saleem@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca

Media RelationsCanadian Heritage819-994-91011-866-569-6155media@pch.gc.ca

Gabriel BrunetPress OfficerOffice of the Minister of Public Security, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairsgabriel.brunet@iga-aig.gc.ca

Media RelationsPublic Safety Canada613-991-0657media@ps-sp.gc.ca

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.

MIL Translation OSI

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: Personal Income and Outlays, August 2024

Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis

Personal income increased $50.5 billion (0.2 percent at a monthly rate) in August. Disposable personal income (DPI)-personal income less personal current taxes- increased $34.2 billion (0.2 percent). Personal outlays-the sum of personal consumption expenditures (PCE), personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments-increased $48.3 billion (0.2 percent) and consumer spending increased $47.2 billion (0.2 percent). Personal saving was $1.05 trillion and the personal saving rate-personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income-was 4.8 percent in August. Full Text

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: Dr. Leslie Loew Named 2025 Biophysical Society Fellow

Source: US State of Connecticut

The Biophysical Society announced Leslie M. Loew, R.D. Berlin Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, is named a 2025 Biophysical Society Fellow for inventing fluorescent sensors of membrane potential and leadership in the development of computational cell biology.

The Biophysical Society, founded in 1958, is a professional, scientific society established to lead an innovative global community working at the interface of the physical and life sciences, across all levels of complexity, and to foster the dissemination of that knowledge.

The Society promotes growth in this expanding field through its Annual Meeting, publications, and outreach activities. Its 7,000 members are located throughout the world, where they teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry.

This award honors the Society’s distinguished members who have demonstrated excellence in science and contributed to the expansion of the field of biophysics. The Fellows will be honored at the Biophysical Society’s 69th Annual Meeting, being held in Los Angeles, California from February 15-19, 2025.

“The Biophysical Society Annual Meeting is where I discuss science every year and its flagship publication, The Biophysical Journal, is where I send most of my scientific papers. So I am truly honored to receive this recognition by my peers in the BPS,” says Loew.

Loew is Professor of Cell Biology, Boehringer-Ingelheim Chair in Cell Science and University of Connecticut Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the UConn School of Medicine. Throughout his career his work has focused on quantitative mechanistic investigation of cell and tissue biology. He is known for inventing biophysical methods to investigate these systems, including both microscope imaging technologies and fluorescent sensors. Loew pioneered the synthesis of fluorescent dyes to probe the electrical activity of cells and tissue. For the last 25 years he has been leading the UConn team that develops the “Virtual Cell”, comprehensive software to model and simulate cell biology with 26,000 registered users worldwide.

During his 40 year career at UConn he has been awarded research grants amounting to approximately $70M. He established the Richard D. Berlin Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling (CCAM) in 1994 to consolidate research in new optical, photonic, image processing and computational techniques for the investigation of the behavior of living cells.

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Security: Coast Guard returns 60 migrants to Dominican Republic following 2 interdictions near Puerto Rico

Source: United States Coast Guard

09/27/2024 08:15 AM EDT

The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Kathleen Moore returned 60 migrants to the Dominican Republic between Wednesday and Thursday, following two separate interdictions of irregular, unlawful maritime migration voyages in Mona Passage waters near Puerto Rico. Two of the interdicted migrants remain in U.S. custody to face federal prosecution by the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico on separate charges including attempted reentry into the United States subsequent to an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. 1326(b)(2), and failure to heave to under 8 U.S.C. 2237.

For more breaking news follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

MIL Security OSI –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Global: Fyre Festival II: why people give fraudsters a second chance

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Daniel Read, Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

The Fyre music festival and its well-publicised failure are widely seen as a mixture of incompetence and fraud, embodied in Billy McFarland, its chief architect. People paid thousands of dollars for what was advertised as a luxury music festival but they were served simple cheese sandwiches and the entertainment was cancelled. McFarland spent almost four years in prison for fraud.

But now McFarland is out and promoting Fyre Festival II. He claims that he has already sold 100 tickets at the early bird price of £499.

Why would anyone give the Fyre Festival a second chance? Research shows that people’s mental shortcuts can give them confidence in someone who has let them down before.

Prices for Fyre Festival II range from US$1,400 and $1.1 million (£1,050 and £824,000). Nothing specific has yet been offered, other than an indefinite location (a private island off the Caribbean coast of Mexico), some activities including scuba diving with McFarland himself, and an approximate date (April, 2025).

McFarland’s former business partner Andy King has said that Fyre Festival II raises “a lot of red flags.”. Yet even King, who lost US$1 million on the original Fyre Festival, admitted he met McFarland for Fyre Festival II talks before becoming wary.

There is little research on this topic, but I found some help in The Big Con, written in 1940 by David Maurer, a professor of linguistics who dedicated his career to studying the language and culture of those leading a criminal lifestyle, including con artists.

The Big Con was the inspiration for the 1973 Paul Newman movie The Sting. You may remember that (spoilers) Newman and Robert Redford and his team fleece Robert Shaw using a con in which the mark is persuaded that he can bet on horse races after they are run because of a delay in messages received by a betting shop.

A central factor is ambiguity. It is hard to be certain from accounts of Fyre Festival whether McFarland set out to be a con man, or is simply a persuasive person who took on more than he could handle. Perhaps McFarland has learned his lessons and will not make the same mistakes. In The Big Con, the grifters tried to make their marks unsure whether they were really being scammed, even after the money changed hands. In The Sting, Robert Shaw’s character never learns that he was conned.

Maurer documents many cases of marks coming back for more, convinced that the original failure was due to bad luck that won’t be repeated. A typical example comes from a con artist named the Big Alabama Kid, who tells Maurer about a mark they had conned out of US$50,000 in Miami. After he had lost all his money in a gambling con they offered him a chance to try again. But he did not return.

