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MIL OSI USA News –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Australia: WACA ground improvements top out
Source: Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority

The iconic WACA Ground multi-million-dollar redevelopment has reached a major milestone with the completion of the highest structural point.

A ‘Topping Out Ceremony’ was attended by project partners, government representatives, WA Cricket officials, and key stakeholders.

The revitalised WACA Ground will serve as a world-class sporting, arts and entertainment venue for generations to come.

The transformative WACA Ground Improvement Project is a collaborative initiative, jointly funded by the Australian Government, Western Australian Government and City of Perth, in partnership with WA Cricket and Cricket Australia.

This project will help ensure the long-term prosperity and liveability of Perth and drive the city’s economic, social and environmental sustainability, delivering:
- a boutique multi-use sport and entertainment venue with 10,000 capacity
- state-of-the-art high-performance and community sport facilities, including a 10-lane indoor centre
- a community resort-style aquatic facility, including a six-lane outdoor 50m pool, indoor learn to swim pool and waterslides
- a public café, with indoor and outdoor seating
- a community health, fitness and wellbeing facility overlooking the WACA Ground
- a revitalised museum that honours the rich history and heritage of the WACA Ground and inspires the next generation
- infusion of Aboriginal cultural narrative into the planning and design
- an all-abilities playground and other inclusive facilities.
Construction is being led by ADCO Constructions, one of Australia’s leading builders, whose team has worked closely with project partners on the exciting development.

The redevelopment is on track for completion by November 2025.

More information on the WACA Ground Improvement Project can be accessed at: https://wacaground.com.au/

Quotes attributable to Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Minister Catherine King:

“We are committed to working alongside the Western Australian Government and the City of Perth to deliver infrastructure that benefits the Perth community.

“Today marks a significant milestone for the WACA Ground redevelopment, which will build on Western Australia’s great sporting legacy.”

Quotes attributable to WA Deputy Premier and Sport and Recreation Minister Rita Saffioti:

“Our government’s record investment in sporting infrastructure is helping to support iconic projects like the WACA Ground Improvement project, to service a growing inner-city community and support cricket across all levels.

“We have a long and proud cricket history in this State, and this huge redevelopment of the famous WACA Ground will support our cricketers for many years to come.

“Importantly, the redevelopment will also provide world-class community facilities and amenity for the growing number of people and families who are moving into the East Perth area.”

Quotes attributable to Federal Member for Perth Patrick Gorman:

“I am thrilled to see the WACA Ground Improvement project come to life. Families across Perth are looking forward to the benefits this will bring to our city.”

“Our Government will continue to build Western Australia’s future and invest in national results for our local communities.”

Quotes attributable to WA Planning and Lands Minister John Carey:

“As the population of our inner-city increases, projects like the WACA Ground improvement are crucial to ensuring the community has access to facilities that meet demand.

“It’s great to see progress on this landmark development, which along with the neighbouring new primary school, will be transformative for the east end of our city.

“Our Government is backing a number of projects in the inner city, including the new East Perth Primary School and ECU City Campus that will make Perth more vibrant and liveable.”

Quotes attributable to Deputy Lord Mayor City of Perth Bruce Reynolds:

“The revitalisation of this iconic WA sporting institution is a fantastic example of how all levels of government can come together to deliver new, much-needed community facilities.

“With a multitude of city-shaping projects underway, the City of Perth’s $25 million investment in the WACA aquatic facility — as part of the landmark Perth City Deal — is about building a growing, liveable and sustainable capital for generations to come.”

Quotes attributable to WA Cricket CEO John Stephenson:

“Today’s milestone is a powerful symbol of what can be achieved when sport, government, and community come together with a shared vision.

“This is more than a cricket project – it’s about creating a precinct that brings people together. We’re proud to be building a space that reflects the spirit and diversity of our community.”

MIL OSI News –
June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Miller-Meeks, Colleagues Launch Bill to Fight Antisemitic Hate Across the U.S.

Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ (IA-02)

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), alongside Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Maria Salazar (R-FL), has introduced the bipartisan Commission to Study Acts of Antisemitism in the United States Act, legislation to establish a national commission tasked with investigating the rise in antisemitic violence and providing actionable recommendations to Congress and the President.

“Whether it’s the brutal attack in Boulder, the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in D.C., or the 80 percent spike in campus antisemitic incidents, the threat is real and growing,” said Rep. Miller-Meeks. “This commission will get to the root of the problem and help us take the strong, serious action needed to protect Jewish Americans and restore order and accountability.”

“Antisemitism was already surging before October 7th, but since then, it has exploded—especially in the digital realm,” said Rep. Wasserman Schultz. “As we’ve unfortunately witnessed, hatred that starts online does not stay online. This bipartisan, bicameral commission, backed by leading voices in the Jewish community, will help shape smart, actionable policies to confront this alarming trend head-on.”

“Since the brutal Hamas terrorist attack on innocent Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed, resulting in an overall increase of 900% over the past 10 years, including recent violent, hate-fueled attacks that have shocked communities across the country,” said Rep. Salazar. “The U.S. must identify and report these acts of hate against the Jewish community to put an end to them immediately.”

Background:

Antisemitic violence and harassment have surged across the United States since October 7. In Boulder, Colorado, an illegal immigrant from Egypt wielding a makeshift flamethrower attacked peaceful marchers calling for the release of hostages, hospitalizing eight people. In Washington, D.C., two young Israeli Embassy staffers were murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum by a radical Hamas supporter shouting “Free Palestine.” Across college campuses, antisemitic incidents have spiked by more than 80 percent, with students reporting threats, vandalism, harassment, and physical assaults.

The Commission to Study Acts of Antisemitism will bring together Jewish leaders, law enforcement, civil society experts, and impacted communities to investigate these acts, uncover root causes, and deliver a formal report to Congress and the President with concrete policy recommendations. The commission will also strengthen national data collection and improve accountability for antisemitic incidents.

For full bill text, click HERE.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 4, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: ‘That was rude’: why the new Broadway musical Death Becomes Her was ripe for TikTok memes

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Camp, Senior Lecturer, School of Music, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

A few snippets of musicalised dialogue from the cast album of the new Broadway musical Death Becomes Her – with music and lyrics by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey, and a book by Marco Pennette – have recently become trending sonic memes on TikTok.

In all sorts of situations, users are lip synching to audio clips of Broadway star Jennifer Simard, in the character of Helen Sharp (played by Goldie Hawn in the 1992 cult film on which the musical is based), saying things like “That was rude. That was pretty fuckin’ rude” and “She stole my life. She made me cuckoo. She’s why I spent four years locked in that health spa.”

Musical theatre fans love a good meme (scholar Trevor Boffone has written a whole book about the phenomenon) and Death Becomes Her is primed to create a lot of them: a show featuring two divas (played by Simard and Megan Hilty as Madeleine Ashton, Meryl Streep’s role in the movie) based on a cult film about divas begs to be shaped and reshaped by fan culture.

Helen and Madeleine are longtime rivals who both take a magic potion that makes them immortal. This leads them to find increasingly extravagant ways to try and do away with each other, with the help of Helen’s put-upon husband Ernest (Christopher Sieber), a plastic surgeon who reluctantly falls into the role of restoring their bodies after each “accident”.

Some of Hilty’s clips have also been TikTok-ified (notably Tell Me, Earnest) but Simard is winning the numbers game. Her “That was rude” clip alone has 321,000 videos and counting.

Finding the patter

There seem to be two main reasons for the attraction of these clips. First is Simard’s delivery of the words. Simard is a longstanding Broadway star and an expert at musical comedy timing.

Second is the rhythmic quality of the dialogue. Not fully sung, these bits are spoken in mostly strict rhythm over orchestral accompaniment. That they have become such earworms demonstrates it is not only melody that burrows into the brain, but also rhythmic contour.

There is a long history of this style of speak-singing in musical theatre, notably popularised in the late 1950s by Robert Preston in The Music Man and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.

Neither of those actors was a strong singer, but both had excellent timing and were able to deliver spoken lines above music with a strong sense of musicality.

Simard is an excellent singer with a very wide range, but the comic role of Helen – ever the underdog to her rival famous actress Madeleine – lends itself to this style of heightened speech.

Most effective rhythmically, and the most popular excerpt, is the “That was rude” meme, where Simard begins slowly without accompaniment; the bass comes in on “rude” and sets a groove for the rest of the short excerpt.

This one has been used in every possible situation, from responses to nasty notes left on people’s cars to complaints about incorrect drink orders. Some of the TikTokers refer to Simard in on-screen text, but this one seems to have become popular outside any specific reference to the show, in a truly viral moment.

Ripe for the lip-sync

The lengthiest of the trending excerpts is the one that begins with “We talked about killing her before”, which sets off a monologue about Helen’s plan to do away with Madeline once and for all.

This is a tour de force for Simard’s comic timing, as it begins in free rhythm and then gradually takes on a more consistent beat. TikTokers are tending to use this one primarily as a demonstration of their lip-syncing skills, as opposed to the other shorter clips that are applied in different ironic situations.

This trend also shows the continuing importance of the cast album in musical theatre culture. The majority of TikTokers probably have not seen the show, currently only playing on Broadway with high ticket prices. Yet the cast album (easily available on all the main streaming sites) gives access.

The fact these clips come from a cast album also more easily allows fans to create their own visuals around it. Unless they actually saw the show they only have production photographs and short publicity clips (and the occasional shaky bootleg or slime tutorial) to go on in terms of what it looks like.

Audio from a source like the soundtrack of the Wicked movie has not led to so many lip-sync videos because the visual track is so readily accessible; as a film, Wicked’s visuals define its audio while a cast album can more easily work the other way round.

Beyond Broadway

I saw Death Becomes Her on Broadway in January and enjoyed it. It’s a fun show full of special effects and comic bits. The score is serviceable (it’s not Sondheim), but it is catchy – very important for its use in these TikTok trends – and well performed by Simard and the rest of the cast.

This whole phenomenon demonstrates that the current cultural sphere of “Broadway” extends well beyond the street itself. This has been the case at least since the rise of the cast album in the 1950s (My Fair Lady’s was the best-selling LP of 1956), but now the reach is intensified by social media spaces like TikTok; you don’t have to have actually seen Death Becomes Her to experience it.

Gregory Camp 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. ‘That was rude’: why the new Broadway musical Death Becomes Her was ripe for TikTok memes – https://theconversation.com/that-was-rude-why-the-new-broadway-musical-death-becomes-her-was-ripe-for-tiktok-memes-257550

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Beneath the Surface: Why Bri Friedman Embraces Failure

Source: US National Renewable Energy Laboratory

An Engineer Looks Back on High School Science Fairs, African Drone Flights, and Marine Energy Innovations That Shape the Future

Bri Friedman is looking forward to learning from failure.

This National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) engineer is working with the laboratory’s marine energy team to develop a device called the small underwater research flap wave energy converter—or SURF-WEC, for short.

SURF-WEC takes the form of a submerged flap that swings back and forth to capture energy from ocean waves to power an electric generator. In the coming months, SURF-WEC will undergo a design review, in which a team of experts and stakeholders will evaluate the device to determine whether it is ready for deployment. If the design review goes well, Friedman and her team, in partnership with the University of Hawaii, will send SURF-WEC on an experimental deployment off the Hawaiian coast for up to one year.

“‘Up to’ are the key words—we expect the system to fail within the year,” Friedman quipped, “but we are eager to learn from those failures and share our lessons with our colleagues in marine energy.”

Of course, Friedman and her team also want to understand what works well during the SURF-WEC deployment. However, as Friedman went on to explain, the success of the SURF-WEC deployment is not tied to the amount of energy the device can capture or the length of time the system can operate without issue. Instead, the goal is to collect data and learn which decisions contributed to setbacks and which led to success—and to share those lessons with the marine energy community to help reduce the risks and costs of future deployments. To that end, the team will make the deployment data, along with data collected during SURF-WEC’s laboratory testing and simulation stages, publicly available on the Marine and Hydrokinetic Data Repository.

As any marine energy researcher or technology developer knows, harnessing energy from ocean waves is a big challenge. Many WECs fail in the harsh ocean environment due to the corrosive effects of briny seawater, constant wear and tear from crashing waves, impacts from floating debris, or even the accumulation of barnacles, algae, and other marine life. Designing WECs to withstand these challenges requires strong materials, backup systems for important parts, and regular maintenance. For Friedman, tackling these challenges feels surmountable—thanks to the NREL marine energy research team’s collaborative spirit.

“I feel like we each have a pickax, or maybe a ladle, since we’re talking about the ocean,” Friedman said. “We’re each ladling out a little bit, doing our part to make marine energy a viable, usable resource.”

From Science Fairs to Drone Flights

Friedman can trace her career path back to middle school, when she first decided she wanted to be an engineer when she grew up. The youngest of four children—two of whom went on to become mechanical engineers—Friedman grew up immersed in science, with a strong desire for discovery.

“It wasn’t always a popular sentiment when I was young, but I genuinely enjoyed participating in science fairs,” Friedman said. “They gave me a chance to experiment, make predictions, and learn by doing, which would further spark my curiosity.”

Friedman, center, poses with her sister and two brothers in front of the Boulder Flatirons in Colorado. Photo from Bri Friedman, NREL

That love for hands-on learning led Friedman to get involved in robotics in high school, which became her main after-school activity and solidified her desire to pursue a career in engineering. At the same time, she felt a strong pull toward next-generation technologies and types of work that could protect people’s health and well-being.

“I wanted to find a job that both scratched my scientist itch and aligned with my values,” Friedman said.

Friedman followed her passion for scientific experimentation to Virginia Tech, where she pursued mechanical engineering for both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. As an undergrad, she interned at NREL through the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program, working with a research team to create a photoluminescence system for testing silicon solar cell processing methods. This was not only a valuable learning experience; it also supported Friedman’s commitment to making a positive impact on the world.

“It was so exciting to learn how to harness energy from nearly boundless sources like the sun, wind, and water,” Friedman recalled. “Plus, everyone I encountered during my internship seemed happy to be at NREL, which made me even more excited about the work. The SULI program showed me a career path that I was really excited about.”

As an undergrad, Friedman participated in the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program at NREL, which gave her the chance to work on a photoluminescence system for testing silicon solar cell processing methods. Photo from Joanne Wu, BAE Systems

During her master’s program, Friedman worked as a graduate research assistant with the African Drone and Data Academy, a program that trains recent college graduates to design, build, and pilot drones for agriculture, medical equipment delivery, and other humanitarian efforts in Africa. Friedman taught the program’s first cohort, delivering lectures, supervising lab work, and providing one-on-one drone flight instruction. Near the end of the academy’s first course, Friedman visited a refugee camp and had an experience that would become the foundation for her master’s thesis.

“My graduate research focused on using drone imagery to develop a flood model for a low-resource area,” Friedman recalled. “In developed countries, flood models are built using years of historical data, but in low-resource areas, that kind of data is rarely available. Our challenge was to generate a useful flood model without waiting for years of data collection.”

To fill this data gap, Friedman’s team used drones to capture high-resolution aerial images of the camp. Friedman then used this imagery to create a flood model, validating its accuracy by comparing the model’s prediction to locations where homes had collapsed due to flooding.

“The refugee camp was overpopulated, and many of the homes were built from clay wherever there was available space, so they collapsed easily due to heavy rains and few drainage paths,” Friedman explained. “The collapsed structures showed where flooding had actually occurred, which helped us confirm that the model had accurately predicted those high-risk areas.”

From Drone Flights to Wave Power

Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic cut short Friedman’s time in Malawi. She returned home in March 2020 after the first group of students graduated but continued to support her students through online instruction. In addition, her experience with drones set her up for her next move: After finishing her master’s program in 2021, Friedman landed a position as a postgraduate researcher with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) water power engineering team, which was exploring ways to integrate drones into their projects.

Shortly after joining PNNL, Friedman began working on a project to support the development of a triboelectric nanogenerator—a small device that converted the motion of ocean waves into electricity using static charge buildup. Intended for deployment in the Arctic Ocean, the device would provide a low-maintenance power source for ocean monitoring equipment. Friedman also studied ways to use the temperature differences between surface water and deep water to generate energy for an underwater glider, a type of autonomous underwater vehicle that navigates the ocean by changing its buoyancy to move up and down through the water.

After two years in Richland, Washington, where PNNL is located, Bri was ready for a change of scenery. She kept an eye out for opportunities at NREL and, in 2023, moved to Colorado to work as a full-time researcher on NREL’s marine energy team. The move brought Friedman full circle—in more ways than one.

Back in 2017, when Friedman was working on the application for her internship at NREL, she read up on NREL’s work and learned about different types of WECs, including those that flap back and forth, similar to SURF-WEC.

“Reading about these types of WECs, I thought, ‘Wow, it would be amazing to work in that field,’” Friedman recalled. “Eight years later, I do work in that field—on a project very similar to the ones I read about.”

In addition to SURF-WEC, Friedman contributes to several other marine energy projects at NREL. Her work involves testing, characterization, and outreach, helping researchers and industry partners better understand and utilize emerging wave energy technologies. She has worked with the large-amplitude motion platform, or LAMP, a simulation tool that replicates a WEC’s response to different ocean wave conditions in a controlled environment. She also supports the Power at Sea Prize, which encourages innovative marine energy concepts by lowering barriers to entry for new developers.

“We have a mix of participants—some from universities and some independent teams,” Friedman said. “It’s been great to see such a broad range of people engaging with marine energy innovation.”

Time To Root Down

Friedman lives in Boulder, Colorado, a short drive from her work at NREL’s Flatirons Campus. She misses her family, who still live on the East Coast, but relishes the time she gets to spend with her four young nieces.

