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Category: Education

  • MIL-OSI Global: How outdoor sports can support youth as they navigate climate change

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Brett Tomlinson, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Educaiton, Nipissing University

    As climate change continues to impact the way we interact with our planet, it’s critical to consider ways we can encourage youth to participate in climate action initiatives.

    Young people across Canada are feeling frightened about the future of the planet. A Canadian study published in 2023 surveyed 1,000 young participants on their feelings about climate change. Sixty-six per cent of respondents said they felt anxiousness or hopelessness about climate change, while 78 per cent said it impacts their overall mental health.

    There are a number of ways to approach this overwhelming emotion, considering it could result not only in poor quality of life for youth but also continued inaction for the planet.

    My research in outdoor physical education leads me to consider more positive behaviour for youth in association to climate change that could likely benefit youth and the planet. The challenge is finding opportunities to develop pro-environmental behaviours and environmental stewardship with Canadian youth.



    Read more:
    6 ways to build resilience and hope into young people’s learning about climate change

    It’s about more than time outdoors

    When looking to develop pro-environmental behaviours, one way could be to simply encourage more time outdoors. But research from Germany suggests that just interacting with nature is not enough; rather, young people need to find ways to engage with nature and use the natural landscape to develop an emotional connection with the environment.

    According to the German study, certain sports can lead to more environmentally sustainable attitudes and behaviours from participants. Some sports in particular — like cross-country skiing, mountain biking or triathlon — increase those positive behaviours more than others. This isn’t simply because participants are alone within a natural setting; it’s because the focus of the sport is on the natural landscape.

    To explain a bit further, soccer, for example, is typically played outside but often on a manicured, sometimes artificial, field that is in many ways devoid of any natural influence.

    Alternatively, mountain biking requires participants to ride on trails that take them directly through forested areas or spaces that are selected based on their unique natural landscape. As athletes participate in sports more frequently and spend more time within nature, they then develop a stronger emotional connection to the space they’re in. This leads to pro-environmental behaviours and attitudes, which can then generate environmental stewardship.



    Read more:
    Earth Day 2024: ‘Green muscle memory’ and climate education promote behaviour change

    Rock climbing

    Within rock climbing groups and organizations, there is evidence suggesting members frequently participate in beneficial environmental stewardship projects. Outdoor rock-climbing groups typically manage spaces — sometimes privately owned, but frequently under government jurisdiction in provincial or national parks — to ensure safe and responsible climbing practices. Climbers rely on ropes, equipment and bolts to ensure safety as they’re climbing.

    But another obvious factor is the rock face they climb. The connection to rock and the climbing routes over those rock faces help foster a sense of environmental stewardship within climbers. Similar to mountain biking, the process starts with an introduction to the sport, but slowly develops into more care and attention paid to the natural spaces where climbers practise their activity.

    One American study indicates that rock climbing organizations often find opportunities to clean up the areas where they climb, and also look to maintain the natural features of that space.

    The research finds that for climbers, the challenge is to maintain natural spaces and keep the rock as pristine as possible. This also extends to conservation efforts to ensure that space maintains its use for climbing as opposed to turning it into a more urban or commercialized area.

    The joy that participants received from the sport of climbing initiated this environmental stewardship and maintained progressive action in local environmental initiatives.

    Element of physical risk

    One thing to note is that climbing and mountain biking do involve an element of physical risk.

    Doing some research on these sports can help youth assess risks alongside what can be gained from participating. But it’s also important to acknowledge that encouraging young people to foster deeper connections to nature as opposed to having simple interactions with outdoor spaces doesn’t mean they have to cycle down a mountain or climb a massive rock wall.

    Risk cannot be completely eliminated from outdoor sports and recreation, but there can be great social and personal benefit from participating in these types of activities.

    Instead of a high-risk sport, educators and outdoor leaders can influence participants with simpler actions. I am aware of outings involving outdoor hikes, or taking time at night to gaze at the stars and listen to the sounds of nature, that have sparked in young people an interest in outdoor spaces — and caring for them.

    Such experiences can then lead young people to continue to explore outdoor adventure and sport, that can , significantly, foster an appreciation of natural settings through direct interaction as well as a positive sense of community. This can be a starting point to help alleviate feelings of hopelessness to climate change.



    Read more:
    Teachers need bolder action from our school boards to educate in and for a climate emergency

    Addressing potential harms, amplifying benefits

    Despite the benefits of participating in outdoor sports, there is a need to acknowledge that participation can have some negative impact on the environment.