Three months later, “who should come in smiling but Mr. Bates with a lot of apologies for keeping me waiting so long. He said that his banker had tried to tell him that this deal was a swindle, and wouldn’t let him have his money. So he waited until things had cooled off at home and the banker had forgotten all about it. Then he went to the bank, drew out his money, and caught the first train for the south.”

Giving the right impression

It is sometimes hard to persuade even the victims of a con that they are victims.

Another factor is confidence, both on the part of the grifter and the mark. People often follow the confidence heuristic (or mental shortcut) when judging whether to believe others. The confidence heuristic is that people are confident when they believe they are right, and this confidence makes them persuasive. Such an ability to exude confidence is one of the key skills that all con men must have.

The mark also has to be confident. That is, to be able to rely on their own ability to discern a good opportunity when they see it. Maurer finds the mark is typically someone who has achieved high social status, and sees themselves as having “some inherent superiority, especially as regards matters of sound judgment in finance and investment … as a person of vision and even of genius”.

It is not hard to see the potential Fyre Festival attendee or investor here, someone who has money to spare, and who hopes to discover the new Burning Man or invest in it.

Scarcity, time pressure and the fear of missing out are also powerful psychological motivators likely to make people susceptible to being conned – especially if the essence of the con is that the opportunity is one time only. If we think something is difficult to get, we want it more.

This is what US psychologist Robert Cialdini refers to as the scarcity principle, and is a motivation that emerges early in life. A 2018 study I co-authored found children as young as six preferred scarce goods compared to abundant ones.

Maurer’s studies of con artists showed that they carefully craft the set up so that the mark has an exclusive one time only opportunity to make his big score.

McFarland claims to have 5,000 unique requests for tickets, but only 3,000 slots available. If you go to the Fyre Festival website you cannot buy tickets. Applicants receive the message “Thank you for your application. If approved, the FYRE concierge will be in touch.”

I am currently in the queue for one of these tickets, and so far the concierge has not been in touch. Will I be lucky enough to be one of the chosen few?

Daniel Read 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. Fyre Festival II: why people give fraudsters a second chance – https://theconversation.com/fyre-festival-ii-why-people-give-fraudsters-a-second-chance-239013

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Global: Harris leads Trump in the polls – here’s what they really tell us about her chances

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

Poll data shows that Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in the US presidential election campaign. She has an average vote intention score of 48.2%, compared with Trump’s 45.8%, according to FiveThirtyEight, a website that looks at a range of polls.

She leads in the race, although the margins are still tight. A poll of polls like this one is likely to be more accurate than a single one, giving a much better indication of any trends.

Many factors are at work when people decide how to vote, but four things really matter. These are voter evaluations of the candidates; their perceptions of the major issues; identifying with the Democratic or Republican parties, or being independents; and whether they think of themselves as liberals, conservatives or moderates.

To look closely at these factors we can examine the details of an Economist/YouGov survey of the US electorate completed on September 17. The survey puts Harris on 49%, with Trump on 45% in voting intentions.

There are significant variations in support among different groups and as the figure below shows, there is a large gender gap with women much more likely to vote for Harris than men. In addition, white people favour Trump, whereas Hispanic and black people lean heavily towards Harris. Harris is also strongly supported by those under the age of 45 with Trump leading Harris by a small margin in the 45-64 group – and by a large margin among the over 65s.

Voting intentions for the upcoming US election:

When it comes to judging candidates, voters use several criteria including perceptions that they are strong, competent, honest and in touch with people like themselves. But a good overall measure is the extent to which they like or dislike a candidate. In the Economist/YouGov poll 48% liked Harris and 47% disliked her. In Trump’s case 42% liked him and 55% disliked him. Clearly, Harris has the edge in leadership evaluations in the race.

Existing ideological positions are a very important factor in influencing the vote as the chart below shows. When it comes to ideological preferences liberals overwhelmingly support Harris and conservatives do the same with Trump.

However, 57% of moderates favour Harris compared, with only 30% who favour Trump. Trump’s problem is that his style of campaigning may energise his core supporters, but it tends to alienate many moderates.

In the case of political partisanship, again Democrats overwhelmingly support Harris and Republicans Trump. In this case the independents are neck and neck, with Harris ahead of Trump by only 1%. But she does get more Republicans (5%) than Trump gets Democrats (1%).

Voting intentions among independents and other groups

Harris has the edge when it comes to three of the really important factors that explain voting behaviour. However, she is weak on some issues compared with Trump. When asked about their most important issue, respondents ranked inflation first, immigration second, and jobs, the economy and abortion tied in third place.

The problem for Harris is illustrated by the most salient issue of inflation. Some 96% of respondents thought that this is important, but only 33% approved of the way that Joe Biden had handled the issue, compared with 59% who disapproved.

Since Kamala Harris is the vice-president, she shares responsibility for this. That said, 56% think that Trump’s claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pet dogs is false, while 27% think it is true. So there is a question over his credibility when it comes to issues as well.

More generally, 25% approved of the general direction the country was headed, while 58% thought that America was on the wrong track. When asked if they felt better off or worse off than a year ago, only 12% said better off, 42% said about the same and 40% said worse off. The US economy has been growing rapidly since Biden took office, but clearly many voters still don’t feel the benefits.

Biden stepped down as the Democratic nominee for president following his disastrous performance in the debate with Donald Trump. But the polling shows that discontent with the Biden administration was a lot more widespread than just concerns about his age and ability to communicate.

In relation to the recent TV debate, 56% of respondents thought that Harris won, compared with only 27% who thought the winner was Trump. As a result, she has made a strong start to her campaign. When asked who they thought would win the election in November, 42% said Harris and 32% Trump with 26% unsure.

With that kind of momentum, Harris can be optimistic, though not certain, about the outcome.

Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC.