“I definitely aspire to be the fun aunt,” Friedman said.

With a population of about 105,000, Boulder is the biggest city Friedman has lived in during her adult life, but it feels like the right fit.

“Boulder is a bigger city than what I’m used to, but there’s plenty to do, which I appreciate,” Friedman said. “I especially enjoy the rock climbing and general outdoor adventuring shenanigans.”

When she is not testing wave energy conversion devices, Friedman enjoys climbing rock walls like this granite multipitch in Colorado’s Platte Canyon. Photo from Kathryn Howe, Antech Diagnostics

The move to Colorado has also given Friedman a chance to create a more long-term community for herself.

“Before moving to Colorado, I spent over two months living in my car, climbing and exploring the outdoors,” Friedman recalled. “It was an amazing experience, but the communities I encountered during that time always felt temporary. Since moving here, I’ve been working on putting down stronger roots.”

Friedman’s work at NREL feeds her desire for community as well. She appreciates the collaborative spirit on her team, in which everyone is working toward a common goal, even if they are focused on different projects. In addition, being on campus every day has helped Friedman build connections through casual conversations, strengthening her sense of belonging.

“We share successes and failures, and I really value that sense of teamwork and collective learning,” Friedman said. “It’s a great feeling to know we’re all working together toward a shared purpose.”

Learn more about how NREL’s experts are helping advance marine energy. And subscribe to the NREL water power newsletter, The Current, for the latest news on NREL’s water power research.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI: LIS Technologies Inc. Bolsters its Technical Team with the addition of Prominent Researcher and Engineer Lukasz Urbanski, Ph.D., to Lead its Stable Isotope Laser Program

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, June 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — LIS Technologies Inc. (“LIST” or “the Company”), a proprietary developer of advanced laser technology and the only USA-origin and patented laser uranium enrichment company, today announced that it has engaged Lukasz Urbanski as the Director of its Stable Isotope Laser Program.

Dr. Lukasz Urbanski is a seasoned technologist, bringing 12 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, specializing in high-power CO₂ laser systems for Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. As a High-Power Laser Systems Architect at ASML Research, he led the development of next-generation drive lasers, critical components for laser-produced plasma in high-volume manufacturing EUV lithography systems. His work focused on scaling laser power and efficiency while reducing technology costs, resulting in multiple world records in power output, stability, repetition rate, and system architecture.

“It is a joy to take on this role with LIS Technologies and spearhead the creation of its Stable Isotope Laser Program,” said Lukasz Urbanski, Ph.D., Stable Isotope Laser Program Director of LIS Technologies Inc. “There is a major opportunity in pursuing the development of stable isotopes, and later medical isotopes, that the Company has seen fit to explore and I am delighted to lend my expertise and help to expand the possibilities of what CRISLA can achieve.”

Figure 1 – LIS Technologies Inc. Engages Dr. Lukasz Urbanski as the Director of its Stable Isotope Laser Program.

Prior to the architect role at ASML, Dr. Urbanski served as a Staff Systems Engineer, where he acted as a key interface between Research, Engineering, and Product Development teams. He coordinated cross-disciplinary efforts to translate early-stage innovations into manufacturable solutions, with a strong emphasis on system throughput and optical performance. His contributions spanned the entire product lifecycle, from concept and design through implementation, ensuring technical alignment and performance optimization across teams.

Dr. Urbanski began his career in EUV research as a graduate student at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center for EUV Science and Technology, where he advanced to a postdoctoral researcher role. During this time, he also contributed to research at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Before transitioning to academia and industry, he served as a Platoon Commander in the Polish Armed Forces after graduating from the Military University of Technology with a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University with a focus on EUV Lasers, Nanopatterning, Nanofabrication, EUV Lithography.

“Lukasz is a top scientist and engineer with the knowledge and expertise required to spearhead this whole new program for the Company,” said Christo Liebenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of LIS Technologies Inc. “The Stable Isotope Laser Program will open new market opportunities for LIST and deliver critical products, such as the isotopes required to enhance the performance of next-generation chips for AI and quantum computing, or potential medical isotopes that can drive healthcare breakthroughs. Lukasz’s track record of guiding projects from inception will be invaluable, and I’m pleased to welcome him to the Company.”

“Dr. Urbanski sees our company’s potential and market growth, having come from a company with a market worth of about $300 billion. Following his addition, we are now preparing to enter the rapidly expanding stable‑isotope market, alongside further developing the only U.S.‑origin, patented laser‑uranium‑enrichment technology, which is uniquely positioned to support the growing fuel demands of large civil reactors as well as advanced SMRs and microreactors,” said Jay Yu, Executive Chairman and President of LIS Technologies Inc. “I feel humbled to have such a seasoned professional and technical expert to assist us in developing a potentially significant new revenue stream for the Company.”

About LIS Technologies Inc.

LIS Technologies Inc. (LIST) is a USA based, proprietary developer of a patented advanced laser technology, making use of infrared lasers to selectively excite the molecules of desired isotopes to separate them from other isotopes. The Laser Isotope Separation Technology (L.I.S.T) has a huge range of applications, including being the only USA-origin (and patented) laser uranium enrichment company, and several major advantages over traditional methods such as gas diffusion, centrifuges, and prior art laser enrichment. The LIST proprietary laser-based process is more energy-efficient and has the potential to be deployed with highly competitive capital and operational costs. L.I.S.T is optimized for LEU (Low Enriched Uranium) for existing civilian nuclear power plants, High-Assay LEU (HALEU) for the next generation of Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and Microreactors, the production of stable isotopes for medical and scientific research, and applications in quantum computing manufacturing for semiconductor technologies. The Company employs a world class nuclear technical team working alongside leading nuclear entrepreneurs, former U.S. national leaders, and industry professionals, possessing strong relationships with government and private nuclear industries.

In Dec 2024, LIS Technologies Inc. was selected as one of six domestic companies to participate in the Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) Enrichment Acquisition Program. This initiative allocates up to $3.4 billion overall, with contracts lasting for up to 10 years. Each awardee is slated to receive a minimum contract of $2 million.

For more information please visit: LaserIsTech.com

For further information, please contact:
Email: info@laseristech.com
Telephone: 800-388-5492
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Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In this context, forward-looking statements mean statements related to future events, which may impact our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as “expects”, “anticipates”, “intends”, “plans”, “believes”, “will”, “should”, “could”, “would” or “may” and other words of similar meaning. These forward-looking statements are based on information available to us as of the date of this news release and represent management’s current views and assumptions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, events or results and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may be beyond our control. For LIS Technologies Inc., particular risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the following which are, and will be, exacerbated by any worsening of global business and economic environment: (i) risks related to the development of new or advanced technology, including difficulties with design and testing, cost overruns, development of competitive technology, loss of key individuals and uncertainty of success of patent filing, (ii) our ability to obtain contracts and funding to be able to continue operations and (iii) risks related to uncertainty regarding our ability to commercially deploy a competitive laser enrichment technology, (iv) risks related to the impact of government regulation and policies including by the DOE and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and other risks and uncertainties discussed in this and our other filings with the SEC. Only after successful completion of our Phase 2 Pilot Plant demonstration will LIS Technologies be able to make realistic economic predictions for a Commercial Facility. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this news release. These factors may not constitute all factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in any forward-looking statement. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as a predictor of actual results. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this news release, except as required by law.

The MIL Network –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: VIDEO: Capito Opening Statement at Hearing to Review Education Budget Request

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator for West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito
[embedded content]
Click here or on the image above to watch Chairman Capito’s opening remarks from the hearing.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS), chaired a hearing with U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon to review sthe President’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request.
Below is the opening statement of Chairman Capito as prepared for delivery:
“Good morning. Secretary McMahon, thank you for being here today to discuss the president’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request and your priorities for the Department of Education.
“I am pleased to be joined this morning by my friend and ranking member Senator Baldwin, as well as our full committee chair, Senator Collins, and vice chair, Senator Murray.
“We are all committed to return the Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations process to regular order and these hearings are the first step in that process.
“All Americans should have the opportunity to receive a high-quality education from pre-school through postsecondary education. I know that education is a key to success and a vital part of maintaining strong communities across our nation.
“I’ve seen it firsthand in my home state of West Virginia, where I began my professional career as a college counselor and advisor working closely with many first-generation college students. Through this role, I was able to personally see how education provides students with life-changing opportunities.
“Secretary McMahon, you have taken charge of the Department of Education at a critical time for our nation’s students. According to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, students have still not recovered from pandemic-related school closures—national scores on math and reading are worse than pre-pandemic levels in all tested grades. And in reading, students’ scores continue to decline. A third of 8th graders are not even reading at a basic level. This is unacceptable.
“We know that throwing more money at the problem will not lead to a solution. These devastating declines in achievement are in spite of the almost $190 billion in COVID relief funding provided for elementary and secondary education during the pandemic.
“Federal education spending should, at a minimum, be focused on ensuring that America’s children can read and write at a basic level. This is critical not only for children to flourish, but also for America remain a competitive nation.
“That is why I strongly believe that federal education spending should support states and policies that afford kids the greatest opportunity to learn and achieve academically. Education decisions should be made by those closest to our students, those who know what they need to succeed— local schools, teachers, and, most importantly, parents.
“Formula grant programs like Title I, IDEA, and Career and Technical Education provide the crucial flexibility that states and local communities need to best meet the needs of their students, and I look forward to continuing to support these key programs in fiscal year 2026.
“Madam Secretary, I am pleased that your budget proposes to increase another important program, the Charter School Program. While West Virginia is fairly new to offering charter school education, we are already seeing promising results in expanded opportunities for public school students.
“For example, the WIN Academy?at?BridgeValley Community and Technical College?is an?early college charter high school?designed to provide a free accelerated, dynamic degree program?for juniors and seniors in the?Kanawha Valley. The school was started to help local hospitals address the severe shortage in nurses and has been so successful that it has already expanded to include an advanced manufacturing track in partnership with Toyota. Students are enrolled in the college and graduate from high school ready to start their careers in high need, well-paying fields.
“This school is meeting the intent of charter schools—using the flexibility they are granted to offer innovative learning opportunities to benefit students. With the additional funding for charter schools proposed in your budget, I know that many more students across the country would benefit from opportunities like the WIN Academy.
“Secretary McMahon, this is also a pivotal time for our nation’s student loan borrowers. Borrowers have been forced to navigate an exceptionally confusing four years full of bad advice and unfair promises of illegal loan forgiveness from the prior administration. And as a result, one in four federal student loan borrowers are either in default or a late stage of delinquency on their loans, as of the beginning of May. And only 38% of borrowers are actually in repayment and current on their student loans.
“After years of confusion, the department must work to restore trust with borrowers by providing clear and consistent information about repayment. Student loan borrowers deserve that clarity in order to fulfil their obligations to repay their loans. I am grateful that under your leadership the department has begun the difficult task of getting borrowers back on the path to repayment and I look forward to continued updates on your progress.
“Secretary McMahon, the Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations process will be challenging, but I look forward to working with you to responsibly allocate our limited taxpayers’ resources to programs that help provide the best opportunity for a high-quality education for all students.
“Thank you again for being here today and I look forward to your testimony.
“Now I will turn to Senator Baldwin for her opening statement.”

MIL OSI USA News –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Banking: Fine-tuning AI models into agents — the secret to scaling expert knowledge across your company
Source: Microsoft

Headline: Fine-tuning AI models into agents — the secret to scaling expert knowledge across your company

When every business uses AI, how do you maintain a competitive edge? Simply adopting the standard AI models isn’t enough—you need to adapt them to your business, and the work you want them to do for you.

Fine-tuning is the step that makes this possible: you can give your AI a hyper-accelerated education in everything that makes your company valuable. Learning from your data, the AI will become a specialist in your organization, uniquely designed to accomplish what you do best.

Historically, fine-tuning was a time- and resource-intensive process. But recent breakthroughs are changing the game. It’s now readily available to every organization—no coding experience required. Here’s how that change is unfolding, and what it means for your business.

Moving to more specialized agents
Many foundation models are trained on data from across the internet, which makes them powerful but general. Fine-tuning gives them targeted expertise: for instance, the model can take in countless examples from your business and learn to understand your data, language, and workflows. Build an agent based on that tuned model, and it’s like hiring a digital specialist with years of experience.

Thanks to recent advancements that make it easier and faster, fine-tuning is well within reach for organizations of any size. Businesses now have two ways to tap into these more knowledgeable models:
- Custom: Fine-tune a model yourself and build agents based on it. This is a much easier process now with low-code tools like Copilot Tuning, a new offering we just announced at Build. (Your fine-tuned model and custom agents access data securely, and only within your organization’s Microsoft 365 service boundary.) Any agent you create has deep and specific knowledge based on your company’s own data about how best to do a particular task.
- Pre-built: Buy an agent that has already been taught special skills. If you need help with advanced data analysis, for example, there’s a Microsoft agent called Analyst—built on OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model and designed to think like a data scientist. Its knowledge in that area is deep, but instead of being fine-tuned on your own company data, it’s trained on a broad, abstracted understanding of how businesses work. To access other special skills, you can tap into a whole ecosystem of agents from Microsoft and our partners.
Honing your competitive edge
Fine-tuning agents on what sets your business apart is the digital equivalent of onboarding a team with specialized skills and knowledge. Since your institutional knowledge and know-how are what differentiate you from your competition, tuning your agents is the way you scale that competitive advantage across the whole business. In essence, you’re encoding the valuable expertise of your subject matter experts into the systems that support everyone else.

For instance, imagine if your agents understood how and why your documents are crafted in specific ways (including format, word choice, and content). A biomedical company could use agents to write reports in the way it has developed over decades, so they’re not just accurate but aligned with how the firm’s experts communicate critical information. A legal firm could draft arguments that blend institutional knowledge with client-specific context to build the strongest cases possible. At a financial services firm, an agent could generate investment reports modeled on the tone, structure, and content of those drafted by the organization’s most experienced analysts.

This is institutional knowledge at scale—captured, codified, and available to any employee.

Agents go vertical, human roles go horizontal
Because of this new ability to scale organizational knowledge, the traditional model of an organization’s software customization is going to change—along with the role of humans. In short, software will go more vertical, and humans more horizontal. Software products have traditionally been universal—think of Excel, which anyone who works with numbers can use, or Word, a tool for writing and editing that’s used across countless professions and industries. We’re moving into an era of more targeted solutions, with agents as a new kind of software that has deep expertise in specific roles, industries, and organizations.

In the meantime, I expect that human roles will be able to expand horizontally as agents support them with deep, vertical expertise. AI-first organizations will pair human generalists with specialized agents at every level. Humans will step back to see the big picture—connecting dots across roles and orchestrating work between people and machines. They’ll manage and guide agents, validating their outputs, resolving discrepancies, handling exceptions, and making judgment calls. The real advantage will belong to those who can think strategically while deploying tools designed for precision.

Summing it up
What if everyone in your organization had access to all your company’s best thinking, preferred practices, and institutional knowledge? This is truly the definition of democratizing that knowledge across the business. Soon, a fleet of fine-tuned agents will make that vision possible. They embed your company’s best practices into the flow of work, helping teams move faster with more consistency and confidence—constantly sharpening your unique edge.

For more insights on AI and the future of work, subscribe to this newsletter.
MIL OSI Global Banks –
June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: “The ability to cope with difficulties helps to build a reliable and strong solution”

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

This year, the winner of the “Your Project” competition in the “innovation” category was a team from Novosibirsk: Alena Kozich, Ilya Kateshov, Artem Tretyakov and Nikita Konstantinov. In the fall, they will begin their studies in the “Managing research, development and innovation in the company” Artem and Nikita shared how the work on the case went and why they are looking forward to starting their studies at HSE.

— What did you like about the competition, and what caused difficulties?

— I liked the freedom to choose the topic for the scenario study, the task included many industries for the application of UAS, from agriculture and the oil and gas industry to transport and logistics work and medicine, which is what we chose. I also liked the clearly formulated task, which at the same time did not limit the space for research. The number of companies to be studied could be chosen independently: at least 1 company, at least 20 companies, it all depends on the strength of the team. Of course, when solving a complex task, difficulties arise, but it is the ability to cope with them that helps build a reliable and strong solution, so there is no point in being afraid of difficulties, they must be overcome.

— How did you distribute roles in the team?

— My team and I have been taking part in case championships since the first year of our bachelor’s degree and we are the organizers of a case club within our university, so during the time of solving cases we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Each team member was responsible for their own unique part of the work, and everyone’s skills helped us apply our efforts to the solution as effectively as possible.

The task was complex, so it was necessary to conduct a large block of analysis. After that, we moved on to forming a solution. At the analysis stage, we identified two main areas: analysis of foreign practices and analysis of the current situation in Russia for the implementation of new practices.

Two people looked for foreign practices, two analyzed the current situation. After that, they moved on to implementation. Implementation was also divided into several parts: calculating solutions and assessing their impact on business and the situation in Russia as a whole.

— Was the case difficult?

— The task was clearly formulated, from the very beginning the team understood what to do. The case turned out to be interesting, with the main focus on the study of scenarios and practices, as well as the argumentation of initiatives. The Zipline company website contained 90% of the information we needed, except for the financial statements, which we found in open sources. During the analysis, we actively maintained a board in Figjam (analogous to Miro for Figma) and recorded every potentially useful information.