    For example, interaction with nature through sport can impact natural habitats and has the potential to alter behavioural patterns of animals. Furthermore, there is a risk of erosion of natural spaces, as well as the slim potential for the movement of invasive species.

    This being said, it’s critical to consider what we can gain from supporting youth to participate in outdoor sport and education when such activities are planned with attentiveness and care.

    Brett Tomlinson 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 outdoor sports can support youth as they navigate climate change – https://theconversation.com/how-outdoor-sports-can-support-youth-as-they-navigate-climate-change-256643

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Worker-led programs are tackling gender-based violence in supply chains, but they’re at risk

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Genevieve LeBaron, Distinguished SFU Professor of Global Supply Chain Governance, Simon Fraser University

    Gender-based violence and harassment is a widespread issue in supply chains. Women workers in garment manufacturing, food production and hospitality are routinely subjected to unwanted touching and sexual advances and inappropriate comments, while promotion and advancement are often conditional on sex. In the most severe cases, this abuse escalates to sexual assault and rape.

    Despite decades of awareness and an International Labour Organization convention passed in 2019 and ratified by 49 countries, research indicates little progress has been made.

    A 2024 report from Statistics Canada, for instance, has found that 47 per cent of women have experienced some form of harassment or sexual assault in the workplace.

    Rates of gender-based violence and harassment are thought to be even higher in some countries and industries. In Bangladesh, a 2018 study found at least 60 per cent of garment workers had experienced it in the previous year. Another found 85 per cent of garment workers in Indonesia were concerned about sexual harassment at work.

    In the face of such a persistent global issue, women working in garment supply chains have pioneered a highly effective solution for tackling gender-based violence and harassment.

    Worker-led binding agreements

    Supported by labour unions and organizations like the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, Worker Rights Consortium and Global Labor justice, women workers have led the development of legally binding agreements with brands and suppliers to eliminate gender-based violence and harassment.

    The latest of these is called the Central Java Agreement for Gender Justice. Signed in July 2024, it covers 6,250 workers producing clothing for brands like Nike and Fanatics, Inc. under licenses with universities affiliated with the Worker Rights Consortium.

    Worker Rights Consortium persuaded Fanatics, which is also licensed to produce apparel bearing the Nike logo, to enter into the agreement in response to complaints of gender-based violence and harassment at two garment factories in central Java, Indonesia, owned by the Korean-based firm Ontide.

    This agreement creates a union-led program to address the problem at two Indonesian factories; if factory management does not comply, it risks losing business with Nike and Fanatics.

    Building on success from India to Indonesia

    The 2024 Central Java Agreement builds on and incorporates key features of previous worker-led agreements to address the issue.

    In particular, it builds on the 2022 Dindigul Agreement to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence and Harassment in India and the 2019 Agreements to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence and Harassment in Lesotho.

    The Dindigul agreement was led by an independent, majority-Dalit trade union run by women. It established a set of legally binding agreements with major garment companies including H&M Group, Gap Inc., PVH and Eastman Exports Global Clothing Ltd.

    The Lesotho agreements involved brands such as Levi Strauss & Co., Nien Hsing Textile Co., unions, women’s rights advocates and labour organizations.

    While each agreement is unique, they all adhere to the principles of worker-driven social responsibility.

    Under this governance model, “worker organizations and unions, suppliers, and brand companies enter into enforceable and legally binding agreements” and “transnational corporations use their leverage and supply chain relationships to effect change amongst supplier worksites.”

    A new model of accountability

    These agreements include worker-led detection and remediation systems to address gender-based violence and harassment. For example, under the Lesotho agreement, workers can access a 24-hour hotline operated by a local women’s organization to lodge complaints or bring them directly to the unions involved in the agreement.

    The Dindigul agreement also provides multiple channels for workers to raise complaints of gender-based violence and harassment, including shop floor monitors selected by the local union (one for every 25 workers). It also offers multiple avenues for raising complaints, including to the union or to sexual harassment committees required under Indian law.

    Under the Central Java Agreement, workers can bring complaints to committees aimed at eliminating the problem, to shop floor monitors or their unions. Not only do each of the agreements permit workers to request independent investigations, they all provide a wide array of remedies in the case of any incidents and violations of freedom of association.

    What sets these agreements apart from most other initiatives to combat gender-based violence and harassment in supply chains is that they actually work. One study of the two-year impact of the Dindigul Agreement by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute found that 76 per cent of grievances were resolved in two weeks.