– ref. Harris leads Trump in the polls – here’s what they really tell us about her chances – https://theconversation.com/harris-leads-trump-in-the-polls-heres-what-they-really-tell-us-about-her-chances-239887

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Global: Afrofuturism thrives in Philly − 5 artists you should know

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Aaron X. Smith, Assistant Professor of Africology and African American Studies, Temple University

‘A Radiant Light,’ by Philly-based Afrofuturist artist Mikel Elam, celebrates cultural roots and the infinite possibilities of the future. Mikel Elam, CC BY-NC-SA

From the creation of the Liberty Bell in the 1750s to the world-famous Philadelphia Sound soul music of the 1960s and ’70s, artistic innovation has long been a staple in Philly history. Today, the city’s thriving Afrofuturist scene is continuing this legacy.

“Afrofuturism” is a term coined in the 1990s by American cultural critic Mark Dery. Dery used the label to describe “speculative fiction that treats African American themes and addresses African American concerns in the context of 20th-century techno culture.”

The aesthetic has been popularized over the years by mainstream artists, including cinematic pioneer and “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler and Grammy-winning musical artist Missy Elliott.

Author and filmmaker Ytasha L. Womack powerfully articulated the vastness of Afrofuturism in her 2013 book, “Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture.”

“Call it the power of the subconscious or the predominance of soul culture gone cyber pop,” Womack writes, “but this dance through time travel that Afrofuturists lived for is as much about soul retrieval as it is about jettisoning into the far-off future.”

As an Afrocentric scholar, professor of African American studies, hip-hop artist and scholar of Afrofuturism, I get to see the city’s growing Afrofuturist movement firsthand. I have been inspired by Afrofuturist writers and scholars from sci-fi novelist Octavia Butler to fellow Africology professors at Temple University Reynaldo Anderson and Molefi Kete Asante.

Here are five local Philly artists whose innovative aesthetics and ideas are contributing to the still-emerging field of Afrofuturistic art.

Rasheedah Phillips and Camae Ayewa

Rasheedah Phillips, an artist and housings rights attorney, and Camae Ayewa, a poet and musician who performs as Moor Mother, attended high school in Philadelphia and graduated from the Beasley School of Law at Temple University. In 2015 they founded the Black Quantum Futurism collective, which could be considered the artistic cornerstone of Afrofuturist art in Philadelphia.

Rasheedah Phillips’ latest book will be published in January 2025.
AK Press

This collective hosts various events and creative projects. On their website, Phillips and Ayewa describe their movement as “a new approach to living and experiencing reality by way of the manipulation of space-time in order to see into possible futures.” They blend ideas and beliefs from quantum physics and Black and African cultural traditions of consciousness, time and space.

Although the Black Quantum Futurism website is less active than in previous years, Phillips and Ayewa continue to organize and participate in Afrofuturist events both in Philadelphia and around the world. Phillips has a new book, “Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time,” set for release in early 2025.

Mikel Elam

Though he’s a New York transplant, figure painter and Afrofuturist visual artist Mikel Elam has become an asset to the Afrofuturist art scene in Philadelphia.

“I have a special interest in Africa (which is) considered by many anthropologists to be the origin of all life,” he explains. “In many ways, science, spirituality and art are essential to our cultural and mental development. They are more compatible than we might think.”

In his pieces, Elam often incorporates cultural masks he’s collected from his world travels, as well as shiny metal keys. His work on display at Philadelphia International Airport combines both. The keys are positioned to reflect the flow of people in transit – sometimes they move in harmony and other times in opposite directions. Unapologetically optimistic, Elam also surrounds the heads with keys to suggest halos or auras.

‘Bliss Consciousness’ by Mikel Elam depicts the artist’s meditation practice and belief that the keys to universal connection come from within.
Mikel Elam, CC BY-NC-SA

Serena Saunders

Serena Saunders is a mural artist, Philly native and owner and operator of Passion Art Designs LLC. She transforms walls throughout Philly and beyond into futuristic visions of hope, struggle, Black joy and justice.

Her paintings emphasize the potential for a more peaceful and equitable future. Her “Camo” collection includes a painting that displays a map of Africa hovering over an ocean of streaming colors, including elements of the American flag. The continent appears to be dripping blood into the waters below.

A major component of the Afrofuturist arts movement involves reimagining existing symbols relating to Black culture and life. Saunders’ “Heart” collection incorporates elements of transhumanism – the belief that humans should use technology to enhance their minds and bodies – which are common in Afrofuturist art. Images of the precious blood-pumping organ are merged with pipes, a faucet head and even a grenade.

Saunders’ murals cover dozens of walls around the city, including at the Community Clubhouse at FDR Park, the Boys & Girls Club in Germantown, and Philadelphia International Airport.

Sun Ra

Avant-garde jazz musician Sun Ra is an Afrofuturist icon who lived in Philly for 25 years.
Leni Sinclair via Getty Images

One of the greatest avant-garde jazz musicians of the 20th century, Sun Ra is also an Afrofuturist icon who once occupied a modest Philadelphia row home at 5626 Morton St. in Germantown.

Sun Ra led the Sun Ra Arkestra, a jazz group, from the late 1950s until his death in 1993 at age 79. With songs including “Love in Outer Space,” “Door of the Cosmos,” “Saturn” and “UFO,” Sun Ra kept intergalactic reimaginings of life and love at the forefront of his creative expression. From his lavish futuristic outfits to the astrological symbolism “Astro Black,” he remains a meaningful pioneer of Afrofuturist art.

In 2022, the house where he and bandmates lived and rehearsed was designated a historic landmark. Though not open to the public, it serves as a reminder of the creative, resilient spirit that often resides in humble and unassuming environments, and why we can think of Philadelphia, the city known for being the birthplace of the United States, also as the city of tomorrow.