In parallel, we analyzed federal laws and draft laws, and looked at the current situation of using UAS (unmanned aerial systems – Ed.) in Russia, because experience is also a limiting factor. Using UAS in specific regions is legally permitted, but consumers do not have active demand for the product, so it is necessary to think in a different direction. After all the practices were collected and the risks were analyzed, we began to generate ideas for using practices taking into account the limitations.

Some practices, as expected, could not be implemented due to restrictions at the regional level. We deleted some initiatives, but others that we thought were potentially profitable, we reworked in such a way that they did not affect the restrictions.

For example, delivery of first aid supplies using drones has been legally permitted in the Magadan Region since February 2025, so we decided to apply this practice specifically in the Magadan Region.

After generating initiatives and creating a strategy for their application, we began calculating financial models taking into account the economic context of the regions and the method of drone delivery. The last day, as befits true case study specialists, we devoted ourselves entirely to creating a presentation and additional analysis of the final solution.

— What are your expectations for the upcoming Master’s degree at HSE?

— Since last year, we have been planning to enroll in the innovation program. We expect a lot of practical work, but most of all we are looking forward to meeting cool guys in order to start doing something together and simply broaden our horizons.

Evgeniy Savelenok, Academic Director of the program “Management of Research, Development and Innovation in the Company”

“Initially, when preparing the case, colleagues had a request to monitor information from foreign sources about the state of affairs in the UAV industry with an emphasis on new technologies and products. As a result of the discussion, we supplemented the task with a creative part – generating a scheme and logistics for using UAVs in Russia, including calculating economic costs. The case turned out to be complex and practically applicable – our partners considered all the solutions, and applicants have the opportunity to present their developments to the company’s specialists.

The special thing about the competition is that you know the people who are going to defend their theses. This knowledge helps us to make a more informed assessment at the defense: we look at the work in the chat, and at the finished product, and at the individual achievements of the participants. As a rule, the more organized, united and active teams win. That is, we get applicants with whom we can get to know each other throughout the competition, watch them in action, observe their work. This is the right idea.”

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Supreme Court changes the game on federal environmental reviews

Source: The Conversation – USA – By J.B. Ruhl, Professor of Law, Director, Program on Law and Innovation, and Co-director, Energy, Environment and Land Use Program, Vanderbilt University

A pumpjack in eastern Utah extracts oil from underground. AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

Getting federal approval for permits to build bridges, wind farms, highways and other major infrastructure projects has long been a complicated and time-consuming process. Despite growing calls from both parties for Congress and federal agencies to reform that process, there had been few significant revisions – until now.

In one fell swoop, the U.S. Supreme Court has changed a big part of the game.

Whether the effects are good or bad depends on the viewer’s perspective. Either way, there is a new interpretation in place for the law that is the centerpiece of the debate about permitting – the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, known as NEPA.

Taking a big-picture look

NEPA requires federal agencies to document and describe the environmental effects of any proposed action, including construction of oil pipelines, renewable energy and other infrastructure projects.

Only after completing that work can the agency make a final decision to approve or deny the project. These reports must evaluate direct effects, such as the destruction of habitat to make way for a new highway, and indirect effects, such as the air pollution from cars using the highway after it is built.

Decades of litigation about the scope of indirect effects have widened the required evaluation. As I explain it to my students, that logical and legal progression is reminiscent of the popular children’s book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” in which granting a request for a cookie triggers a seemingly endless series of further requests – for a glass of milk, a napkin and so on. For the highway example, the arguments went, even if the agency properly assessed the pollution from the cars, it also had to consider the new subdivisions, malls and jobs the new highway foreseeably could induce.

The challenge for federal agencies was knowing how much of that potentially limitless series of indirect effects courts would require them to evaluate. In recent litigation, the question in particular has been how broad a range of effects on and from climate change could be linked to any one specific project and therefore require evaluation.

With the court’s ruling, federal agencies’ days of uncertainty are over.

The cover image of the 637-page environmental impact assessment shows a view of the region where a railway is proposed to be built.
U.S. Surface Transportation Board

Biggest NEPA case in decades

On May 29, 2025, the Supreme Court – minus Justice Neil Gorsuch, who had recused himself – decided the case of Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the first major NEPA dispute before the court in 20 years.

At issue was an 85-mile rail line a group of developers proposed to build in Utah to connect oil wells to the interstate rail network and from there transport waxy crude oil to refineries in Louisiana, Texas and elsewhere. The federal Surface Transportation Board reviewed the environmental effects and approved the required license in 2021.

The report was 637 pages long, with more than 3,000 pages of appendices containing additional information. It acknowledged but did not give a detailed assessment of the indirect “upstream” effects of constructing the rail line – such as spurring new oil drilling – and the indirect “downstream” effects of the ultimate use of the waxy oil in places as far flung as Louisiana.

In February 2022, Eagle County, Colorado, through which trains coming from the new railway would pass, along with the Center for Biological Diversity appealed that decision in federal court, arguing that the board had failed to properly explain why it did not assess those effects. Therefore, the county argued, the report was incomplete and the board license should be vacated.

In August 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed and held that the agency had failed to adequately explain why it could not employ “some degree of forecasting” to identify those impacts and that the board could prevent those effects by exercising its authority to deny the license.

The railway developers appealed to the Supreme Court, asking whether NEPA requires a federal agency to look beyond the action being proposed to evalutate indirect effects outside its own jurisdiction.

Petroleum-drilling equipment stands in the Uinta Basin in eastern Utah.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

A resounding declaration

Writing for a five-justice majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered a ringing, table-pounding lecture about courts run amok.

Kavanaugh did not stop to provide specific support for each admonition, describing NEPA as a “legislative acorn” that has “grown over the years into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development.” He bemoaned the “delay upon delay” NEPA imposes on projects as so complicated that it bordered “on the Kafkaesque.”

In his view, “NEPA has transformed from a modest procedural requirement into a blunt and haphazard tool employed by project opponents.” He called for “a course correction … to bring judicial review under NEPA back in line with the statutory text and common sense.” His opinion reset the course in three ways.

First, despite the Supreme Court having recently reduced the deference courts must give to federal agency decisions in other contexts, Kavanaugh wrote that courts should give agencies strong deference when reviewing an agency’s NEPA effects analyses. Because these assessments are “fact-dependent, context-specific, and policy-laden choices about the depth and breadth of its inquiry … (c)ourts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness.”

Second, Kavanaugh crafted a new rule saying that the review of one project did not need to consider the potential indirect effects of other related projects it could foreseeably induce, such as the rail line encouraging more drilling for oil. This limitation is especially relevant, Kavanaugh emphasized, when the effects are from projects over which the reviewing agency does not have jurisdiction. That applied in this case, because the board does not regulate oil wells or oil drilling.

And third, Kavanaugh created something like a “no harm – no foul” rule, under which “even if an (environmental impact statement) falls short in some respects, that deficiency may not necessarily require a court to vacate the agency’s ultimate approval of a project.” The strong implication is that courts should not overturn an agency decision unless its NEPA assessment has a serious flaw.

The upshot for the project at hand was that the Supreme Court deferred to the board’s decision that it could not reliably predict the rail line’s effects on oil drilling or use of the oil transported. And the fact that the agency had no regulatory power over those separate issues reinforced the idea that those concerns were outside the scope of the board’s required review.

A train rolls along a stretch of track in Utah that could be connected with a proposed railway to carry oil to market.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

A split court

Although Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that she would have reached the same end result and upheld the agency permit, her proposed test is far narrower.

By her reading, the federal law creating the Surface Transportation Board restricted it from considering the broader indirect effects of the rail line. But her finding would be relevant only for any federal agencies whose governing statutes were similarly restrictive. By contrast, Kavanaugh’s “course correction” applies to judicial review of NEPA findings for all federal agencies.

Though the full effects remain to be seen, this decision significantly changes the legal landscape of environmental reviews of major projects. Agencies will have more latitude to shorten the causal chain of indirect effects they consider – and to exclude them entirely if they flow from separate projects beyond the agency’s regulatory control.

Now, for example, if a federal agency is considering an application to build a new natural gas power plant, the review must still include its direct greenhouse gas emissions and their effects on the climate. But emissions that could result from additional gas extraction and transportation projects to fuel the power plant, and any climate effects from whatever the produced electricity is used for, are now clearly outside the agency’s required review. And if the agency voluntarily decided to consider any of those effects, courts would have to defer to its analysis, and any minor deficiencies would be inconsequential.

That is a far cry from how the legal structure around the National Environmental Policy Act has worked for decades. For lawyers, industry, advocacy groups and the courts, environmental review after the Eagle County decision is not just a new ballgame; it is a new sport.

J.B. Ruhl 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. Supreme Court changes the game on federal environmental reviews – https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-changes-the-game-on-federal-environmental-reviews-257881

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Ukraine ‘spiderweb’ drone strike fails to register at peace talks as both sides dig in for the long haul

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

News of the spectacular “spiderweb” mass drone attack on Russian air bases on June 1 will have been uppermost in the minds of delegates who assembled the following day for another round of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul. The attack appears to have been a triumph of Ukrainian intelligence and planning that destroyed or damaged billions of pounds’ worth of Russian aircraft stationed at bases across the country, including at locations as far away as Siberia.

Ukraine’s drone strikes, much like Russia’s intensifying air campaign, hardly signal either side’s sincere commitment to negotiations. As it turned out, little of any consequence was agreed at the brief meeting between negotiators, beyond a prisoner swap, confirming yet again that neither a ceasefire nor a peace agreement are likely anytime soon.

But the broader context of developments on the battlefield and beyond can offer important clues about the trajectory of the war in the coming months.

Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

At an earlier meeting in Istanbul in May, Moscow and Kyiv agreed to draft and exchange detailed proposals for a settlement. The Ukrainian proposal restated the longstanding position of Kyiv and its western allies that concessions on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country are unacceptable.

In other words, a Russian-imposed neutrality ruling out Nato membership and limiting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces is a non-starter for Kyiv. So is any international recognition of Moscow’s illegal land-grabs since 2014, including the annexation of Crimea.

The Ukrainian proposal is for an immediate ceasefire along the frontline as “the starting point for negotiations”. Any territorial issues would be discussed “after a full and unconditional ceasefire”.

In substance, this is very similar to the peace plan presented by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky in late 2022. This was received warmly by Ukraine’s main western allies, but failed to get traction with the broader international community.

Russia’s proposals, meanwhile, are also mostly old news. Russia maintains its demands for full recognition of Russian territorial claims since 2014, Ukrainian neutrality.

These stringent Russian demands in return for even a temporary ceasefire are hardly any more serious negotiation positions from Ukraine’s perspective than Kyiv’s proposals are likely to be to Moscow. In fact, what the Kremlin put on the table in Istanbul is more akin to surrender terms.

Ukraine is in no mood to surrender. The spiderweb drone attack against Russia’s strategic bomber fleet is a significant boost for Ukrainian morale. But, like previous drone strikes against Moscow in June 2023, it means little in terms of signalling a sustainable Ukrainian capability that could even out Russia’s advantages in terms of manpower and equipment.

The state of the conflict in Ukraine as at June 3 2025.
Institute for the Study of War

Closer to the frontlines inside Ukraine, Kyiv’s forces also struck the power grid inside Russian-occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. This may delay any Russian plans to expand its control over the two regions. But, like the latest drone strikes inside Russia, it is at best an operation that entrenches, rather than breaks the current stalemate.

There is no doubt that Ukraine remains under severe military pressure from Russia along most of the more than 1,000 mile frontline. The country is also still very vulnerable to Russian air attacks.

But while Russia might continue to make incremental gains on the battlefield, a game-changing Russian offensive or a collapse of Ukrainian defences does not appear to be on the cards.

International support

Kyiv’s position will potentially also be strengthened by a new bill in the US senate that threatens the imposition of 500% tariffs on any countries that buy Russian resources. This would primarily affect India and China.

These are the largest consumers of Russian oil and gas, and if New Delhi and Beijing decide that trade with the US is more important to them cheap imports from Russia, the move could cut Russia off from critical revenues and imports.

But, given how indecisive Donald Trump has been to date when it comes to putting any real, rather than just rhetorical, pressure on Vladimir Putin, it is not clear whether the proposed senate bill will have the desired effect. The bill has support of over 80 co-sponsors from both the Republican and Democratic caucuses, meaning the senate could overturn a presidential veto. But any delay in imposing tougher sanctions will ultimately play into Putin’s hands.

By contrast, European support for Ukraine has, if anything, increased in recent months. For example, EU leaders adopted their 17th sanctions package against Russia on May 20. A week later, Germany and Ukraine announced a new military cooperation agreement worth €5 billion (£4.2 billion).

It still falls short of what Kyiv would require for a major shift in the balance of power on the battlefield. But for now it is enough to prevent Russia from becoming militarily so dominant that Moscow’s current settlement proposals would present the only option for at least some part of Ukraine to survive as an independent state.

The war remains in a stalemate. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv appear to have the capacity to escalate their military efforts to the degree necessary that would force the other side to make substantial concessions.

Both sides are playing for time in the hope that their fortunes may change. For Ukraine, this would mean more US military support coupled with more sanctions pressure on Russia, while Europe follows through on building up its own and Ukraine’s defence capabilities.

Russia’s calculations will be different. Putin will need to keep his few remaining allies – China, Iran and North Korea – on side while trying to make a deal with Trump. This may be impossible to achieve.

In this case, the Russian dictator’s best hope might be that Trump does not impose any serious sanctions on Russia or its trade partners, let alone lean into increasing military support for Ukraine.

For both sides, a lot still hinges on Washington. The unpredictability of the Trump White House, much like the self-imposed restraint under Biden, not only makes it unlikely that the war in Ukraine moves beyond the current stalemate, it has become a major, and perhaps the decisive road block that enables both Moscow and Kyiv to dream of victory in a war that has become unwinnable.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

Tetyana Malyarenko 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. Ukraine ‘spiderweb’ drone strike fails to register at peace talks as both sides dig in for the long haul – https://theconversation.com/ukraine-spiderweb-drone-strike-fails-to-register-at-peace-talks-as-both-sides-dig-in-for-the-long-haul-257927

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: The strategic defence review means three new approaches for the UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David J. Galbreath, Professor of War and Technology, University of Bath

The UK government’s new strategic defence review has laid out a blueprint aimed at making Britain “secure at home, strong abroad”.

The review represents a change in how the government thinks about the UK’s defence amid a rapidly changing geopolitical picture. The Labour government launched the review in July 2024 shortly after taking office, as a first step in reassessing UK armed forces in the face of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged at the time: “We live in a more dangerous and volatile world.”

The government has accepted the review’s 62 recommendations. The most eye-catching parts are investment and development of new weapons: expanding the UK’s nuclear capabilities, drone swarms and long-range missile systems, new F-35 and updated Typhoon fighter jets and autonomous weapon systems.

Unlike past reviews, this one was conducted by experts outside of the government: former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson, former US National Security Council member and former White House adviser Fiona Hill, and retired British Army officer General Sir Richard Barrons.

In addition to practical measures of investment and expansion, the review lays out the more difficult changes that are needed to respond to security challenges, namely Russian threats to Europe. Here are three key aspects to understand.

1. War-fighting ready

The review says the UK must be “ready to fight and win” a full-scale war. Importantly, it suggests that the UK is no longer in an era of going to war when it chooses – but instead is facing the possibility of being forced into war.

Academic Mary Kaldor made the distinction between the two types of wars in her book New Wars and Old Wars, stating that old wars are “wars of necessity”, and new wars are “wars of the willing”. Published a few years after the end of the cold war, it’s easy to see why Kaldor made this distinction.

But the strategic review paints a different picture – that wars of necessity are once again the UK’s primary security concern. This means the UK must be on a different war footing than it has been since 1991.

As such, the government and the UK armed forces will have to change and become more innovative to meet this challenge. To do this, the review lays out plans for an “integrated force” model (rather than joint forces). It describes this approach as leading to “a more agile and lethal combat force”.

The review also calls for a “whole society approach”, including expanding the voluntary under-18 cadet forces, protecting national infrastructure and public outreach.

2. Pace of innovation

The review includes a host of recommendations for digital innovation and munitions production, and suggests that the defence industry could be an even bigger contributor to growing the economy. But, it notes, the UK’s defence industry is currently “stuck in cold war-era procurement cycles” and processes.

It points to a need to speed up planning and procurement and improve partnerships with the commercial sector.

Many digital innovations are being driven by industry in the US and China, such as the work on AI, nanotechnologies, robotics and automation. The challenge for the UK will be how to build good relationships with those countries on innovation which does not have a strong presence in UK digital industries.

Keir Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey visit the warship HMS Glasgow.
Lauren Hurley/Number 10/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

3. Nato first

The reelection of Donald Trump in 2024 shocked many into thinking that the trans-Atlantic relationship was fast dissolving, though the change has been going on for some time . This review acknowledges that in setting out a “Nato first” approach:

There is an unequivocal need for the UK to redouble its efforts within the Alliance and to step up its contribution to Euro-Atlantic security more broadly – particularly as Russian aggression across Europe grows and as the United States of America adapts its regional priorities.

It states that Europe and the transatlantic area will be the UK’s primary reference for security. This marks a shift from the previous “Indo-pacific tilt” defence focus laid out in the 2021 integrated review.

The Nato-first approach seems to be at odds with the direction of Nato’s largest and most powerful member, the US. Since the end of the 1990s, US presidents have repeatedly sought to realign US grand strategy towards China and away from Europe. Had the Russian Federation not invaded Crimea in 2014, the Obama administration may have been able to carry out this pivot.

As it stands, with the second Trump presidency and its repeated calls for increasing defence spending from European states (in addition to what has often been seen as less than resolute intentions towards Russia), one might think Nato should be counting its days, rather than being placed at the centre of a new strategic review.