    The report said the program “constituted a powerful monitoring mechanism, ensuring effective remediation and deterring violations” of both gender-based violence and harassment and freedom of association — briefly put, the right to voluntarily join or leave groups (like unions), and for those groups to pursue collective action.

    Now, a key question is whether and to what extent these successful programs will continue to thrive and grow under the current “America First” agenda of the U.S. government.

    Progress under threat

    Despite their success, these worker-led initiatives face mounting challenges.

    Labour organizations that support these agreements are under strain, with some potentially at high risk of collapsing. The U.S. Bureau of International Labor Affairs is cutting US$500 million in funding that supports labour enforcement efforts across 40 countries.

    At the same time, company rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion programs are constraining, if not eliminating, the political space in which labour groups negotiate such agreements.

    Tariffs and upheaval in global trade — especially efforts to redraw supply chains to evade costly tariffs — gives brands cover to withdraw commitments to worker-led initiatives and change sourcing patterns to circumvent them.

    Within the United States, cuts and funding freezes — including to sexual assault prevention groups — are a worrying sign that support for preventing gender-based violence and harassment and helping its survivors are being undercut and failing.

    If labour stakeholders lose the resources to support such initiatives, the impacts on women and workplaces within supply chains across the world will be devastating. These programs show that when workers lead, real change is possible, but they need continued investment and political support to survive.

    Genevieve LeBaron receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Humanity United Foundation, and Ford Foundation.

    Judy Fudge 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. Worker-led programs are tackling gender-based violence in supply chains, but they’re at risk – https://theconversation.com/worker-led-programs-are-tackling-gender-based-violence-in-supply-chains-but-theyre-at-risk-255756

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The distant dream of owning a home: Canada sees growing inequality in home ownership

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Yushu Zhu, Assistant Professor, Urban Studies and Public Policy, Simon Fraser University

    Home ownership is often seen as a symbol of success and is linked to various life opportunities, like starting a family or growing your wealth. It’s also often seen as the ultimate housing goal, while renting is seen as transitional. Eventually, everyone is expected to climb up the housing ladder from renting to owning.

    Promoting home ownership is therefore at the centre of housing policy in many countries, including Canada. As of 2021, 67 per cent of Canadian households owned their home.

    However, deteriorating affordability in recent years has placed home ownership out of reach for many and called into question the ideal of home ownership.

    In a recent study, colleagues and I examined access to home ownership for different groups using census data from 1986 to 2021 in five metropolitan areas: Montréal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

    Our findings suggest that, for many, owning a home has become a distant dream.

    Stagnant homeownership growth

    Based on statistical models that accounted for individual and household characteristics, we found that the probability of an average Canadian household owning a home (with or without a mortgage) improved steadily from 1991 to 2011, then dropped in 2016 and 2021, while the likelihood of owning with a mortgage substantially increased. This means growth in home ownership was primarily driven by mortgage debt.

    This trend was happening at the same time as a shift started in the 1990s towards financialization that treated housing more as an investment than a social good.



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    The federal government stopped funding social housing programs, commercialized the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and expanded its mortgage securitization programs.

    In other words, mortgage liberation successfully promoted home ownership for some time until 2011.

    All five metropolitan areas saw a decline in the number of renter households until 2011 (2016 for Montréal), when the number began increasing. In addition, outright ownership has become less prevalent over time.

    These findings defy the expected sustained growth of home ownership that commodification and financialization were supposed to bring.

    The percentage of homes owned outright, with a mortgage or being rented in different Canadian cities.
    (Author provided)

    Filtering mechanism and access to credit

    Another tenet of the home ownership narrative is that a free market provides equal opportunities for owning a home through two processes: the filtering process and mortgage liberalization.

    The filtering model suggests that homes built for higher-income families slowly deteriorate and depreciate, and can become affordable for lower-income people. This process, coupled with the increased access to mortgages, is expected to eventually grant home ownership opportunities to all.

    However, this mechanism is less likely to work for home ownership than for rentals. Owner-occupied homes often take a long time, sometimes decades, to depreciate. By the time they become available and affordable, the unit may require major and costly renovations.

    In practice, many owner-occupied units often “filter up” rather than downward, through gentrification or acquisition by financial investors.

    The increased access to mortgages does not benefit everyone either. Many low-income people or those without stable jobs do not qualify for mortgages, and racialized people are more likely to be denied access to credit due to discrimination.