Aaron X. Smith 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. Afrofuturism thrives in Philly − 5 artists you should know – https://theconversation.com/afrofuturism-thrives-in-philly-5-artists-you-should-know-235069

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Global: The contradictions of ‘Minnesota nice’

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Giang Nguyen-Dien, Postdoctoral Fellow in American Culture Studies, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis

Members of St. Paul’s Hmong community protest in 1998 after a local radio host said on air that Hmong immigrants needed to ‘assimilate or hit the goddamn road.’ Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune via Getty Images

After Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, much of the media coverage zeroed in on Walz’s Midwestern roots, with some pundits using the phrase “Minnesota nice” to describe his appeal.

In the popular imagination, Minnesota nice describes a culture of neighborliness and amicability that’s commonly seen as characteristic of the state. In policy terms, that might mean bigger investments in education, better public health, access to affordable housing and stronger worker rights – an extension of Walz’s achievements as Minnesota governor. Many Americans would probably like to see these values have primacy in the rest of the nation.

I think Minnesota nice, whether represented in policies or in being kind to neighbors, is a worthy ideal. But as someone who has studied the experiences of Vietnamese refugees in Minnesota, I’ve written about how the trope of Minnesota nice has a more complex history – especially when it comes to nonwhite people.

Rural origins

In her book “Creating Minnesota: A History from the Inside Out,” historian Annette Atkins suggests that the trope of Minnesota nice may have its roots in the state’s Scandinavian immigrants and the influence of the Lutheran church.

According to Atkins, Minnesota nice denotes “a polite friendliness, an aversion to confrontation, a tendency toward understatement … and emotional restraints.” These traits can be found in Scandinavian literature, film and art, as well as in 19th- and early 20th-century Lutheran values.

By the turn of the 20th century, 72% of Norwegian immigrants to Minnesota and 62% of Swedish immigrants to the state resided in rural areas. And one core element of Minnesota nice is the notion that residents are welcoming to strangers from other lands.

The arrival of Southeast Asian refugees

After the Vietnam War ended in April 1975, more than 120,000 Vietnamese refugees came to the U.S. Another wave followed in 1978. Their arrival was not universally welcomed by the American public.

To ease those concerns, government officials instituted a dispersal policy to spread out Southeast Asian refugees to ensure they wouldn’t be concentrated in any one region, town or city. They implemented this policy to reduce social and economic impacts on local communities – and also compel Southeast Asian refugees to assimilate into American culture.

In Minnesota, while many newcomers were given a helping hand, many of them also experienced isolation and rejection.

From 1979 to 1999, about 15,000 Vietnamese refugees arrived in Minnesota. My research shows that media outlets often ran articles highlighting the goodwill and generosity of locals, whether they were helping these refugees learn English, acquire job training, find work or secure housing.

The Minneapolis Tribune reported in 1975 that the state was able to avoid any major public reactions against refugees because they posed “no major job threat,” since they were spread out across the state.

Even as locals seemed largely supportive, the dispersal policy wasn’t ideal for many refugees. Many of them ended up in remote areas of Minnesota, far from a familiar ethnic community that could provide much-needed psychological and emotional support. Those in isolated areas often lacked access to social services and English language programs.

For refugees, a more complicated view of Minnesota nice emerges, one that I think depends on being not too visible and not too much of a threat to the existing order. Many refugees were certainly grateful for the state and local support they received. But gratitude also became an “unspoken condition” for acceptance, as Iranian refugee Dina Nayeri reports in her book “The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You.”

In Minnesota, locals could seem largely unsympathetic to the complicated struggles of refugees trying to settle in a strange, new land. Rather than complain, they ought to be happy for the “small blessings” they received, as one local St. Cloud resident wrote to the Minneapolis Tribune in 1975.

A refugee’s drawing on display at a 2010 exhibit in Minneapolis depicts the bombing of Laos during the shadow war.
Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune via Getty Images

Minnesota too nice

When there was a sudden influx of refugees into one area, some residents could become even less welcoming.

That’s what happened with the state’s Hmong refugees.

An ethnic group originally from China, the Hmong arrived in Southeast Asia during the mid-19th century. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. government recruited the Hmong to fight in the Secret War in Laos, where the U.S. had been covertly providing aid and military assistance to anti-communist forces. After the war, some Hmong fled, fearing persecution. Many of them ended up in Minnesota. In 1980, there were about 2,000 Hmong people in Minnesota. By the end of 1981, their numbers had grown to 8,000, raising some alarm.

“Some cynics say our problem is that we are too nice and have provided too many services,” a local resettlement official was quoted saying in a 1980 State Department report. In that same report, an official with a local charity suggested that Minnesota would soon be known as “Hmong-nesota.”

In 1985, the Minnesota Star Tribune published a special report, “Hmong in Minnesota: Lost in the Promised Land,” that explored how many Hmong refugees had become “targets of racial epithets, harassment and violence” in the Twin Cities. The article noted that the Hmong came to realize that most Americans had never heard of them or their roles in the secret war in Laos. Instead, they often found themselves “resented, misunderstood and victimized by their neighbors.”

To me, the anxiety over “Hmong-nesota” recalled the history of “yellow peril” – the imagined threat of Asian invasion and cultural disruptions that first emerged in the 19th century and shaped many U.S. immigration policies.

Benevolence and violence

My own research explores how feel-good tropes that are prominent in the U.S., such as Minnesota nice, usually mask a more complicated story.

The U.S. government has often used the language of goodwill as a cover for violence – a phenomenon I call “bene/violence.”

For example, the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, which began in 1899, was sugarcoated in the rhetoric of benevolence. William McKinley, who was U.S. president at the time, insisted that “the strong arm of authority” would promote “the blessings of good and stable government upon the people of the Philippine Islands under the free flag of the United States.” The story of conquest became the story of “uplifting” those deemed less civilized and incapable of self-governance.