However, regardless of Trump’s actions, the UK will still matter for Washington for the foreseeable future, because it remains an ally and it does defence well. Nato still remains the way to do coalition-building because it has been around for so long and has built up the institutions to do high-level defence cooperation and coordination.

The review recognises the direction of travel for Washington, and how much it requires the UK and other European governments to invest in their own defence.

David J. Galbreath has received funding from the UKRI.

– ref. The strategic defence review means three new approaches for the UK – https://theconversation.com/the-strategic-defence-review-means-three-new-approaches-for-the-uk-258002

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Moby-Dick doesn’t deserve the ‘difficult’ label – this sea romance was once loved by office workers, sailors and children

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Edward Sugden, Senior Lecturer in American Studies, King’s College London

I am currently writing a biography of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, Moby-Dick. The most important thing I have learnt is that Moby-Dick is not – as is often presumed – a difficult book. I claim this on the basis of those who read it, how they did so and what they took from it in the first decades of its life.

Moby-Dick has a fearsome reputation: dense, time-consuming, boring and bizarre. This reputation (although not absolutely unfair) was initially fabricated by a subset of “elite” Anglo-American academic readers in the 1920s to separate it from the very people who had previously sustained its existence.

In 1994, literature professor Paul Lauter wrote an article that showed how nationalist scholars, looking to forge an American tradition, elevated Moby-Dick to the status of a classic to exclude non-specialist readers.

But earlier readers knew Moby-Dick for what it was: an extreme and ambitious form of popular genre fiction, like science fiction or fantasy, known as the “sea romance”.

This article is part of Rethinking the Classics. The stories in this series offer insightful new ways to think about and interpret classic books and artworks. This is the canon – with a twist.

A romance meant something different in 1851 to what it does now. According to Noah Webster’s Dictionary, then the go-to reference, a romance was “a fabulous relation or story” that went “beyond the limits and facts of real life, and often of probability”.

Melville was at this time a literary celebrity after his loosely non-fictional debut Typee (1846) became a transatlantic bestseller for its exotic descriptions of South Pacific captivity. In a letter to his publisher, he wrote that Moby-Dick was a “romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the southern sperm whale fisheries”.

Herman Melville as painted by Joseph Oriel Eaton in 1870.
Houghton Library/Harvard University

You could assume that Melville was being cynical – to sell the book, he misrepresented it as having more commercial potential than he thought it did. But I think he was in earnest.

The novel’s initial public was, broadly, found among the professional middle classes in America, who had a taste for this genre, dreaming of faraway places while chained to their desks. I know this because I have tracked down around 150 first editions of this book and, with the help of genealogical websites, signatures, dates and locations, worked out who some of the owners were and what they did.

In the 1860s, Moby-Dick almost disappeared from the historical record, a situation not helped by a fire at his publisher’s works. But silence and absence are different things. There were many readers who still enjoyed Moby-Dick, though they only glancingly show up in print.

Moby-Dick’s early readers

My research has found that children read and lived with Moby-Dick in the 19th century. It pops up in memoirs, reminiscences, fictions and juvenile literature.

They played games based on the book; they took it out from libraries and made it dog-eared; they scrawled odd and eerie images on it; they and elder generations read it out loud together; and Moby-Dick (evidently a familiar character) himself featured in a Christmas tale about mermaids called The Merman and the Figure-Head (1871) by Clara Florida Guernsey.

If we take children as its audience, rather than scholarly readers, a quite different Moby-Dick appears. The novel’s plot becomes straightforward and exciting, its tone blithe and consumable, its function to teach and to entertain.

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Other non-specialist readers sustained its reputation on similar terms. It seems very likely working-class sailor readers enjoyed it. That’s because its basic plot appears in a number of dime novels (mass-produced thriller fiction) such as Robert Starbuck’s The Mad Skipper (1866) and Captain Barnacle’s Péhe Nu-é (1877), written by and for such readers.

It also, sporadically, appears on deck, with one sailor, the future sea fiction writer Louis Becke, learning of it in Apia in the Samoan islands via “a small and sweet-natured English lady” who came on board with it and read it aloud with the captain. Becke recounts this episode in an introduction to Moby-Dick in a reissue of 1901.

The last known image of Melville.
New York Public Library

As time went, on these foundational readers found extra fellow enthusiasts among socialists, queer people, outcasts and travellers, even if things continued much as they always had done. Literature professor Hershel Parker’s “historical note” to the Northwestern-Newberry edition tracks some of these readers down.

In the early decades of the 20th century, Moby-Dick moved up in the world. But, generally, even if it cultivated a bourgeois reading audience, it did so as a perfect example of the historically remote form of the sea romance, rather than as a classic.

The major event in Moby-Dick’s reputation in the 1920s was a popular silent film adaptation, The Sea Beast (1926). Collectively, readers thought of it less in analytical terms, than as something that offered guidance on how to live. I have found hundreds of off-hand, ordinary (and moving for that fact) references to it in travel narratives, letters, diaries, novels, poems and anecdotes from this era.

Making visible these early readers who viewed Moby-Dick as mass cultural genre fiction creates a picture of a substantially different novel. It ceases to rise, Everest-like and admonitory, amid the peaks of the canon. Instead, it descends from the heights to subsist, amiably and openly, in the ardours and passions of the everyday.

Beyond the canon

As part of the Rethinking the Classics series, we’re asking our experts to recommend a book or artwork that tackles similar themes to the canonical work in question, but isn’t (yet) considered a classic itself. Here is Edward Sugden’s suggestion:

I often wonder “what is the Moby-Dick of the 20th century?” I would nominate Gene Wolfe’s science fiction masterpiece, The Fifth Head of Cerberus novellas (1972). The novelist Ursula Le Guin once called Wolfe “our Melville”, so I’m in good company.

The three novellas are set on the fictional planets Sainte Croix and Sainte Anne. They are about the relationship between (possibly) human settlers and a (possibly) shape-shifting indigenous population who may or may not have existed.

In a dense, cryptic, visionary, philosophical and astonishingly crisp style, these novellas explore cloning, evil, dreamworlds, alien life, identity, fate, ritual, ethnology and much more besides in ways that defy summary and which far exceed any plot synopsis. It feels – in spirit and in terms of its reception – something like Moby-Dick.

Edward Sugden 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. Moby-Dick doesn’t deserve the ‘difficult’ label – this sea romance was once loved by office workers, sailors and children – https://theconversation.com/moby-dick-doesnt-deserve-the-difficult-label-this-sea-romance-was-once-loved-by-office-workers-sailors-and-children-252764

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Chinese Cultural Center in Ulaanbaatar Celebrates 15th Anniversary of Its Establishment

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

ULAN BATOR, June 3 (Xinhua) — The China Cultural Center in Ulan Bator celebrated its 15th anniversary on Tuesday by holding an opening ceremony of an exhibition of handicrafts from northwest China’s Qinghai Province.

The ceremony was attended by the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Mongolia Shen Minjuan, Counselor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Mongolia, Director of the Chinese Cultural Center in Ulaanbaatar Li Zhi, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Tourism of Qinghai Province Chang Hong’an and Director of the Department of Culture and Arts of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of Mongolia Boldyn Sergelen.

Delivering a speech at the event, Shen Minjuan stressed that over the 15 years since its establishment, the China Cultural Center in Ulaanbaatar has consistently demonstrated China’s development achievements and colorful culture to the Mongolian people, playing an important role in promoting mutual understanding and friendship between the peoples of the two countries.

B. Sergelen, for her part, noted that since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mongolia and China, the two countries have strengthened mutual understanding and respect between their peoples through the mutual integration of cultures, laying a solid foundation for promoting harmonious coexistence and deepening interstate friendship.

Li Zhi said that the structure of the China Cultural Center in Ulaanbaatar plans to establish an educational department that will promote Chinese-Mongolian educational cooperation. The center will also make efforts to integrate the brands “Hello, China!” and “Go Mongolia” and strive to achieve even greater results in implementing the Global Civilization Initiative, the diplomat added.

Chang Hong’an noted that this is the second time since 2016 that Qinghai Province has held an exchange and cooperation event with the China Cultural Center in Ulaanbaatar. Such events, he said, allow Mongolian friends to experience the unique charm of China’s northwest.

The Chinese Cultural Center in Ulaanbaatar, which has been in operation since 2010, has held more than 800 events over the past 15 years, including exhibitions, lectures, film screenings and educational seminars. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Sirens: the dark psychology of how people really get drawn into cults

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joy Cranham, Lecturer in the Department of Education, University of Bath, University of Bath

Like other quirky TV shows that explore coercively controlling groups, Sirens leans into the “wackiness” of cult life. Set on a remote island, an affluent community exists under extravagant rule of Michaela Kell aka Kiki (Julianne Moore). Her devoted followers – many of whom are employed by her – are committed to ensuring her every whim is met.

This carefully curated existence appears bizarre but flawless, until outsider Devon (Meghann Fahy) arrives looking for her sister Simone (Milly Alcock) and begins to illuminate the control and cult-like behaviour being used as tools of oppression.

It is easy to laugh along with Sirens, to get caught up in the eccentric characters and absurd rituals – from assistants being instructed to sext Kiki’s partner to rituals around perfuming her underwear drawer each morning. We shake our heads at the characters’ choices and reassure ourselves: “I would never fall for that, I would just leave.”

But the uncomfortable truth is it’s not that simple.

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What portrayals of cult communities in sitcoms often miss, or gloss over, is the deeply manipulative psychology behind why leaving a cult is incredibly difficult.

Research into cult experiences has shown, cults do not just trap people physically. They entrap them mentally and emotionally too.

I have seen this in my own research into how to help children and their families resist exploitative and coercively controlling individuals and groups. We do see such entrapment in Sirens but it is often obscured by the wackiness of Michaela’s cult-ish community.

Isolation and love-bombing

In the real world, entrapment starts with isolation. New recruits are gradually cut off from their support networks, separated from their friends and family.

We see this in Sirens between Simone, who is Kiki’s assistant, and her outsider sister Devon. In one episode, for instance, Simone makes it clear to Devon that their matching sister tattoos were no longer valuable to her.

What was once a show of love has become viewed as “trashy” by Simone. This is a reflection of how Simone was being manipulated away from her previous values.

Rejecting the importance of familial relationships is a tool often used by cult leaders, enabling them to construct rifts between the person in the cult and their loved one on the outside.

In Sirens, we see a sisterly relationship become ruptured at the instruction of the powerful Kiki, who exploits the vulnerability of Simone to her own advantage.

Then comes the love-bombing – a flood of praise, attention, and affection. It feels amazing, especially to someone who has been overlooked or undervalued.

When the person expresses surprise, the group responds with lines like, “that’s because we truly see you” or they belittle the person’s previous relationships.

The message from the group is clear: only we value you. Only we understand the real you.

Fear and dependence

But the honeymoon phase does not last. Soon, the fear of being cast out takes hold. The group convinces the person that they can only become their best self within the group, that they are fulfilling a higher destiny by being guided by the leader.

Leaders in cults use authoritarian tactics, often portraying themselves as messianic figures with mystical powers. They demand unwavering loyalty and devotion. Questioning their authority is not tolerated. Any concern or question is reframed as a personal failing rather than as legitimate concern.

Punishment for dissent reinforces the leader’s dominance and sends a clear message to the rest of the group: Do not question. The leader and their doctrines are irrefutable.

This sort of control can lead people to do things they never imagined they would.
Take the scene where Simone willingly chews gum that has just been in Kiki’s mouth. We might cringe at this, think it’s gross and abnormal, but it’s symbolic of something much bigger: it depicted total control being exerted over another.

Here we watch as Kiki insults Simone, telling her her breath stinks. Instead of being seen as cruelty it is perceived as care, and Kiki then giving Simone the gum she has just chewed to rectify the problem, is perceived as kindness. Simone is grateful and doesn’t question it at all.

Simone’s mind has been manipulated. Devon asks her: “Does Michaela have her talons so deep in your brain you cannot tell, you are in trouble?” Through using thought reform techniques, cults hack minds. They override critical thinking and replace it with fear and dependency.

The constant sense of danger and fear keeps members in a state of acute stress, impairing their capacity to think clearly or make rational decisions. However, this constant fear is happening in a place they are repeatedly told and are convincing themselves is where they have never been happier.

The cognitive dissonance of this can contribute to the group’s ability to retain members even when exposing them to prolonged psychological and or physical abuse. Even after someone leaves, the effects of this trauma can linger for years – sometimes a lifetime.

Survivors often exit these groups with very few tangible resources. Education and employability may have been restricted and housing and financial independence are often tightly controlled by the group.

Many survivors suffer from mental health issues and other stress induced physical ailments. As a result, survivors require various forms of support and different interventions over the cause of their recovery.

And yet, in pop culture, cults are often played for laughs. The trauma is reduced to punch lines. To be fair, shows like Sirens effectively capture the bizarre nature of cult life and hopefully reading this piece has helped you look beyond the laughs to see the dark nature of how these groups operate. For survivors, cult life is not eccentric or surreal – it is traumatic.

Joy Cranham volunteers for Faith to Faithless, an organisation that supports apostates who are often former members of high-demand religions or cult-like organisations. Faith to Faithless is connected to Humanist UK

– ref. Sirens: the dark psychology of how people really get drawn into cults – https://theconversation.com/sirens-the-dark-psychology-of-how-people-really-get-drawn-into-cults-257759

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: What if the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning? Our research suggests it may have taken place inside a black hole

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Enrique Gaztanaga, Professor at Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (University of Portsmouth), University of Portsmouth

Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock

The Big Bang is often described as the explosive birth of the universe — a singular moment when space, time and matter sprang into existence. But what if this was not the beginning at all? What if our universe emerged from something else — something more familiar and radical at the same time?

In a new paper, published in Physical Review D, my colleagues and I propose a striking alternative. Our calculations suggest the Big Bang was not the start of everything, but rather the outcome of a gravitational crunch or collapse that formed a very massive black hole — followed by a bounce inside it.

This idea — which we call the black hole universe — offers a radically different view of cosmic origins, yet it is grounded entirely in known physics and observations.

Today’s standard cosmological model, based on the Big Bang and cosmic inflation (the idea that the early universe rapidly blew up in size), has been remarkably successful in explaining the structure and evolution of the universe. But it comes at a price: it leaves some of the most fundamental questions unanswered.

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For one, the Big Bang model begins with a singularity — a point of infinite density where the laws of physics break down. This is not just a technical glitch; it’s a deep theoretical problem that suggests we don’t really understand the beginning at all.

To explain the universe’s large-scale structure, physicists introduced a brief phase of rapid expansion into the early universe called cosmic inflation, powered by an unknown field with strange properties. Later, to explain the accelerating expansion observed today, they added another “mysterious” component: dark energy.

In short, the standard model of cosmology works well — but only by introducing new ingredients we have never observed directly. Meanwhile, the most basic questions remain open: where did everything come from? Why did it begin this way? And why is the universe so flat, smooth, and large?

New model

Our new model tackles these questions from a different angle — by looking inward instead of outward. Instead of starting with an expanding universe and trying to trace back how it began, we consider what happens when an overly dense collection of matter collapses under gravity.

This is a familiar process: stars collapse into black holes, which are among the most well-understood objects in physics. But what happens inside a black hole, beyond the event horizon from which nothing can escape, remains a mystery.

In 1965, the British physicist Roger Penrose proved that under very general conditions, gravitational collapse must lead to a singularity. This result, extended by the late British physicist Stephen Hawking and others, underpins the idea that singularities — like the one at the Big Bang — are unavoidable.

The idea helped win Penrose a share of the 2020 Nobel prize in physics and inspired Hawking’s global bestseller A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. But there’s a caveat. These “singularity theorems” rely on “classical physics” which describes ordinary macroscopic objects. If we include the effects of quantum mechanics, which rules the tiny microcosmos of atoms and particles, as we must at extreme densities, the story may change.

In our new paper, we show that gravitational collapse does not have to end in a singularity. We find an exact analytical solution – a mathematical result with no approximations. Our maths show that as we approach the potential singularity, the size of the universe changes as a (hyperbolic) function of cosmic time.

This simple mathematical solution describes how a collapsing cloud of matter can reach a high-density state and then bounce, rebounding outward into a new expanding phase.

But how come Penrose’s theorems forbid out such outcomes? It’s all down to a rule called the quantum exclusion principle, which states that no two identical particles known as fermions can occupy the same quantum state (such as angular momentum, or “spin”).

And we show that this rule prevents the particles in the collapsing matter from being squeezed indefinitely. As a result, the collapse halts and reverses. The bounce is not only possible — it’s inevitable under the right conditions.

Crucially, this bounce occurs entirely within the framework of general relativity, which applies on large scales such as stars and galaxies, combined with the basic principles of quantum mechanics — no exotic fields, extra dimensions or speculative physics required.

What emerges on the other side of the bounce is a universe remarkably like our own. Even more surprisingly, the rebound naturally produces the two separate phases of accelerated expansion — inflation and dark energy — driven not by a hypothetical fields but by the physics of the bounce itself.

Testable predictions

One of the strengths of this model is that it makes testable predictions. It predicts a small but non-zero amount of positive spatial curvature — meaning the universe is not exactly flat, but slightly curved, like the surface of the Earth.

This is simply a relic of the initial small over-density that triggered the collapse. If future observations, such as the ongoing Euclid mission, confirm a small positive curvature, it would be a strong hint that our universe did indeed emerge from such a bounce. It also makes predictions about the current universe’s rate of expansion, something that has already been verified.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying ESA’s Euclid mission on the launch pad in 2023.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid, CC BY-SA

This model does more than fix technical problems with standard cosmology. It could also shed new light on other deep mysteries in our understanding of the early universe — such as the origin of supermassive black holes, the nature of dark matter, or the hierarchical formation and evolution of galaxies.

These questions will be explored by future space missions such as Arrakhis, which will study diffuse features such as stellar halos (a spherical structure of stars and globular clusters surrounding galaxies) and satellite galaxies (smaller galaxies that orbit larger ones) that are difficult to detect with traditional telescopes from Earth and will help us understand dark matter and galaxy evolution.

These phenomena might also be linked to relic compact objects — such as black holes — that formed during the collapsing phase and survived the bounce.

The black hole universe also offers a new perspective on our place in the cosmos. In this framework, our entire observable universe lies inside the interior of a black hole formed in some larger “parent” universe.

We are not special, no more than Earth was in the geocentric worldview that led Galileo (the astronomer who suggested the Earth revolves around the Sun in the 16th and 17th centuries) to be placed under house arrest.

We are not witnessing the birth of everything from nothing, but rather the continuation of a cosmic cycle — one shaped by gravity, quantum mechanics, and the deep interconnections between them.

Enrique Gaztanaga receives funding from the Spanish Plan Nacional (PGC2018-102021-B-100) and
Maria de Maeztu (CEX2020-001058-M) grants.

Enrique Gaztanaga is also a Professor at the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC/IEEC) in Barcelona and publishes a science blog called Dark Cosmos.

– ref. What if the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning? Our research suggests it may have taken place inside a black hole – https://theconversation.com/what-if-the-big-bang-wasnt-the-beginning-our-research-suggests-it-may-have-taken-place-inside-a-black-hole-258010

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Exercise proves powerful in preventing colon cancer recurrence – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

SUPERMAO/Shutterstock.com

New evidence has linked physical activity with improved colon health, underscoring the vital role of exercise in cancer prevention and care.

The landmark international trial – the Challenge study – showed that structured exercise programmes can dramatically improve survival rates for colon cancer survivors.

The study was unveiled at the meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Each June, cancer specialists from around the world convene in Chicago for the conference where new research is announced that pushes the boundaries of cancer treatment and this year’s conference featured a wealth of exciting discoveries.

Conducted across six countries and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Challenge study tracked 889 patients for several years following chemotherapy. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one received standard post-treatment care, while the other took part in a three-year coaching programme that included personalised exercise plans and regular check-ins with fitness professionals.

The results were striking. Those in the exercise group experienced 28% fewer cancer recurrences and 37% fewer deaths.

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In the programme, people slowly built up how much they exercised, with most choosing to go on brisk 45-minute walks four times a week. Ninety per cent of the people who exercised stayed cancer free for five years, compared with just 74% of those who didn’t.

This study provides the first strong evidence that exercise not only correlates with better outcomes but directly improves survival rates in cancer patients. While earlier observational studies found a link between being active and better cancer outcomes, this first randomised controlled trial helps show causation, meaning that exercise can directly benefit the survival of cancer patients.

We don’t know yet if the same goes for other cancers like breast, prostate or lung, but it’s a big step forward.

The programme’s success hinged on consistent support. Participants met with fitness coaches every two weeks at first, then monthly, which helped them stick to their routines even after treatment ended.

While minor injuries such as muscle strains were slightly more common among those who exercised (19% compared to 12% in the control group), researchers emphasised that these issues were manageable and far outweighed by the significant survival benefits.

Potential downsides to exercise?

In contrast to the encouraging findings on structured exercise, a separate study presented in Chicago has raised questions about the potential downsides of extreme endurance training.

Researchers tracking marathon runners found a higher rate of polyps (small growths in the colon that can sometimes develop into cancer) compared with the general population. This unexpected finding has sparked a fresh debate about the effect of high-intensity exercise on long-term colon health.

However, context is needed. The study did not find higher cancer rates among runners, and most of the detected polyps were low risk.

Several possible explanations have been offered: endurance athletes may simply undergo more frequent screenings, leading to increased detection, or intense exercise might temporarily raise inflammation markers. Crucially, the overall risk of cancer remains lower in active people than in those who are more sedentary, reinforcing the well-established protective benefits of regular exercise.

Endurance athletes were found to have more polyps than the general population.
MikeCPhoto/Shutterstock.com

This apparent contradiction highlights the medical community’s evolving understanding of the “dose” of physical activity. While moderate exercise is consistently linked to significant health benefits, emerging data from endurance athletes suggests that extreme, high-intensity training may place different kinds of stress on the body’s systems.

Researchers also suggest that factors such as dehydration during long-distance runs, changes in gut function, or the use of certain nutritional supplements common among endurance athletes could play a role in polyp development. These findings don’t diminish the well-documented benefits of physical activity, but instead point to the importance of personalised, balanced health strategies.

For cancer survivors, the structured exercise study provides a message of practical hope. Participants aimed for the equivalent of about three hours of brisk walking per week, gradually increasing their activity levels over time.

The programme’s social support was key, with fitness coaches helping participants tailor their routines to match their abilities and recovery needs.

Exercise is believed to affect key biological processes – including insulin sensitivity, inflammation and immune function – that play important roles in cancer development and progression. Ongoing research is analysing participants’ blood samples to better understand these mechanisms and eventually create personalised exercise “prescriptions” based on an individual’s genetic profile.

While the findings from marathon runners are less conclusive, they still offer practical takeaways. The research suggests that although vigorous exercise is generally beneficial, high-intensity athletes may face a higher risk of developing polyps and should therefore consider regular colonoscopies as a precaution.

For the general public, these findings reinforce that combining moderate exercise with timely screenings offers the best protection against colon cancer, a disease that remains the fourth most common worldwide and is alarmingly increasing among young people.

For both patients and athletes, these findings highlight a central truth: movement matters, but the right approach is crucial. Colon cancer survivors now have proven tools to reduce recurrence through structured exercise, while endurance enthusiasts gain motivation to pair their training with preventative care.

As science continues unravelling the intricate dance between activity and biology, one message remains clear: whether recovering from illness or chasing personal bests, informed exercise combined with medical guidance is the most reliable path to long-term health.

Justin Stebbing 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. Exercise proves powerful in preventing colon cancer recurrence – new study – https://theconversation.com/exercise-proves-powerful-in-preventing-colon-cancer-recurrence-new-study-257983

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Your WhatsApp messages could get you sacked

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Lord, Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Employment Law, University of Salford

Prostock-studio/Shutterstock

It’s late evening and your phone vibrates with some banter from colleagues. You join the conversation and go to bed feeling part of the work community. You then wake up and have a feeling of apprehension as to how the messages will be perceived.

WhatsApp might have started as a casual messaging app for friends, but it has now firmly become embedded in workplace communication – and increasingly in workplace conflicts, too.

WhatsApp chats have also been used to corroborate or refute claims in employment tribunals. An employee might claim they were promised a pay rise or flexible hours via WhatsApp, for example. But on the other hand, employers have also used WhatsApp logs to prove misconduct. This evidence has included sharing confidential information.

In the workplace, WhatsApp chats have replaced many casual real-life conversations. Colleagues create groups to coordinate work, message each other after hours and vent their frustrations in private messages. Although this feels informal, it can leave employees vulnerable.

But when disputes escalate to legal action, these messages can help judges understand what really happened. Tribunals treat WhatsApp messages like any other document.

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We examined more than 2,000 cases brought to UK employment tribunal’s since 2019 that involved WhatsApp. The findings reveal a surprising range of ways in which these casual chats became evidence.

WhatsApp conversations have increasingly played a crucial role in misconduct and discrimination disputes, being used as evidence of harassment or inappropriate behaviour. The messages are also cited in unfair dismissal and contract claims, especially where informal work communications and digital records were seen as central to the case.

In 2018, 48 cases brought to employment tribunals involved WhatsApp messages. By 2024, that had climbed to 562. The cases span a wide range of jurisdictions, but unfair dismissal, contract breaches, harassment and discrimination were dominant. From the cases we examined, several themes were clear.

1. Removal or exclusion from a WhatsApp group

In the case of Ms B Djagbo v Women’s Health Dulwich Ltd, the claimant successfully brought a claim for unfavourable treatment due to pregnancy and maternity. This followed a series of incidents that took place after she informed her employer of her pregnancy.

Several actions made her feel as though her employment was being prematurely ended, including being removed from the workplace WhatsApp group chat. The tribunal awarded her almost £20,000.

2. Discriminatory messages or harassment via WhatsApp

In the Mr D Robson v NGP Utilities Ltd case, the claimant is a gay man and brought a complaint of harassment. This included a series of inappropriate and offensive incidents at work, notably, a WhatsApp group message from a colleague.

The message was part of a wider pattern of jokes targeting gay colleagues. The employment tribunal awarded him more than £36,000.

3. Termination of employment via WhatsApp

The case of Miss J Hodkinson v B&R Care Ltd highlights a pregnant care worker who was awarded more than £40,000 in compensation after being unfairly dismissed via WhatsApp. The fact the dismissal was carried out informally and insensitively supported the tribunal’s findings of “procedural and substantive unfairness”.

4. WhatsApp communications submitted as evidence

The Mr M D Black v Alain Charles Publishing Ltd tribunal noted that the claimant’s evidence was consistent with WhatsApp message screenshots included in the evidence bundle. As a result, compensation of almost £100,000 was awarded.

Seized WhatsApp messages can provide an insight into workplace culture.
Kafka Ibram/Shutterstock

WhatsApp groups can also offer a window into workplace culture. Tribunals have seen examples of co-workers using WhatsApp to share sexist and racist jokes or to gossip about colleagues.

With remote and flexible working, these chats illustrate a growing tension between constant connectivity and work burnout.

The tribunal cases show just how deeply WhatsApp has become part of working life, blurring the line between personal and professional. Colleagues chat the way friends do.

But when working relationships sour or rules are broken, each of these informal chats carries legal weight. What someone thought was a single throwaway remark in a private conversation can later be dissected as part of a wider body of evidence.

There have been cases where an employer was ordered to hand over work-related WhatsApp exchanges, and others where an employee’s own messages were used against them.

It’s a clear lesson. Privacy in digital communication is never guaranteed. Even encrypted messages can become public in a courtroom.

WhatsApp dos and don’ts

The volume of references to WhatsApp in tribunal cases frames some key lessons for both employees and employers. In a nutshell, if you wouldn’t write it in a company email or say it in a meeting, don’t put it into WhatsApp.

Jokes can be misinterpreted and offensive remarks don’t just go away. Many have learned this the hard way.

Using WhatsApp to share instructions and decisions might seem convenient, but it shouldn’t replace formal process.

And for employers, it’s time to update communication policies, including guidelines on after-hours messaging, the use of group chats and respecting expectations of inclusivity.

Banning WhatsApp might not be practical, but setting out expectations is important. Even a policy stating that any work-related communication on personal messaging apps should adhere to the company’s expected code of conduct is a start.

Many people are unaware that a private chat can reappear as evidence. Knowing that a tasteless joke on WhatsApp could support a harassment claim potentially costing an unlimited fine, or that ignoring a late-night work message might be used as evidence of poor performance, will harden most people to conduct more mindful communication.

Gordon Fletcher receives funding from InnovateUK.

Jonathan Lord and Saad Baset do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Your WhatsApp messages could get you sacked – https://theconversation.com/your-whatsapp-messages-could-get-you-sacked-255073

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Lethal humanitarianism: why violence at Gaza aid centres should not come as a surprise

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Irit Katz, Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies, University of Cambridge

At least 27 Palestinians were reported to have been killed on the morning of June 3 amid chaotic scenes at an aid distribution centre in the southern Gaza Strip. This follows a similar incident on June 1 when around 30 civilians were reportedly killed as people scrambled to get food supplies at an aid centre near Rafah in southern Gaza.

The Israeli and US governments and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – the private contractor backed by Israel and the US to take over aid distribution in Gaza – previously denied reports that Israeli troops had fired on civilians queuing for aid. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, criticised what he called “reckless and irresponsible reporting by major US news outlets”.

After the June 3 incident, however, the Israeli military admitted it had fired shots near a food distribution complex after noticing “a number of suspects moving towards them”. A GHF spokesperson said it was believed that the people had been fired upon “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone”.

The violence at these privately run aid distribution points should come as no surprise, given the situation. For weeks since the Israeli government imposed its aid blockade in early March, the humanitarian crisis in the Strip has become more acute. By April the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification), a collaboration between numerous intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, was already reporting that Gaza’s whole population was experiencing critical levels of hunger.

The aid distribution system put in place by GHF, meanwhile has been widely criticised. On May 25, the day before GHF began operations in Gaza its American director, Jake Wood, resigned. He said he believed the organisation would not be able to fulfil the basic humanitarian principles of “humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.

Divide and control

The GHF’s aid distribution plan is similar in character to a plan published in December 2024 by an organisation of many former high-ranking Israeli military officers, Israel’s Defense and Security Forum (IDSF). The group proposed to take control of aid distribution from the UN agency Unrwa, which was the main organisation overseeing aid distribution until it was banned by Israel earlier this year.

The IDSF plan proposes that: “Israel will oversee the aid distributed by international organizations, effectively dismantling the distribution networks of UNRWA and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, guided by the principle: ‘The hand that distributes the aid is the hand that controls it’.”

This would be achieved with the creation of tent cities for internally displaced people (IDP), described as “humanitarian zones”. About 90% of the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are IDPs. The IDSF plan, acknowledging that “extensive built-up areas have been left destroyed, or are no longer inhabitable”, says that “it is currently neither feasible nor recommended that the IDPs return at the conclusion of the war”.

Under the plan, parts of the Gaza Strip still inhabited by Palestinian civilians, will be divided by a “system of longitudinal and transverse axes”. Each “IDP city” created within these divisions will be managed as a “separate temporary administrative territory” following the principle of “divide and rule”.

The plan calls for responsibility for humanitarian aid in Gaza to pass “to a Humanitarian Directorate based on IDP cities and biometric certificates”. This is called the “Day After Plan” by the IDSF, designed as a way to control Gaza’s population, while driving a wedge between civilians and Hamas in order to destroy it. This despite the fact that a senior Israeli military commander has said it is impossible to eliminate Hamas.

The reality on the ground

The way GHF is currently organising aid distribution fulfils some of the principles of the IDSF plan. It replaces UN aid distribution with a private outfit, backed by both Israel and the US, yet it provides aid through only four sites.

These are located unevenly in the Gaza Strip, three in a small area southwest of Rafah, and the fourth south of Gaza City, in an area dominated by the Netzarim corridor, which is controlled by the Israeli military.

People queuing for access to aid reportedly have to walk along a narrow fenced corridor into a larger aid compound. Once inside they are subject to ID checks and eye scans to further control the distribution for aid.

This has reportedly resulted in long hours of waiting in the heat and led to chaotic scenes were people have broken down fences in a bid to get supplies. Among the people reported to have been killed on June 3 were three children and two women.

The GHF scheme had already been criticised before the violent incidents by both Palestinians and international aid organisations. The placement of the distribution sites means that people sometimes have to travel considerable distances to receive aid.

The UN children’s fund spokesperson Jonathan Crick asked: “How is a mother of four children, who has lost her husband, going to carry 20kg back to her makeshift tent, sometimes several kilometres away?”

As someone who researches urban design, conflict, and displacement, it is clear to me that designing the entire aid distribution system around only four “mega-sites” in limited areas in the Strip leads to the sort of overcrowding and chaos that have made violence all but inevitable.

In my opinion, in concentrating these sites while extensively demolishing habitable areas in the Strip, Israel is effectively weaponising essential civilian mechanisms against Palestinians. The aid scheme appears to prioritise political and territorial issues over the humanitarian distribution of aid.

The GHF system enables Israel to further concentrate civilians into makeshift encampments. Here they face inadequate and unhygienic conditions and shelter. These are particularly unsafe for women and children, while also being vulnerable to attacks by the Israeli military.

Palestinians also fear that the biometric screening will be used by Israel as a weapon of coercive control, rather than as a means to provide humanitarian relief.

Now people trying to access aid are dying. The international community must urgently put pressure on both sides to agree a ceasefire and on Israel to open Gaza up for a rapid large-scale humanitarian operation. To maintain the current GHF system is to invite further tragedy.

Irit Katz receives funding from the AHRC.

– ref. Lethal humanitarianism: why violence at Gaza aid centres should not come as a surprise – https://theconversation.com/lethal-humanitarianism-why-violence-at-gaza-aid-centres-should-not-come-as-a-surprise-257908

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Why the federal government must act cautiously on fast-tracking project approvals

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mark Winfield, Professor, Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Canada

The acceleration of federal approvals for “nation-building projects” was the major theme of this week’s first ministers meeting in Saskatoon. A rush to streamline approvals for resource development and infrastructure projects has been central to the Canadian response to United States President Donald Trump’s profound disruptions to longstanding trade and security relationships.

At the provincial level, Ontario’s Bill 5 and British Columbia’s Bill 15 also propose to move aggressively to fast-track mining and infrastructure projects.

These fast-tracking efforts are fuelling debate, particularly in terms of the implications for Indigenous rights and the implicit trade-offs pertaining to the environment and climate change.

Read more:
Mark Carney wants to make Canada an energy superpower — but what will be sacrificed for that goal?