Two U.S. Marines stand at attention during a port call in Qingdao, China, in 1986.
Forrest Anderson/Getty Images

The same sort of talk was also used to justify U.S. military intervention in Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s State of the Union address on Jan. 4, 1965, implored Americans to secure the “peace of Asia” and “the progress of humanity.” The government promoted the war in Vietnam as a just war, in part by claiming Americans were granting the Vietnamese the “gift of freedom,” as Asian American studies scholar Mimi Nguyen has written.

Of course, this version of events ignores the carpet bombing that killed as many as 1 million civilians. It overlooks the fact that 30% of Laos is still blanketed with 80 million unexploded bombs and other ordnance. And it forgets to mention how the extensive use of the toxic herbicide Agent Orange continues to scar the Vietnamese landscape and the country’s people.

The Minnesota paradox

In the end, Minnesota nice signals that there’s something special about the state, just as “spreading democracy” and “protecting freedom” signal American exceptionalism on the international stage.

But the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis illuminated what economist Samuel L. Myers calls the “Minnesota Paradox” – a history of inequality that is totally divorced from the way niceness operates in the cultural imagination of the state’s residents.

“African Americans are worse off in Minnesota than they are in virtually every other state in the nation,” Myers writes.

In a 2021 essay, sociologist Amy August also highlighted the state’s persistent racial disparities in housing, health care, income and education to argue that whatever progressive promises the state makes, Minnesota is not apart from America but rather a part of America.

Ultimately, I think the concept of Minnesota nice can create the illusion of a utopian society largely devoid of the ills of racism and inequality. It reinforces American kindness as a core aspect of national identity and, in doing so, I believe glosses over parts of the country’s history – while hampering its ability to address the very real problems that plague the nation today.

I don’t reject what Minnesota nice purports to offer. But it is not a simple and straightforward cultural value adopted by – and equally applied to – everyone.

Giang Nguyen-Dien 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. The contradictions of ‘Minnesota nice’ – https://theconversation.com/the-contradictions-of-minnesota-nice-236751

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Global: Prepare your social media for the election − 3 tips to stay sane and connected without being overwhelmed

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Chelsea Butkowski, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of Communication

There’s a lot of information out there to sort through, so be prepared. Richard Drury/DigitalVision via Getty Images

As the presidential election approaches, the race is ramping up – including on social media. Although Meta reported in 2022 that only about 3% of the content on Facebook is political, Americans have already begun bracing themselves for a deluge of political news stories, ads, AI deepfakes and arguments on their feeds over the next few weeks.

Elections are stressful, and they tend to exacerbate Americans’ adverse mental health symptoms. For some people, social media can amplify political stressors.

Despite the tensions building on users’ digital feeds, an impending election doesn’t mean that people need to avoid social media altogether. When used wisely, social media can still be an important source for political information and an outlet to express opinions. I’ve studied how people navigate social media during elections, and I want to share three strategies to help you prepare your accounts for this election season so you can stay connected to what’s important without drowning in partisan back-and-forth.

1. Audit your feeds

While elections can be stressful, they also offer a chance to take ownership of the content that you consume online – or, as digital culture scholar Jessa Lingel says, “be your own algorithm.” Take the time to audit your social media ecosystem before November by considering the accounts that you follow and the settings that you have in place.

Social media platforms and their algorithms have inspired widespread concerns about their role in political polarization, because they enable people to isolate themselves in echo chambers that reinforce their own views. People with different political views can end up with substantially different material on their social media feeds.

While research suggests that echo chamber experiences are generally limited to highly partisan people, it is worthwhile to take a critical look at your feeds. Consider diversifying the content you see on social media, including following people whose life experiences differ from your own.

On the other side of the coin, take a breather before unfollowing people you disagree with during tense moments. While encountering political dissent online can be uncomfortable, studies demonstrate that deliberately blocking it out can contribute to polarization.

Research has shown that people who see more political news on social media can be more likely to get involved in politics offline.

Platforms are taking steps behind the scenes, however, to limit users’ exposure to political content. For example, Meta recently implemented features that limit the amount of political content that users see on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Since earlier this year, the setting has been turned on by default. Now is a great time to double-check that your accounts’ settings reflect the content and ad personalization preferences that work best for you. If you want, you can turn the political content back on using the “content preferences” settings available through Facebook and Instagram.

2. Stay skeptical and practice stepping away

Misinformation on social media remains a constant concern during elections. This year, AI-generated images pose a particular misinformation threat, especially when they’re shared by the presidential candidates themselves.

The News Literacy Project has established a 2024 election misinformation dashboard that has already compiled over 600 examples of inaccurate viral content related to this election, which include items such as misleading memes, altered photos and videos, and out-of-context quotes.

Platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram have also taken steps to ensure that AI-generated images are labeled on their sites. These methods, which identify AI by scanning image metadata and looking for hidden watermarks, are still new, and it’s unclear how well they work.

It’s not enough to hope the platforms’ systems protect users. You should approach information about the election with a skeptical eye, especially when it sparks an emotional response from you.

Research demonstrates that fake news tends to elicit more negative emotions, such as anger, sadness and disgust, than real news.

Upsetting news makes people want to take action.

One study found that people who had stronger emotional reactions to fake news headlines expressed greater intentions to comment, share or like items than those who were not emotionally moved to respond. Pay attention to your emotional reactions to the headlines and images you encounter on social media, and take time to step away, process and fact-check information using sources you know are reliable before sharing.

This is what your desk could look like if you took a break from being online.
Image by Marie LaFauci/Moment via Getty Images

3. Build social media safe havens

Especially during elections, ideals of “good citizenship” put pressure on people to stay informed about the latest political news. Social media can provide endless election updates, but just because the information is widely available doesn’t mean you need to engage with it all the time. It’s possible to stay informed while also staying in touch with the enjoyable aspects of social media, even when the election rises to the top of everyone’s minds.