Regulations often a minor factor

Project review and approval processes in Canada have already been aggressively streamlined over the past decade. The 2019 Federal Impact Assessment Act, also known as Bill C-69, was largely modelled on Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 2012 Bill C-38 rewrite of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

It’s important to determine why projects are delayed in the first place. Most move through assessment processes with little delay or controversy. Problems emerge when proposals are poorly designed, face serious technical or economic doubts, raise major environmental, climate or safety concerns, and spark significant social, political or legal conflicts over their costs, benefits and impacts.

A recent study on mining approvals in B.C., for example, found that far more mines were approved than ever actually developed. The main cause of delays was changing economic conditions. Regulation was found to be only a minor factor.

While there are always potential ways to improve review processes, the results of previous streamlining efforts suggest the need for caution about the potential for these initiatives to backfire.

Impact assessment and similar processes emerged as more than a way to accurately assess projects and their risks and benefits. They also provided a framework for managing intense social and political conflicts those projects may generate.

If these processes are streamlined too much, the conclusions of these assessments may seem illegitimate. There could be a trade-off between clear, certain outcomes and ensuring the approval process is fair and trustworthy.

Exacerbating conflict

The Harper government’s Bill C-38 reforms were intended to facilitate the construction of more oil pipelines. In the end, they only escalated the spiralling political and legal conflicts around projects like the Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines.

The accompanying Alberta-to-B.C. Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline was only approved after a tortuous process. That culminated in the federal purchase and completion of the pipeline at a cost to taxpayers of $34 billion.

Read more:
Why the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is a bad deal for Canadians — and the world

A similar process unfolded under Ontario’s 2009 Green Energy Act. The legislation’s aggressive bypassing of local approvals reinforced a backlash against renewable energy projects in rural communities. The end result was a nearly decade-long de facto moratorium on renewable energy development. The situation has only recently eased.

The political consequences of these efforts at streamlining are noteworthy. The Bill C-38 episode was seen as playing a role in the Harper government’s defeat in 2015. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s loss of his majority government in 2011 was also partly attributed to the rural response to the Green Energy Act.

Checks and balances

Aside from the political aspects, it’s important to recognize the value of thorough reviews for projects that are likely to be high-risk, high-cost and high-impact.

When past reviews have been rushed or cut short, they’ve undermine confidence in the decisions made — especially when even faster processes could increase the risks and costs passed on to taxpayers.

The Muskrat Falls and Site C hydro projects in Labrador and B.C., respectively, stand as testament to those risks. Both projects ran years behind schedule and billions over budget and continue to face major technical, environmental and economic challenges. Review processes can be important checks on poorly conceived, politically motivated projects.

It’s also important to think carefully about the long-term economic rationales being presented for projects. Canada is a relatively high-cost fossil fuel producer, making it unlikely to be among the last standing in a decarbonizing world.

That should raise serious questions about major investments in new fossil fuel export infrastructure. The irony of developing such projects as major wildfires, widely attributed to the impacts of climate change, burn in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba cannot be overlooked.

Global markets for commodities like critical minerals are also uncertain and in deep flux.

The high costs of nuclear projects, as demonstrated by recent experiences in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Europe, also make them unlikely candidates to form the foundation for clean energy superpower status.

Read more:
‘Elbows up’ in Canada means sustainable resource development

‘Special economic zones’

Ontario’s Bill 5 represents the most aggressive streamlining proposal seen so far. The legislation would exempt designated “special economic zones” and even trusted proponents — such as mining companies assigned to lead projects — from all applicable provincial and municipal laws and regulations.

The province’s approach has raised fundamental questions about the rule of law, democratic governance and Indigenous rights, and jurisdictional boundaries.

Some commentators have pointed out that these zones are common in authoritarian regimes like China’s, or in jurisdictions in deep economic distress.

Others have accused Ontario of racing to the bottom in terms of health, safety and environmental standards, respect for the rule of law, Indigenous rights and basic democratic values.

All of this suggests a need for caution in further streamlining review and approval processes for major projects. These are undertakings with risks and costs that could stretch far into the future and must be properly understood before they proceed.

Mark Winfield receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

– ref. Why the federal government must act cautiously on fast-tracking project approvals – https://theconversation.com/why-the-federal-government-must-act-cautiously-on-fast-tracking-project-approvals-257095

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: How Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russian airfields could derail Russia’s war efforts

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser University

The drone attacks by Ukrainian Operation Spider’s Web forces on Russian airfields have called into question Russia’s supposed military strength.

Russian authorities have acknowledged damage from the June 1 attacks — an unusual admission that suggests the strikes were probably effective, given Russia’s usual pattern of downplaying or denying the success of Ukrainian operations.

The operation’s most significant target was the Belaya air base, north of Mongolia. Belaya, like the other bases targeted, is a critical component in the Russian Air Force’s strategic strike capabilities because it houses planes capable of long-range nuclear and conventional strikes.

It’s also in Irkutsk, approximately 4,500 kilometres from the front lines in Ukraine.

Read more:
Ukraine drone strikes on Russian airbase reveal any country is vulnerable to the same kind of attack

Ukraine’s ability to successfully strike Belaya — an attempted strike at the even more distant Ukrainka air base failed — probably won’t have much of a military impact on the war. But along with successful attacks on other Russian airfields and the strike at the Kerch Bridge in Crimea, Operation Spider Web’s successes could play a strategic role in the conflict.

These attacks could shift what has become increasingly negative media coverage and public perception about Ukraine’s chances in the war over the last year. In a war of attrition, which the conflict in Ukraine has become, establishing a belief in victory is a pre-condition for success.

Explosions hit the Kerch Bridge in Russia on June 3, 2025. (The Independent)

Increased pessimism

Policymakers and pundits, instead of recognizing their expectations of a Ukrainian victory in 2023 were unrealistic, have often declared that the war is unwinnable for Ukraine.

This perspective was even more prevalent following United States President Donald Trump’s resumption of power in January 2025. In the Oval Office spat Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in late February, he declared Ukraine did not “have the cards” to defeat Russia.

This turned out to be false. Ukraine’s army may possess significantly less military hardware and fewer soldiers than Russia’s, but war is often a continuation of politics. Politically, Russia faces several issues that could derail its war efforts.

Russian vulnerabilities

Russia’s military capabilities are important to Russian nationalists, who make up Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s core constituency. Russian military forces have advanced along nearly all fronts in Ukraine over the last year.

These advances, however, have largely been insignificant. Furthermore, they have emphasized Russia’s military weakness, which is an ongoing affront to Russian nationalists.

Not only have Russian military advances over the last year not changed the war in a strictly military sense, but the pace of advance has been incredibly slow. Over the last year, Russian forces have captured 5,107 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory. This territory represents less than one per cent of Ukraine’s pre-war territory.

In exchange for what amounts to negligible gains, Russian armed forces have suffered significant casualties.

Both Russia and Ukraine carefully guard the number of casualties their forces have suffered in the war. The British Ministry of Defence, however, estimates that Russia will have suffered more than a million casualties in the war by the end of this month. The Russian casualty rate is also accelerating, with an estimated 160,000 casualties in the first four months of 2025.

Russia attempts to compensate for this battlefield devastation in two ways.

First, it’s isolated Ukraine by manipulating Trump’s desire for political wins and business deals. Russia, in appearing to seek an end to the conflict while offering no concessions, has stoked tensions between Zelenskyy and Trump, where there was little love lost between the two to begin with.

Second, Russia has increased its attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Large-scale bombing does little to help Russia on the battlefield. The attacks, in fact, put its forces at a disadvantage by redirecting munitions from military targets.

Attacks on civilians

The attacks on civilian infrastructure, however, are more about instilling fear in the Ukrainian population and demonstrating American impotence to a Russian audience.

Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities also highlight Russia’s trump card: nuclear weapons. Russia, and specifically former Russian president Dimitry Medvedev, has repeatedly threatened nuclear war in an attempt to dissuade Ukraine’s supporters.

By bombing Ukrainian cities, albeit with conventional munitions, Russia seeks to demonstrate its ability to deploy even more destructive weapons should the situation call for it.

These Russian military missteps, combined with a Russian economy that is structurally unsound, means that Russia’s war effort is increasingly fragile.

Weakening Asian alliances

Ukraine’s attack on Belaya also signals Russian weakness to its nominal allies in Asia.

Since the start of hostilities, Russia has relied on the tacit consent of China. This support has taken the form of China purchasing Russian crude oil to maintain the Russian economy and Chinese citizens unofficially fighting for Russia.

Belaya has been a vital element of Russia’s deterrence strategy in Asia, which has come to rely more heavily on the Russian strategic nuclear threat. The inability of Russia to protect one of its key strategic assets from a Ukrainian drone attack, combined with the weakness of Russian conventional forces in Ukraine, erodes its ability to position itself as a key ally to China.

In fact, some Russian authorities continue to view China as a major threat.

At the same time, Operation Spider’s Web gives hope to the Ukrainian people. It may also cause Trump — who prefers to back winners — to ponder whether it’s Putin, not Zelenskyy, who lacks the cards to win the war.

James Horncastle 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. How Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russian airfields could derail Russia’s war efforts – https://theconversation.com/how-ukraines-drone-attacks-on-russian-airfields-could-derail-russias-war-efforts-258049

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: NEW: Trump Continues to Block At Least $425 Billion Dollars in Funding Owed to American People

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator for Washington State Patty Murray
Murray, DeLauro release updated tally of federal funds Trump is freezing—hurting communities across the country
***VIEW UPDATED TRACKER HERE***
Washington, D.C. — Today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, released updated information detailing how President Trump is freezing at least $425 billion in federal funding that Congress has promised to communities across the country.
The updated tracker, which Senator Murray and Congresswoman DeLauro first made public in April, chronicles how President Trump and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought are brazenly violating federal laws and choking off critical investments that families, businesses, and local governments across America depend on.
This update comes as Trump and Vought seek to ask Congress to rescind a small fraction of the funding they have been illegally blocking, and as Vought vowed over the weekend to continue illegally impounding funding.
In a statement, Senator Murray and Congresswoman DeLauro said:
“President Trump continues to block hundreds of billions of dollars that have been signed into law, and it is families, farmers, small businesses, and communities in every part of the country who are suffering the consequences.
“While he works to kick millions off their health care and pad his own pockets with new tax breaks for billionaires, President Trump is choking off funding to lower the cost of living for families, create good jobs, and keep our communities safe.
“This administration’s unprecedented assault on our nation’s spending laws is costing the American people dearly. Students have seen critical support ripped away, disaster survivors are waiting on funds to be unfrozen, and cancer patients are seeing their best hope for treatment thrown into a shredder. Communities have suddenly lost resources to protect people from disease, tackle violent crime, and address the substance use crisis. And all across America, people are losing their jobs as President Trump freezes and cancels investments in energy projects, cutting-edge scientific research, community service, and so much else.
“We are going to continue shining a light on how President Trump’s sweeping, illegal funding freeze is hurting working people everywhere.”
As the updated tracker details, President Trump has—through a variety of different means—frozen, cancelled, clawed back, illegally impounded, and slow-walked federal funding for all manner of key priorities. Among much else, this includes investments in:
Critical research into Alzheimer’s disease, women’s health, cancer, diabetes, and much more, throwing research already conducted into the shredder and setting back treatments and cures.
Mental health services and support for students across the country.
Public safety, including COPS grants, Office of Violence Against Women grants, and programs to help victims of crime.
Relief for states and communities responding to and recovering from natural disasters.
Cutting-edge scientific research, which advances breakthrough innovation and boost economic development.
Farmers and local agriculture businesses, making it more expensive for hardworking people to run their farms and cutting off research they count on.
School lunches and food for child care institutions at the detriment of the farmers who rely on these local markets.
Head Start, with unacceptable funding lags leading to program closures and costly uncertainty for providers and parents alike.
Critical investments in transportation projects—for roads and bridges, airports, public transit, ports, and more—and energy projects across the country that are creating new, good jobs and lowering families’ monthly energy bills.
Our national security and efforts to prevent and end global conflicts.
Essential health services like birth control and cancer screenings for over 800,000 patients—and resources to protect people from public health threats.
Since the tracker was last updated, a small number of funds have begun flowing, but new funds have been frozen or cancelled, as well. The upshot remains: the president is blocking over $425 billion in enacted funding.
About the Tracker
The tracker offers a snapshot-in-time look at the vast array of federal funding that should be going out the door, but that President Trump—in an unprecedented scheme—is holding up or actively fighting in court to block.
The tracker is not comprehensive or exhaustive—but it catalogs a wide range of investments that this administration is choking off, in many cases illegally. Compiled by the Democratic staffs of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, the tracker details the minimum amount of federal funding the Committees believe the administration is currently freezing, cancelling, or fighting in court to block. It does not detail tens of billions of dollars in funding that President Trump has previously frozen but finally allowed to flow—and it cannot measure the incredible cost of President Trump’s illegal funding freezes to American families, businesses, and communities. Additionally, it does not capture the wide range of funding at serious risk of not going out the door because of President Trump’s unprecedented mass firings or the full range of fiscal year 2025 funding that has yet to be awarded or disbursed, but that should be flowing.
In some instances, there are programs and priorities listed in the tracker that courts have ordered the Trump administration to release—rebuking President Trump’s unprecedented assault on our spending laws. Funding for those programs is listed because the Trump administration is actively fighting in court to block it; any relief provided by the courts at this stage is only temporary; and because this administration has over the last several months—whether through intentional defiance or sheer incompetence—repeatedly failed to get funding to its intended recipients even when ordered by a court to do so.
In addition to flagrantly violating our nation’s spending laws, President Trump and Russ Vought are also taking every step they can to hide what they are doing from the American people. Despite repeatedly vowing to have the “most transparent administration in history,” President Trump has led an administration that has systematically obscured its spending actions and the actions of DOGE, failed to provide responses to oversight requests from Congress, refused to answer basic questions from the press, taken down a key website that OMB is required to publicly post spending decisions on in clear defiance of the law, and failed to submit detailed plans to the Appropriations Committees showing how this administration is spending fiscal year 2025 funding, as required by law. The unprecedented lack of transparency and responsiveness makes tracking what funding is being blocked all the more difficult, and it remains the Trump administration’s responsibility to not only begin to follow our spending laws but to explain its actions to date.
The updated database, which captures funding held up as of June 3, can be found on the Senate and House Appropriations Committees’ websites.
An earlier version of the tracker, which captures funding held up as of April 29, is available HERE.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: New JCVI Chair appointed
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

News story

New JCVI Chair appointed

Professor Wei Shen Lim KBE will become the new Chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation from October.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard will step down as JCVI Chair on 30th September 2025 after 12 years of leadership

During his tenure, Sir Andrew has been instrumental in advising governments on vaccination matters and chaired numerous committees

Professor Wei Shen Lim, KBE, who is currently Deputy Chair of the JCVI and Chair of the COVID-19 sub-committee, will become the new JCVI chair from 1st October 2025

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard will step down as Chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on 30th September 2025, after sitting on the committee for over a decade.

The JCVI is an independent departmental expert committee which has worked for over six decades to ensure that immunisation programmes in the UK are both world-leading and a cost-effective use of public money — optimising the protection of children and adults from serious infections.

Sir Andrew was appointed Chair of the JCVI in 2013, having previously served as a member of the JCVI’s meningococcal sub-committee. During his tenure, he has been instrumental in advising governments on vaccination matters, serving not only as Chair of the main JCVI committee, but also as Chair of the human papillomavirus (HPV), influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) sub-committees. Sir Andrew remains a valued expert on vaccination and immunisation as Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, Ashall Professor of Infection and Immunity at the University of Oxford, and a Paediatric Infectious Disease Consultant at Oxford’s Children’s Hospital.

Following an open and competitive recruitment process, Professor Wei Shen Lim, KBE will be appointed as the new Chair of the JCVI from 1st October 2025. Professor Lim, KBE is a Consultant in Respiratory Medicine at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and an Honorary Professor of Respiratory Medicine for The University of Nottingham. He currently serves as the Deputy Chair of the JCVI and Chair of the COVID-19 sub-committee.

Dr Thomas Waite, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England said:

I am deeply grateful for Sir Andrew’s leadership of the JCVI over the last 12 years. Over this time the JCVI has given advice to support the introduction of vaccination programmes to protect the public against a range of infections including meningococcal disease and RSV. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Sir Andrew for his dedication and expertise.

I am delighted to welcome Professor Lim, KBE as the new Chair of the committee. Professor Lim served as Chair during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensured government received timely advice on the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccination programme to protect the health of the UK public. I very much look forward to continuing to work with him as the new Chair.

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Published 3 June 2025
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Stansbury on Trump’s “Skinny” Budget to Congress: The Great Betrayal Continues 
Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Melanie Stansbury (N.M.-01)

22.6% reduction in critical programs threatens millions of American lives, including critical programs for schools, healthcare, the opioid epidemic, clean water, and tribal programs
WASHINGTON D.C. — Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury (NM-01) released the following statement after President Trump delivered a “skinny” version of his Fiscal Year 2026 President’s Budget request to Congress on Friday:

  “Today, Donald Trump delivered his first President’s Budget request to Congress, and it should tell you everything you need to know about his priorities: that they are all about gutting vital programs over meeting the needs of the American people,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01). “This is the President’s Great Betrayal once again, following on his massive tax package gutting social programs and ongoing tariffs that are driving economic instability and increased costs for the American people. Trump’s budget would gut vital programs by over 22% across all major federal programs—including those crucial to funding our schools, mental and behavioral health programs, clean water and air, and tribal programs. This is America under DOGE. And, I will continue to fight it every step of the way.”