Different platforms can serve different political functions, which could include helping you to set boundaries around political information. Just as you might choose to take a break from intense circumstances by taking a walk or calling a friend, you can also designate some social media spaces primarily for decompressing, while still engaging with political information on others.

This might mean joining a new platform or creating an alternative account on a platform that you already use. While people tend to turn to X, Reddit, TikTok and Facebook for politics, you can choose to curate some accounts with less focus on political content for times when you need an escape.

Regardless of how you choose to prepare your social media feeds for the election, keep in mind that feelings of stress around election time are normal. Many aspects of elections can feel out of control, but taking control of your social media feeds allows you to manage your political information diet for the better.

Chelsea Butkowski 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. Prepare your social media for the election − 3 tips to stay sane and connected without being overwhelmed – https://theconversation.com/prepare-your-social-media-for-the-election-3-tips-to-stay-sane-and-connected-without-being-overwhelmed-238502

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Global: Rising electricity demand could bring Three Mile Island and other prematurely shuttered nuclear plants back to life

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Todd Allen, Professor of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan

Steam billows from two cooling towers serving Unit 1 of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in 2005. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Constellation, an energy company that provides electricity and natural gas to customers in 16 states and Washington, announced on Sept. 20, 2024, that it plans to restore and restart Unit 1 at Three Mile Island, a nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, that was shut down in 2019. Microsoft has signed a 20-year agreement to purchase electricity generated by the plant to offset power demand from its data centers in the mid-Atlantic region.

Three Mile Island was the site in 1979 of a partial meltdown at the plant’s Unit 2 reactor. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission calls this event “the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history,” although only small amounts of radiation were released, and no health effects on plant workers or the public were detected. Unit 1 was not affected by the accident. University of Michigan nuclear engineering professor Todd Allen explains what restarting Unit 1 will involve, and why some other shuttered nuclear plants may also get new leases on life.

What is the history of TMI-1?

Three Mile Island Unit 1 is a large nuclear power station with the capacity to generate 837 megawatts of electricity – enough to power about 800,000 homes. It started commercial operations in 1974 and ran until September 2019.

After the accident at Unit 2 in 1979, Unit 1 was shut down for six years, until the operator at the time, Metropolitan Edison, demonstrated to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it could operate the reactor safely.

Constellation closed Unit 1 down in 2019, even though the plant’s operating license had been extended through 2034 and it had no operational or safety problems. TMI-1 could not compete economically at that point with natural gas-fueled power plants because gas had become extremely cheap.

Pennsylvania also had a policy preference for increasing electricity generation from solar and wind power. The state legislature chose not to reclassify the plant as a carbon-free electricity source, which would have qualified it for state support.

The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island had broad, lasting effects on nuclear power regulation.

What is the reactor’s current condition?

Since the shutdown in 2019, the plant has sat idle. The NRC calls this status safe storage, or SAFSTOR. The plant is shut down, uranium fuel is removed from the reactor, and the facility is maintained in a safe, stable condition. Irradiated fuel is stored in large steel and concrete casks on a physically secured portion of the site, known as an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation.

In addition to the fuel, other materials in the plant are radioactive, such as structural channels that direct the cooling water during operation and the large vessel in which the reactor is housed. Radioactive decay occurs during the SAFSTOR period, reducing the plant’s radioactivity and making it easier to dismantle the plant later.

The United States does not have a licensed long-term disposal site for spent nuclear fuel, so it is stored in large dry casks on-site at operating and closed reactors.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, CC BY

What will Constellation need to do to prepare the reactor to restart?

Constellation will need to ensure that it has enough fuel and sufficiently trained personnel. It also will have to ensure that the reactor’s components are still in a condition that allows for safe operation.

This will require detailed inspections and mandatory maintenance actions to ensure that all components are running correctly. In some cases, the company may need to install new equipment.

The exact work will depend on the results of inspections but could include upgrading or replacing the reactor’s major components, such as the turbine and associated electricity generator; large transformers that move the electricity from the reactor out to the grid; equipment used to cool the reactor during operation; and systems for controlling the plant during startup, shutdown and power generation.

As an analogy, imagine that you move to a city and stop driving your car for five years. When you decide to resume driving, you’d need to ensure you have gas, that your driver’s license is still valid and that all of the car’s components still operate correctly. It would probably need new oil, air in the tires, new filters and other replacement parts to run well.

A nuclear plant is much more complicated than a car, so the number of checks and verifications will take longer and cost more. Constellation expects to bring the restored plant online in 2028 at a projected cost of US$1.6 billion.

What will the NRC consider as it decides whether to relicense the reactor?

The agency needs to independently confirm Constellation has enough fuel and trained personnel, and that the plant can run safely. These checks must be approved by the commission before the plant can operate.

In my view, Constellation will need to show that the plant is in a condition to operate at the same levels of safety that existed there in September 2019 when the company terminated operations.

Do you expect other utilities to try this type of restoration at closed reactors?

Constellation is not the only utility considering restarting a nuclear plant. Holtec International, an energy technology company, bought the closed Palisades nuclear plant in southwest Michigan in 2022 with the intent to decommission it, but then the company decided to restore and reopen the plant.

That work is underway now. Recently, in its first major inspection at the plant, the NRC found a number of components that it said required more testing and repair work.

Wolverine Power Cooperative, a not-for-profit energy provider to rural communities across Michigan, plans to purchase electricity from the restored Palisades plant, with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America program. Holtec is receiving support for restoring Palisades from the U.S. Department of Energy and the state of Michigan.

A third company, NextEra Energy, is considering restarting its Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Palo, Iowa. And others could follow. In the past decade, a dozen nuclear plants closed before the end of their licensed operating lives because they were having trouble competing economically. But with electricity demand rising, especially to power data centers and electric vehicles, some of those plants could also become candidates for reopening.