Today, President Donald Trump transmitted a FY 2026 “Skinny” Budget to Congress, proposing over $163 billion in cuts, totaling more than a 22% reduction in funding for non-defense discretionary spending, representing cuts across vital federal agencies, including, among many others:
- $33.3 billion in cuts (a 26.2% decrease) to the Department of Health and Human Services
- $33.6 billion in cuts (a 43.6% decrease) to the Department of Housing and Urban Development
- $5.1 billion in cuts (a 30.5% decrease) for the Department of the Interior, including hundreds of millions in cuts to the Bureau of Indian Affairs
- $4.535 billion in cuts to the Department of Education’s K-12 Programs and billions more to early childhood education and other programs
- $1.065 billion in cuts to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
- $2.460 billion in cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds
Among additional cuts that could significantly impact New Mexico and New Mexico’s First Congressional District include:
- $617 million in funding cuts to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) serving Tribal and Pueblo Nations (including $107 million in cuts for BIA Public Safety & Justice programs and 187 million in cuts to the Bureau of Indian Education)
- The elimination of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). which helps low-income families with heating and utility costs
- $900 million in cuts to the National Park System
- Billions in cuts to infrastructure, clean energy, and Department of Energy programs vital to New Mexico’s economy.
This FY 2026 Proposal for agency funding cuts follows on the special tax and spending package Trump and the GOP are trying to pass separately through a Budget Reconciliation package this spring. This disastrous package would have catastrophic impacts for the country and NM-01. This tax package includes $7 trillion in giveaways to billionaires and big corporations, including a $314,266 average annual tax cut for the richest 0.1 percent, funded through almost $5 trillion in deficit spending and cuts to vital programs like Medicaid and food assistance.

Among its impacts for New Mexico’s First Congressional District include:
- Healthcare insurance premiums could increase by 60% – 169%
- 207,936 people on Medicaid could be at risk of losing health care access and benefits, including 85,960 children under the age of 19 and 22,000 seniors over 65
- 153,000 people on SNAP could be impacted in their ability to access benefits that help put food on the table.
- 216,669 children who rely on free school lunches could be impacted
- 15,721 students in NM-01 on Pell grants could be impacted
For a table with more information on these cuts, click here.

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MIL OSI USA News –
June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi Appoints Kyle G. Bumgarner as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky

Source: Office of United States Attorneys

Louisville, KY – U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi has appointed Kyle G. Bumgarner as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546. Bumgarner was formally sworn into the position yesterday by U.S. District Court Chief District Judge Greg N. Stivers.

“It is the honor of a lifetime to lead the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky, said U.S. Attorney Bumgarner. “I would like to thank President Trump and Attorney General Bondi for entrusting me with this great responsibility, particularly at such an important time for our Nation. Through the talented prosecutors in this Office, we stand committed to fighting the drug epidemic and violence that has ravaged our communities, combating the fraud that has been perpetrated against our institutions, and protecting vulnerable victims that are preyed upon by ruthless criminals. Our goals cannot be achieved without selfless and heroic work from our federal, state, and local law enforcement officers—particularly those on the front lines—who will receive unwavering support from our Office. I accept this role with great enthusiasm and a commitment to making the Western District of Kentucky a safer place for each of us to raise our families and earn a living.”

Before his appointment as U.S. Attorney, Bumgarner practiced law in Bowling Green, Kentucky, at Kerrick Bachert, PSC, and served as law clerk to Judge David Bunning of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

U.S. Attorney Bumgarner is a graduate of Centre College and Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law.

The U.S. Attorney is the chief federal law enforcement official in their district, representing the United States in all criminal and civil litigation.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky, headquartered in Louisville with staffed offices in Bowling Green and Paducah, and an unstaffed branch in Owensboro, serves 53 Kentucky counties and two military facilities: Fort Knox and Fort Campbell.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky has a mission to fairly and justly prosecute violations of federal criminal law and to represent the United States and its agencies in civil litigation; to educate and inform the public, including victims of crime, about the functions of the justice system and the rights of all citizens; to assume a leadership role in crime prevention through speaking engagements and community involvement; and to conduct federal and local law enforcement training and facilitate cooperation and collaboration among law enforcement agencies.

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MIL Security OSI –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: AI and Practice: What Should Be the System for Training the Next Generation of IT Specialists

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

© Higher School of Economics

What IT specialists the Russian economy needs, how to train them correctly and why it is important to include industry professionals in the educational process were discussed by officials, companies and universities at the session “Personnel for the Data Economy. Training of the New Generation of IT Specialists”, which was held as part of the tenth annual CIPR conference in Nizhny Novgorod. HSE Vice-Rector Elena Odoevskaya took part in the session.

Thanks to the joint efforts of business, government and educational institutions, Russia has begun to graduate more IT specialists, stated Deputy Director of the Department of the Ministry of Digital Development Anastasia Kazantseva. In recent years, a lot of work has been done to increase the budget admission to the relevant specialties. The Digital Departments project was also launched and implemented, which was also aimed at “increasing the funnel of IT specialists.”

Today, the question of “how exactly do we train personnel and what competencies should they have at the end” is relevant. Companies are not always satisfied with the knowledge and skills of graduates upon leaving the university. Therefore, within the framework of the national project “New Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the State”, new projects “Top-AI” and “Top-IT” were launched, aimed at training top specialists in the field of artificial intelligence and information technology. It is envisaged to train university teachers and attract industry professionals for teaching, as well as generally increase the practical orientation of the programs, noted Anastasia Kazantseva. For universities participating in the projects, an important condition was that the educational institution must “definitely bring an industrial partner” that will invest resources and funds in the training of IT specialists, she added.

The operator of these projects is the Center for Expertise of Educational Programs of the Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation. The head of the center, Sergey Astakhov, said that competitive selections have already been held and the winning universities have been determined: Innopolis, ITMO, MIPT, HSE, and Southern Federal University. They will train research scientists and developers of fundamentally new models of artificial intelligence.

Director of Artificial Intelligence Development at Yandex Alexander Kraynov said that the company has to interview 25 candidates to hire one. He believes that universities should “produce” ready-made specialists who can start working right away. According to him, there are literally several universities that “generate such people.” In his opinion, “we need to learn to measure the quality of the guys at the entrance, because if the quality is low at the entrance, then we need to go down and prepare schoolchildren.” Also, according to him, it is necessary to increase the number of good teachers, and due to the high rate of change, training programs need to be changed every six months.

Vladimir Averbakh, Senior Managing Director — Director of the Directorate for the Implementation and Popularization of AI Initiatives at Sber, noted that a very successful tandem of business and the state has developed in Russia in the training of IT personnel. At the same time, if “we believe that artificial intelligence significantly changes any sphere of activity, and in particular the industry, then when training IT specialists, we must introduce, maybe, a 12-level, maybe a 120-level, I don’t know, competency model using AI,” he noted. True, it is not yet very clear how to do this, since the world is changing very quickly. But in any case, he believes, AI must be introduced into the entire education system, and not just for training IT specialists.

In turn, the director of the Institute for Economic Research “Yakov and Partners” Elena Kuznetsova noted that, despite complaints, employers “are scooping up all graduates quite briskly.” “And the median salary of fresh graduates and graduates in the second year after graduation, no matter how you look at it, is growing at a very brisk pace, many times outpacing inflation,” the expert says. And this “reflects precisely the shortage of these people on the market.” At the same time, Elena Kuznetsova noted that the most advanced employers of technology personnel have moved from the position of “the university should give us ready-made personnel” to the position of “we will have to go to universities ourselves and work with these universities so that these personnel become better.”

“A university is more than just training personnel for the needs of a specific company. It is impossible to ask a university to change its educational program every month, otherwise it will not be a university. If we are talking about the cycle of personnel training, then it solves a systemic problem – training personnel for the country,” noted HSE Vice-Rector Elena Odoevskaya.

She agreed that changes are happening very quickly now, but to take them into account, the university does not need to change the entire curriculum, but rather adjust the content of the disciplines, introducing the most relevant knowledge into them. HSE and companies are constantly in dialogue, agreeing on these changes, she emphasized. “We need to talk and agree. It is important for companies to be able to sometimes side with the university, and for the university to side with the company,” Elena Odoevskaya added. At the same time, in her opinion, it is necessary to creatively rethink approaches to training and competency models.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Chinese National at the University of Michigan Charged with Illegally Voting in the 2024 Election

Source: Office of United States Attorneys

DETROIT – A criminal complaint was filed charging Haoxiang Gao, a citizen and national of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with false claims to register or vote and voting by aliens, announced United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr.

Gorgon was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Cheyvoryea Gibson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Field Division.

According to the complaint, Gao was a college student attending the University of Michigan who illegally registered to vote in the days before the 2024 presidential election, apparently using his University of Michigan student ID, and then cast a ballot in the election at a polling location located at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The complaint further alleges that Gao made false statements regarding his citizenship on his voter registration application and his early voting application. After being charged with state offenses, the state court granted Gao a $5,000 personal bond with conditions, including that he does not leave the State of Michigan and that he surrenders his passport for the pendency of the case. Gao did surrender his passport but on January 19, 2025—the day before the new administration took office in Washington—Gao jumped bond and fled the country on a flight bound for Shanghai, China. Customs and Border Protection records show that Gao passed through Detroit Metropolitan Airport security using a PRC passport in his name but bearing a number different from the number on the passport that he surrendered to University of Michigan police.

Relatedly, on Friday, May 30, 2025, a complaint was unsealed charging Gao with the federal offense of flight to avoid prosecution based on the allegations that he jumped bond and fled the country to avoid his state offenses.

United States Attorney Gorgon stated, “Illegal voting is a serious crime that cast doubt on our elections and serves to disenfranchise United States citizens by diluting their power at the ballot box. But illegal voting by a foreign national who is from a country controlled by a communist party dictatorship – with no modern history or tradition of democratic government – is beyond the pale. I hope that today’s charges send a message to foreign nationals – including those who are students at our universities – that we will not tolerate illegal voting.”

“The federal charges filed against Haoxiang Gao, a Chinese national, serve as a clear and unequivocal reminder that the FBI will investigate anyone who attempts to unlawfully interfere with the electoral process in the United States,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office. “The FBI treats all allegations of voter fraud with the utmost seriousness, and we are committed to holding accountable those who violate our election laws. This case reflects the strength of our partnership with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, whose prosecutorial leadership has been critical. I also want to commend the dedicated efforts of the FBI’s Ann Arbor Resident Agency, in close collaboration with the University of Michigan Division of Public Safety & Security, for their outstanding investigative work.”

A complaint is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. Trial cannot be held on felony charges in a complaint. When the investigation is completed, a determination will be made whether to seek a felony indictment.

The FBI is investigating this case.

MIL Security OSI –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: United States Attorney Sayler A. Fleming Departs from Post

Source: Office of United States Attorneys

ST. LOUIS – United States Attorney Sayler A. Fleming announced Tuesday that she has resigned as the head prosecutor for the Eastern District of Missouri.

“It has been the privilege of a lifetime to lead the United States Attorney’s Office for the last four and a half years,” Ms. Fleming said. “As a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Missouri, I have had the great fortune of working with some of the most dedicated law enforcement professionals in the country, and I am extremely grateful for the sacrifices they make every day for our safety. They are truly heroes, and it has been an honor to have worked alongside them. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in St. Louis has for years had an excellent reputation within the Department of Justice, which is a testament to the integrity of the committed and hard-working staff. I think they are the best in the country. I would also like to thank our partners in the business community and among religious and community organizations, who were invaluable in our efforts, including the Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative,” Ms. Fleming said. “I will dearly miss this job and the people with whom I have worked.”

Ms. Fleming was appointed by then-Attorney General William P. Barr on December 11, 2020, during the first administration of President Donald J. Trump. She assumed office on December 31, 2020.

The Eastern District of Missouri leads the nation in gun prosecutions, including carjackers, armed robbers and murderers. Under Ms. Fleming’s leadership, St. Louis became one of a handful of cities in the Justice Department’s Violent Crime Initiative, targeting the ‘worst of the worst’ violent offenders. After former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner resigned in May of 2023, Ms. Fleming signed an agreement that allowed assistant U.S. attorneys to prosecute murder cases in St. Louis and assist that office while they made hires to replace a depleted staff. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had long been handling many violent crimes that occurred in St. Louis.

Ms. Fleming’s prosecutors also trained local and state law enforcement in the investigation of fatal drug overdoses and the possession and sale of machine gun conversion devices. Prosecutors also trained other U.S. Attorney’s offices on how to prosecute juveniles who commit murders during carjackings or robberies.

Ms. Fleming, who co-chaired the Attorney General’s Child Exploitation Working Group, increased the number of prosecutors handling the child exploitation cases to help keep our children safer.

“United States Attorney Sayler Fleming has been a tremendous law enforcement partner. Under her leadership over the years, our offices have been in lockstep in our efforts to protect our community,” said Special Agent in Charge Chris Crocker of the FBI St. Louis Division. “The FBI cannot effectively accomplish our mission without the support of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The people of Eastern Missouri are safer thanks to her proactive and aggressive approach to prioritizing fighting violent crime.”

“U.S. Attorney Fleming made a definitive impact, for the betterment of our communities, in the Eastern District of Missouri,” Drug Enforcement Administration St. Louis Division Special Agent in Charge Michael Davis said. “We’re grateful for her partnership over these past 15 years as we worked together to remove violent drug traffickers from our region. On behalf of the DEA St. Louis Division, I want to thank U.S. Attorney Fleming for her dedicated service and wish her continued success in the future.”

“We extend our sincere gratitude to U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming for her steadfast leadership and unwavering commitment to justice,” said Special Agent in Charge Bernard Hansen of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Her dedication to combating violent crime and fostering strong partnerships with federal agencies like the ATF has made a lasting impact on public safety throughout the Eastern District of Missouri and beyond. Her service exemplifies integrity, diligence, and the highest standards of public duty.”

“Sayler Fleming was instrumental in facilitating cooperation between law enforcement agencies and helping to fight crime,” said Mark A. Mossotti, Chief of the Bridgeton Police Department and Chairman of the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association. “We have many police departments in the St. Louis area and she was just phenomenal in working with every single one of them.”

“U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming has been a dedicated partner to the St. Louis region and the law enforcement community,” said St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Tracy. “She has played a key role in SLMPD’s mission to reduce violent crime through her office and leadership.”

“On behalf of the St. Louis County Police Department, I extend my deepest thanks to U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming for her unwavering commitment to justice. Your leadership has left a lasting mark, and we wish you all the best,” said St. Louis County Police Chief Kenneth Gregory.

Ms. Fleming joined the office in August of 2010 from the Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner law firm. She had extensive experience prosecuting and supervising violent crime cases and was the office’s Appellate Chief before becoming U.S. Attorney.

Ms. Fleming grew up in Charleston, Missouri. She received her Bachelor of Accountancy from Mississippi State University and her law degree from Vanderbilt University School of Law.

Ms. Fleming concluded her service at midnight on Friday to make way for the next U.S. Attorney. Former First Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Drake will now assume the role of Acting U.S. Attorney. U.S. Attorney Drake joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2002 in the National Security Unit. He earned his Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Missouri.

The Eastern District of Missouri includes 49 counties and is responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the district, including crimes related to terrorism, public corruption, child exploitation, firearms and narcotics. The office also defends the United States in civil cases and collects debts owed to the United States.

MIL Security OSI –

June 4, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Chinese Nationals Charged with Conspiracy and Smuggling a Dangerous Biological Pathogen into the U.S. for their Work at a University of Michigan Laboratory

Source: Office of United States Attorneys

DETROIT – Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the United States, false statements, and visa fraud, announced United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr.

Gorgon was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Cheyvoryea Gibson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Division and Marty C. Raybon, Director of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The FBI arrested Jian in connection with allegations related to Jian’s and Liu’s smuggling into America a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon. This noxious fungus causes “head blight,” a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year. Fusarium graminearum’s toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock.

According to the complaint, Jian received Chinese government funding for her work on this pathogen in China. The complaint also alleges that Jian’s electronics contain information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. It is further alleged that Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America—through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport—so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked.

United States Attorney Gorgon stated: “The alleged actions of these Chinese nationals—including a loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party—are of the gravest national security concerns. These two aliens have been charged with smuggling a fungus that has been described as a ‘potential agroterrorism weapon’ into in the heartland of America, where they apparently intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme.”

U.S. Custom and Border Protection, Director of Field Operations Marty C. Raybon stated, “Today’s criminal charges levied upon Yunqing Jian and Zunyong Liu are indicative of CBP’s critical role in protecting the American people from biological threats that could devastate our agricultural economy and cause harm to humans; especially when it involves a researcher from a major university attempting to clandestinely bring potentially harmful biological materials into the United States. This was a complex investigation involving CBP offices from across the country, alongside our federal partners. I’m grateful for their tireless efforts, ensuring our borders remain secure from all types of threats while safeguarding America’s national security interests.”

Jian will be appearing this afternoon in federal court in Detroit for her initial appearance on the complaint.

A complaint is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. Trial cannot be held on felony charges in a complaint. When the investigation is completed, a determination will be made whether to seek a felony indictment.

The FBI and CBP are investigating this case.