Todd Allen is affiliated with Third Way as a Senior Visiting Fellow and the Nuclear Innovation Alliance as the Board Chair.

– ref. Rising electricity demand could bring Three Mile Island and other prematurely shuttered nuclear plants back to life – https://theconversation.com/rising-electricity-demand-could-bring-three-mile-island-and-other-prematurely-shuttered-nuclear-plants-back-to-life-239577

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Global: Police stop more Black drivers, while speed cameras issue unbiased tickets − new study from Chicago

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Wenfei Xu, Assistant Professor, Cornell University

Traffic stops are meant to make the streets safer, but police interactions with Black drivers can escalate quickly. deepblue4you via Getty

Traffic stops by Chicago police have more than doubled over the past nine years in what the American Civil Liberties Union, a civil rights group, is calling the “new stop-and-frisk.”

Stop and frisk is when officers stop and search people based on “reasonable suspicion” that they are involved in criminal activity. The practice has been documented to disproportionately target Black and Latino people – not only in Chicago but also in New York and across the United States. In Chicago, it has declined sharply since a 2015 reform agreement between the ACLU and the Chicago Police Department.

Meanwhile, traffic stops have surged in Chicago, rising from less than 200,000 in 2016 to over 570,000 in 2023. And much like stop and frisk, police disproportionately stop Black drivers in Chicago, according to our latest study examining racial bias in traffic enforcement.

Drivers, automated enforcement and police stops

Our research, published in June 2024, used data on the racial composition of drivers on every street in Chicago. We then compared who is driving on roads with who is being ticketed by the city’s speed cameras and who is being stopped by the Chicago police.

Our findings show that when speed cameras are doing the ticketing, the proportion of tickets issued to Black and white drivers aligns closely with their respective share of roadway users. With human enforcement, in contrast, police officers stop Black drivers at a rate that far outstrips their presence on the road.

For instance, on roads where half of drivers are Black, Black drivers receive approximately 54% of automated camera citations. However, they make up about 70% of police stops.

On roadways where half of the drivers are white, white drivers account for around half of automated citations – and less than 20% of police stops.

Driving while Black

Our research adds to other evidence that shows racial bias is a problem in traffic enforcement – a problem sometimes summarized as “driving while Black.”

The civil rights era of the 1960s was rife with law enforcement incidents that targeted Black drivers. As the scholar and historian Gretchen Sorin details in her 2020 book “Driving While Black,” the car simultaneously opened new possibilities of freedom as well as new hazards for Black people.

By the 1990s, the whole world witnessed the punishment that could await those caught driving while Black. In 1991, a Black man named Rodney King was stopped after a high-speed chase and beaten by police in Los Angeles. The violent encounter, captured on videotape and shared on local media, became national news.

The officers’ acquittal sparked the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in which widespread unrest and violence killed over 50 people, injured thousands and inflicted $1 billion in property damage.

In recent years, the police killings of Daunte Wright, Tyre Nichols and other Black drivers have shown how traffic stops can escalate quickly and sometimes lethally.

In September 2024, Miami Dolphins player Tyreek Hill was pulled over by local police on his way to a game at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Police officers physically pulled Hill from his vehicle and handcuffed him. The incident raised questions about the officers’ aggressive use of force.

A screenshot from body cam footage of officers pulling Miami Dolphins player Tyreek Hill from his car after stopping him for speeding on Sept. 9, 2024.
Miami-Dade Police Department

Fairer enforcement and safer streets

All humans have biases. These biases can become dangerous when those humans are police – agents of the state who are armed and empowered to make our cities safer.

And even when there’s no excessive use of force, disparate enforcement erodes trust between communities and police.

In recent years, as national conversations around racial bias in policing have accelerated, many police departments have implemented programs such as implicit bias training to establish fairer enforcement. While these initiatives appear to have an effect on officers’ attitudes about implicit bias, they do not seem to change the racial breakdown of whom police stopped, searched or arrested.

To reduce enforcement disparities and improve how traffic violations are handled, more fundamental reforms are likely necessary.

What can more ambitious policy reforms look like?

Several recent potential reforms of traffic enforcement center on decriminalization and de-escalation.

Legislators in Illinois recently proposed a bill that would prohibit traffic stops solely based on noncriminal and minor offenses such as improper vehicle registration, seat belt violations or lane usage mistakes.

Berkeley, California, is considering using trained civilians for traffic enforcement to reduce the opportunity for escalation. The idea is akin to how parking enforcement is done in many cities, including Chicago, which has unarmed parking units separate from the police.

The rationale for many police traffic stops is safety, which should remain a priority. Between 2013 and 2022 in Chicago, crashes on average killed 44 pedestrians, seven bicyclists and 78 vehicle passengers each year.

In contrast, the Norwegian capital of Oslo had four traffic deaths a year between 2015 and 2019. If Chicago’s streets were as safe as Oslo’s, crashes would kill 15 people each year – not 129.

More reliance on automated traffic enforcement could improve traffic safety and transform policing.

Red-light cameras like this one detect and punish reckless drivers without requiring person-to-person interactions.
John M. Chase via Getty

Cameras can detect dangerous moving violations, such as serious speeding and running red lights, without the need for immediate police involvement. Automated enforcement alone won’t guarantee safe streets, but cameras have reduced fatal and serious injury crashes substantially where deployed, including in Chicago.

Over half of police stops in Chicago for 2023 were license plate, registration or equipment related. Automating enforcement of such nonmoving violations would eliminate a major reason for police-driver interaction, reducing the potential for bias and escalation.

This, in turn, would free police resources to focus on nontraffic priorities.

And as our data shows, cameras are equal opportunity ticketers: They don’t have racial bias and carry no risk of escalation.

David Levinson has received research funding from ARC, UDIA-NSW, iMOVE, and Sydney Metro. He is affiliated with WalkSydney and Peaceful Bayside.

Nebiyou Tilahun has received funding from the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Michael J Smart and Wenfei Xu 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. Police stop more Black drivers, while speed cameras issue unbiased tickets − new study from Chicago – https://theconversation.com/police-stop-more-black-drivers-while-speed-cameras-issue-unbiased-tickets-new-study-from-chicago-238170

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: CMS Announces Resources and Flexibilities to Assist with the Public Health Emergency in the State of Florida

Source: US Department of Health and Human Services

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today additional resources and flexibilities available in response to Hurricane Helene in Florida. CMS is working closely with the state of Florida to put these flexibilities in place to ensure those affected by this natural disaster have access to the care they need – when they need it most.

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI USA: Budd Honors Heroic North Carolinians Who Risked Their Lives to Save Others

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator Ted Budd (R-North Carolina)
Raleigh, N.C. — This week, Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) met with the families of North Carolinians who were awarded the Carnegie Medal, an honor bestowed by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission on “individuals in the United States and Canada who risk death or serious physical injury to an extraordinary degree saving or attempting to save the lives of others.”
Senator Budd said in a statement:
“The Carnegie Medal is inscribed with the Holy Words of John 15:13, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ Those words perfectly describe the North Carolina citizens I met. It was nothing short of inspiring to hear their stories, hear their love for others, and their act of courage that brought them this honor. North Carolina is a special state to have produced such heroes. It was my absolute honor to spend time with them and thank them on behalf of our state.”
Below are stories of the two honorees with photos of their meeting with Senator Budd:
Daniel L. Weiss – Stokesdale, NC
Daniel L. Weiss saved a woman from burning, Greensboro, North Carolina, May 17, 2022. The woman, 29, was unconscious in her two-door coupe after an accident in which the car left a rural road and continued down an embankment for about 25 feet, where it struck two trees and caught fire. Weiss, 59, facility technician, was working on a utility pole nearby and responded. He reached the driver’s door and saw the woman in the driver’s seat, unconscious and slumped over the steering wheel. He reached in through the window opening and shook her in an attempt to wake her, but she did not respond. Weiss felt for a pulse, then noticed flames burning at the hood and spreading inside through the dashboard and air vents. He called to his co-worker for a fire extinguisher, which the man provided. Weiss emptied the extinguisher, but the flames at the hood continued to burn. He pulled on the handle of the driver’s door, but the door would not open. He then ran to the passenger side and fully entered the car, knelt on the front passenger seat, and turned the woman so she faced away from him. From behind, Weiss reached his arms around her front, clasped his hands together, and lifted her over the center console onto the passenger seat. Flames again burned through the air vents and spread toward the passenger side, coming within a foot of them. Weiss backed through the passenger door opening and fell with the woman to the ground. Two men responded and, with Weiss, carried her to a point about 20 feet away after seeing fire envelop the front seats. Flames grew to engulf the vehicle’s entire cab. The woman was not burned but was taken to the hospital for injuries sustained in the accident. Weiss suffered minor smoke inhalation and recovered.
Antwaun M. Jackson – Jacksonville, NC
Antwaun M. Jackson died helping to save two women and two children from drowning, North Topsail Beach, North Carolina, July 9, 2022. In the afternoon, several relatives, including two women, 33 and 24, and two girls, 7 and 6, were in the New River Inlet near its confluence with the Atlantic Ocean as the group of four reached a location where they no longer could touch the bottom. Suddenly struggling in a strong current after helping the girls use a bodyboard in shallow water, the women called out for help, alarming their relatives at the nearby beach, including Jackson, 40, production worker. A cousin of the two women and two girls, Jackson waded into the water, first moving toward other children closer to shore, then he swam to the area of the women, along with another female cousin, who helped the girls onto a bodyboard. The women recalled Jackson, who had moved beyond them, trying to push them from behind toward shore. Seeing a cluster of distressed swimmers, including Jackson, other men from separate groups also entered the water and helped to aid the women, girls, and female cousin back to safety in wadable water. All recovered without injury. Jackson remained stranded in the rough current and beyond the reach of some men and responding police officers, who took a rescue disc attached to a rope into the water which was thrown in Jackson’s direction to no effect. Ultimately, Jackson submerged, did not resurface, and could not be found by rescue crews that afternoon or in the days afterward. Jackson’s body has yet to be recovered.

MIL OSI USA News –

September 29, 2024
MIL-OSI Europe: Minister for Foreign Affairs takes part in strategic dialogue between Canada and Nordic countries

Source: Government of Sweden

Minister for Foreign Affairs takes part in strategic dialogue between Canada and Nordic countries – Government.se

Press release from Ministry for Foreign Affairs

Published 27 September 2024

On 27–29 September, Minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard is taking part in a Canada-Nordic strategic dialogue.

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly will host a strategic dialogue between Canada and the Nordic countries (the Canada-Nordic Strategic Dialogue). The aim is to strengthen the dialogue between Canada and the five Nordic countries on issues of mutual interest in the new international situation.

“Relations between Sweden and Canada have become increasingly significant. Canada is an important strategic partner to Sweden with regard to NATO and Ukraine, security in our neighbourhood, and bilateral investment in green transition, new technologies, AI and innovation,” says Ms Malmer Stenergard.

Transatlantic security is one of the main items on the agenda as the meeting begins in New York on 27 September. The ministers will then undertake a joint visit to the city of Iqaluit on Baffin Island. Iqaluit is the capital of the Nunavut Territory, the easternmost part of the Canadian Arctic.

Sweden and Canada have long enjoyed excellent relations, which are now being further enhanced with Sweden as a NATO member. Canada is an important country for Sweden, the Nordic region and the EU, and one with which we share values with regard to democracy, human rights, gender equality, sustainability and the rules-based international order.

Press contact

MIL OSI Europe News –

September 29, 2024