MIL Security OSI –

June 4, 2025

MIL-OSI: Quadient Q1 2025 sales at €258m, with strong performance in Digital and Lockers. FY 2025 guidance maintained

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

Key highlights

Q1 2025 consolidated revenue of €258 million, down 1.1% on a reported basis, including the contribution of Package Concierge, and down 2.5% organically⁽¹⁾
Continued good momentum in Digital and Lockers, with double-digit growth in subscription-related revenue
Low point in the renewal cycle of mail equipment installed base, as expected
Positive current EBIT evolution supported by all three Solutions
Acceleration of digital financial automation strategy in Europe with the acquisition of Serensia, a leading French electronic invoicing certified platform
Stronger H2 anticipated on the back of continued strong momentum in Digital and Lockers with further improvement in profitability, expected Mail recovery and good order pipeline across Solutions
FY 2025 guidance maintained, i.e. organic growth acceleration in both revenue and current EBIT

Paris, 3 June 2025

Quadient S.A. (Euronext Paris: QDT), a global automation platform powering secure and sustainable business connections, today announces its 2025 first quarter consolidated revenue (period ended on 30 April 2025).

Geoffrey Godet, Chief Executive Officer of Quadient S.A., stated:

“The first quarter of 2025 has been another strong quarter for our Digital and Lockers solutions, which delivered solid levels of subscription-related revenue organic growth at +11.1% for Digital and +12.7% for Lockers, demonstrating the strength and success of our two fast growing solutions as well as the quality of our recurring business model.

As expected, our Mail performance was softer, reflecting the low point in the renewal cycle and a tough comparison base following the decertification-driven boost in 2024 in the United-States. The situation was further exacerbated by a particularly challenging American macroeconomic environment during the first quarter.

Despite these headwinds in the quarter, we achieved current EBIT organic growth, supported by EBITDA margin positive development in all three solutions.

With the acquisition of Serensia, a leading French electronic invoicing certified platform, Quadient is accelerating its digital financial automation strategy in Europe and will bring superior digital intelligent automation capabilities to its 300K+ customers worldwide, and notably to its 60K+ French customers, further accelerating their digital transformation, as they anticipate the 2026 mandatory e-invoicing law in France.

While we expect the same uncertainty and market conditions to continue in Q2, we remain confident in our ability to deliver a stronger second half. As a result, we are maintaining our full-year 2025 guidance of acceleration in both organic revenue growth and organic EBIT growth compared to the 2024 growth rates.”

Comments on Q1 2025 performance

Group revenue came in at €258 million in Q1 2025, down 1.1% on a reported basis, and 2.5% organically compared to Q1 2024. Reported growth includes a positive scope effect of €4 million from the acquisition of Package Concierge in December 2024. The currency impact was broadly flat over the period.

Subscription related revenue (€193 million, 75% of total sales) increased by +1.2% organically over Q1 2025, reflecting the continued strong momentum in Digital and Lockers. In contrast, non-recurring revenue declined by 12.0% organically against Q1 2024, due to a low point in the renewal cycle of mail equipment installed base, as expected. The decline in hardware sales has however been amplified by the challenging macroeconomic environment in the United States.

By geography, North America (59% of revenue) declined organically by 2.4% in Q1 2025, impacted by macroeconomic uncertainty in the US delaying customer decision making and a strong comparison base in Mail following last year’s decertification-driven uplift in sales. The Main European countries (33% of revenue) recorded a 2.8% organic decline, while the International segment (8% of revenue) was down 2.0% organically.

Consolidated revenue by Solution

Q1 2025 consolidated revenue

In € million	Q1 2025	Q1 2024	Change	Organic change
Digital	67	63	+6.5%	+7.2%
Mail	164	178	(7.9)%	(7.9)%
Lockers	27	20	+35.4%	+12.2%
Group total	258	261	(1.1)%	(2.5)%

Digital

In Q1 2025, revenue from Digital reached €67 million, up 7.2% organically and up 6.5% on a reported basis compared to Q1 2024.

This solid performance was driven by a strong 11.1% organic growth in Q1 2025 in subscription-related revenue, in acceleration compared to the previous quarter. Growth was broad-based across all regions, including a double-digit growth in North America. Subscription-related revenue represented 85% of Digital total sales, a further increase compared to 82% in Q1 2024.

At the end of Q1 2025, annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached €237 million⁽²⁾, vs. €232 million at the end of FY 2024, representing a 9.6% organic growth on an annualized basis.

The Digital solution continued to demonstrate healthy booking trends, highlighted by:

Robust cross-selling bookings with Mail customers, up c. +50% year-on-year;

Double-digit growth in new customer acquisition within the Enterprise business.

During the quarter, Quadient’s Digital Automation platform received several leadership recognitions across multiple analyst rankings, notably in AP/AR financial automation, where it is now ranked on par with its high positions in CCM/CXM.

Quadient is accelerating its digital financial automation strategy in Europe, with the acquisition on 2^nd June 2025 of Serensia, a leading French electronic invoicing certified platform, trusted by more than 160 customers (including TotalEnergies, Dalkia, RATP…), processing nearly 200 million invoices annually. This acquisition provides Quadient with:

First-class software Intellectual Property for its PDP platform (Partner Dematerialization Platform, registered by the French State), and

Access to Pan-European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL) market.

This acquisition further strengthens Quadient’s Finance Automation portfolio (which includes online payment, e-invoicing, account payable and account receivable automation, credit analysis, hybrid mail, …), and further accelerates Quadient’s Mail customers’ digital transformation, by providing additional pathways towards the necessary adoption of e-invoicing solutions, legally mandated across Europe. Please refer to our dedicated press release published on 2^nd June for more details.

Mail

Mail revenue reached €164 million in Q1 2025, down 7.9% organically and on a reported basis compared to Q1 2024.

Hardware sales recorded a 15.8% organic decline in the first quarter of 2025. This decrease was primarily driven by:

A softer performance across all regions. This was expected, given the echo effect of the COVID period, with fewer contracts for renewal, reflecting the lower level of hardware placements made during the pandemic 5 years ago;
The United States was particularly affected, with a strong comparison base in Q1 2024, which had benefited from the decertification boosting effect (which ended in Q4 2024), as well as by increased economic uncertainty that delayed customer decision-making.

Subscription-related revenue (72% of Mail sales) recorded an organic decline of 4.4% in the quarter.

Despite these headwinds, Quadient continued to outperform the market this quarter.

The Mail automation platform continued to show good commercial momentum, and double-digit growth in cross-sell order intake with Lockers and +50% for Digital bookings in Q1 2025. This dynamic is illustrated by the expansion of the partnership with the University of Pittsburgh, which has long relied on Quadient’s parcel locker systems to facilitate on-campus student and staff deliveries and is now extending the relationship to include a comprehensive mail management solution.

At the end of April 2025, already 44.0% of Quadient installed base has been upgraded with its newest technology, compared to 42.4% at the end of January 2025.

H2 2025 performance is expected to recover as the Mail equipment business will be supported by a stronger pipeline of contracts up for renewal over the second part of the year.

Lockers

Lockers revenue reached €27 million in Q1 2025, a 12.2% increase on an organic basis. The reported growth stood at 35.4% year-on-year, reflecting the positive contribution from Package Concierge (€4 million in Q1 2025).

Subscription-related revenue increased by 12.7% organically in Q1 2025, benefiting from:

The outstanding strong volumes ramp up in the UK and French open networks;
The continued momentum in the US, driven by higher monetization of usage fees.

Overall, subscription-related revenue stood at 65% of total revenue in Q1 2025 (vs. 68% in Q1 2024, this small drop reflecting the different revenue mix at the recently acquired Package Concierge).

Non-recurring revenue (license & hardware sales and professional services) grew strongly by 11.4% organically in Q1 2025, driven by a significant locker placement in International, which more than offset the softer performance in North America. Moreover, another hardware sales deal for circa €5 million has been signed in International and will be recognized in H2 2025

Quadient’s global locker installed base reached c.26,100 units at the end of Q1 2025, with 600 new lockers deployed over the quarter. This reflects the accelerated pace of new locker installations, particularly in the UK open network, which has expanded nearly fourfold over the last 15 months. This growth is driven by partnerships signed in recent quarters to host parcel lockers in new prime locations.

In the UK, Quadient extended its partnership with EVRi, with a new large and long-term deal signed, including the consolidation of returns (Drop Box functionality). Quadient also signed a strategic partnership with Stasher, offering travelers a nationwide luggage storage service through Quadient’s smart locker network. These partnerships are expected to further drive volume and support continued adoption growth. In Japan (International segment), Quadient expanded the access to its network so that Amazon parcels can be delivered within approximately 6,000 “PUDO Stations” nationwide.

LIQUIDITY MANAGEMENT

In May 2025, Quadient proactively extended the maturity of its €300 million undrawn Revolving Credit Facility by an additional year, pushing it to 2030.

FY 2025 GUIDANCE MAINTAINED

While Q2 is expected to face similar markets conditions to the previous quarter and continued macroeconomic uncertainty, Quadient remains confident in its ability to deliver a stronger performance in the second half of the year. This confidence is supported by:

A good profitability start of the year, with an improvement in EBITDA margin across solutions;
Moving forward:
- Sustained strong momentum in Digital and Lockers, with further improvement in profitability;
- An expected recovery in Mail in H2, as the renewal cycle of the mail equipment installed base should reverse and provide greater opportunities;
- A promising order pipeline across solutions.

In this this context, Quadient maintains its full-year 2025 guidance, of acceleration in both organic revenue growth and organic current EBIT growth compared to the 2024 growth rates, while acknowledging that ongoing global economic disruptions and their impact, in particular on the US market, remain difficult to predict at this stage.

Q1 2025 BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS

Quadient Recognized in Inaugural 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Accounts Payable Applications
On 4 April 2025, Quadient announced it has been recognized in the first ever 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Accounts Payable Applications. A Gartner Magic Quadrant is a culmination of research in a specific market, giving a wide-angle view of the relative positions of the market’s competitors³.

Quadient Receives SBTi’s Validation of its GHG Emission Reduction Targets
On 7 April 2025, Quadient announced that the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has validated its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets. SBTi is a corporate climate action initiative that provides companies with science-based guidance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. This validation confirms that Quadient’s commitments align with scientific requirements to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Quadient Recognized in Analyst Report on Top AI Use Cases for Finance Automation
On 16 April 2025, Quadient announced it has been recognized in a recent Forrester report on ways artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming accounts receivable (AR) processes. The report, “Top AI Use Cases for Accounts Receivable Automation In 2025,” includes mentions of Quadient AR for cash application and payment notice. Quadient considers its inclusion in the report as proof of the impact its AI- and machine learning-powered financial process automation offer, enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and decision-making capabilities.

Quadient Named a Leader in the SPARK Matrix™: Customer Communication Management Report for 2025
On 24 April 2025, Quadient has been recognized as a Leader in the SPARK Matrix™: Customer Communication Management (CCM), Q2, 2025 report by global advisory and consulting firm QKS Group. This marks the fifth consecutive year Quadient has been named a Leader in the SPARK Matrix for CCM, a strategic vendor performance assessment tool that ranks vendors across the categories of Technology Excellence and Customer Impact.

Quadient: 11% Increase in Software Sales to Mail Clients in 2024 Reflects Rising Demand for Smarter, Multichannel Communications
On 30 April 2025, Quadient shared that businesses are increasingly turning to digital solutions to meet rising customer expectations for modern, multichannel communication. This shift is driving tangible growth: in fiscal year 2024, Quadient recorded a record 11% increase in cross-sales of its Digital automation solutions within its Mail customer base.

POST-CLOSING EVENTS

Stasher and Quadient Partner to Launch Nationwide Luggage Storage Using UK Smart Locker Network
On 7 May 2025, Quadient announced a strategic partnership with Stasher, the world’s first luggage storage platform. This partnership marks a significant expansion of Stasher’s UK network and will provide travelers in key cities throughout the UK, including London, Birmingham, York, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Cardiff and Manchester, with more convenient, secure, and accessible luggage storage options through more than 1,640 Parcel Pending by Quadient smart lockers.

Quadient and Nuvei Sign New Partnership to Enhance Cloud Payment Capabilities for Businesses Globally
On 13 May 2025, Quadient and Nuvei announced a strategic technology partnership to enhance cloud payment capabilities for businesses globally. Through this partnership, Nuvei’s advanced payment processing technology is now integrated into Quadient’s cloud-based Accounts Receivable (AR) and Accounts Payable (AP) automation solutions, providing businesses of all sizes across North America, the UK, and Europe with a unified platform to manage B2B payments more efficiently, securely, and at scale.

AI-powered Automation and Real-Time Payments Secure Quadient Leader Position in SPARK Matrix for Accounts Receivable
On 15 May 2025, Quadient has been positioned as a Leader in the SPARK Matrix™: Accounts Receivable Applications, 2025. This marks the fourth consecutive year Quadient has been named as a leader in the report produced by the technology advisory and research firm QKS Group. Quadient believes this recognition is a testament to its continuing commitment to help businesses accelerate digital transformation, automate financial processes to increase business performance and create high-value customer interactions.

Quadient Surpasses 300 Higher Education Locker Customers, Helping Campuses Modernize Logistics and Tackle Food Insecurity
On 27 May 2025, Quadient announced that more than 300 higher education institutions in the U.S. are now relying on Parcel Pending by Quadient Lockers for streamlined package pickup and drop-off, bookstore merchandise, class and IT equipment exchange points, and addressing the challenge of student food insecurity.

Quadient Advances AI Capabilities to Help Organizations Power Better Customer Interactions and Revenue Growth
On 28 May 2025, Quadient announced the release of advanced AI capabilities designed for crafting and orchestrating highly personalized, omnichannel customer interactions. The extended AI is part of the latest release of Quadient Inspire, an industry-leading customer communications management (CCM) solution, and represents Quadient’s continued investment in transforming the way businesses dynamically communicate with customers.

Quadient Accelerates its Digital Financial Automation Strategy in Europe with the Acquisition of Serensia
On 2 Juin 2025, Quadient announced the acquisition of Serensia, a highly recognized a leading French electronic invoicing platform provider accredited by the French government as a Partner Dematerialization Platform (PDP). This strategic acquisition strengthens Quadient’s position in digital compliance and its ability to support both its 150,000 European customers and the more than 8 million businesses impacted in France as they transition to mandatory electronic invoicing.

To know more about Quadient’s news flow, previous press releases are available on our website at the following address: https://invest.quadient.com/en/newsroom.

CONFERENCE CALL & WEBCAST

Quadient will host a conference call and webcast today at 6:00 pm Paris time (5:00 pm London time).

To join the webcast, click on the following link: Webcast.

To listen to the presentation by phone, please register using the following link to receive the dial-in details: Conference call.

A replay of the webcast will also be available on Quadient’s Investor Relations website for 12 months.

Calendar

13 June 2025: Annual General Assembly
24 September 2025: Half-year results and Q2 2025 sales

About Quadient®

Quadient is a global automation platform provider powering secure and sustainable business connections through digital and physical channels. Quadient supports businesses of all sizes in their digital transformation and growth journey, unlocking operational efficiency and creating meaningful customer experiences. Listed in compartment B of Euronext Paris (QDT) and part of the CAC® Mid & Small and EnterNext® Tech 40 indices, Quadient shares are eligible for PEA-PME investing.

For more information about Quadient, visit https://invest.quadient.com/en/.

Contacts

APPENDIX

Digital: New name for Intelligent Communication Automation

Mail: New name for Mail-Related Solutions

Lockers: New name for Parcel Locker Solutions

Q1 2025 consolidated revenue

Q1 2025 consolidated revenue by geography

In € million	Q1 2025	Q1 2024	Change	Organic change
North America⁽^a⁾	151	150	+0.6%⁽^d⁾	(2.4)%
Main European countries⁽^b⁾	86	89	(2.9)%	(2.8)%
International⁽^c⁾	21	23	(5.6)%⁽^d⁾	(2.0)%
Group total	258	261	(1.1)%	(2.5)%
(a) Including the United States and Canada. Brazil and Mexico are also part of this segment as of 1^stJanuary 2025. (b) Including Austria, Benelux, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy (excluding Mail), Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. (c) International includes the activities of Digital, Mail and Lockers outside of North America and the Main European countries. From 1^s^tJanuary 2025, Brazil and Mexico are no longer included and are now part of North America. (d) The reported changes reflect a €0.9m reclassification effect due to the transfer of Brazil and Mexico from International to North America as of 1^stJanuary 2025.

(1) Q1 2025 sales are compared to Q1 2024 sales, to which is added pro rata temporis the revenue of Package Concierge for a consolidated amount of €4 million. The currency impact is broadly neutral in the period.
(2) Q1 2025 ARR includes a €1.3 million positive currency effect vs 31 January 2025.
(3) Gartner Research Methodologies, Gartner Magic Quadrant, 28 March 2025

Attachment

The MIL Network –

June 4, 2025

Category: Education

Finding the patter

Ripe for the lip-sync

Beyond Broadway

An Engineer Looks Back on High School Science Fairs, African Drone Flights, and Marine Energy Innovations That Shape the Future

From Science Fairs to Drone Flights

From Drone Flights to Wave Power

Time To Root Down

Taking a big-picture look

Biggest NEPA case in decades

A resounding declaration

A split court

International support

1. War-fighting ready

2. Pace of innovation

3. Nato first

Moby-Dick’s early readers

Beyond the canon

Isolation and love-bombing

Fear and dependence

New model

Testable predictions

Potential downsides to exercise?

1. Removal or exclusion from a WhatsApp group

2. Discriminatory messages or harassment via WhatsApp

3. Termination of employment via WhatsApp

4. WhatsApp communications submitted as evidence

WhatsApp dos and don’ts

Divide and control

The reality on the ground

Regulations often a minor factor

Exacerbating conflict

Checks and balances

‘Special economic zones’

Increased pessimism

Russian vulnerabilities

Attacks on civilians

Weakening Asian alliances

New JCVI Chair appointed

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