    Growing inequalities

    Substantiating these counter-arguments are growing inter-generational and income inequalities in home ownership. All age cohorts saw improved access to home ownership up until 2021. However, the three age groups under 45 — 15-24, 25-34 and 35-44 — saw steady declines in home ownership rates.

    These were mostly millennials and Gen Zers who face disproportionate affordability pressure compared to older generations.

    Homeowners over 55 are also reckoning with affordability. We found the share of older homeowners holding a mortgage rose between 1986 and 2021 from 24 to 40 per cent for those 55 to 64, and from 10 to 26 per cent for the 65-74 age group.

    In other words, more people are having to rely on larger loans and longer amortization periods to buy and maintain their homes, making it harder to pay back their mortgage before retirement.

    The disparities in home ownership opportunities among different incomes have also increased. While the top 20th percentile income group witnessed increased probability of owning a home between 2011 and 2016, other income groups experienced stagnant or decreased chances.

    Among owner households, Canadians across all incomes saw increased mortgaged ownership from 1996 to 2016. The lowest income group saw the fastest growth in mortgaged home ownership but were still the least likely to own with a mortgage due to low income or discrimination. Rising house prices coupled with loosening mortgage lending regulations may have pushed them into mortgaged ownership.

    Higher social status?

    A final compelling narrative is that home ownership affords better well-being and financial security due to higher perceived social status and a stronger sense of autonomy and stability.

    The financial security associated with home ownership is supported by the idea of “housing asset-based welfare.” This model conceptualizes home ownership as a means for young people to build assets for financial security in times of need and old age.

    However, this approach encourages early-life debt, and may only work if mortgage loans remain affordable until they are paid off. Paradoxically, this asset-building mindset drives speculative investment and house prices, making outright home ownership more difficult and mortgaged ownership less affordable.

    The well-being associated with home ownership is debatable as well. My colleagues and I have shown elsewhere that perceived benefits to a person’s well-being are not intrinsic to home ownership. Rather, they are created and normalized by a system that makes home ownership more secure and appealing than alternatives like renting.

    In reality, the financial security associated with home ownership has been undermined by rising housing costs, especially for low- and moderate-income homeowners with mortgages.

    Mortgaged homeowners with below-median incomes have seen their housing costs increase 25 per cent faster than their income over the study period, compared to five per cent for higher income families at the top 60th percentile.

    Broken promises

    Manual Aalbers, a human geography professor at Belgium’s University of Leuven, has argued that home ownership today has slowly changed “from a policy goal into pure rhetoric … a means to an end. Mortgaged home ownership increasingly is there to keep mortgage and financial markets going.”

    To say the least, the broken promises of home ownership point to the failures of our current housing system that creates a hierarchy of tenures and two tiers of social class — homeowners and renters.

    Policies aimed at creating a fairer housing market are essential. These include improving home ownership affordability by providing more diverse types of housing for ownership and discouraging speculative investment.

    Such policies should also include enhancing housing security and asset-building opportunities for renters, and supporting the role of non-profits and social enterprises in meeting the needs of a broad range of income groups.

    This research project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC) through its Insight Development Grant and Partnership Grant. The project was part of the Community Housing Canada project, co-funded by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and SSHRC.

    – ref. The distant dream of owning a home: Canada sees growing inequality in home ownership – https://theconversation.com/the-distant-dream-of-owning-a-home-canada-sees-growing-inequality-in-home-ownership-254873

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Answer to a written question – Executive agency for education, culture and audiovisual – recovery of funds – E-000933/2025(ASW)

    Source: European Parliament

    Commission Decision C(2023)5035 final of 19 July 2023 outlines the grounds for the enforced recovery procedure. It was established that Projekt Forum Zdruzenie (PFZ), coordinator of the project ‘Mirrors of Europe’ failed to respect its substantial obligations under the Grant Agreement signed for the above-mentioned project. As such, it was requested to return the EU funding due to this breach of obligations.

    Regarding the co-financing of the project, it was established that the documents provided by the project coordinator, including the financial statement was still not balanced and therefore did not comply with the requirements of the Grant Agreement, and that there was no financial contribution made by PFZ and its co-organisers to the project.

    The Commission is aware of the claim initiated in 2019 by the project coordinator, and of the decision by the European Ombudsman[1], who found no maladministration in the Education and Culture Executive Agency’s decision to recover the funds. Once all means of recovering the funds unduly received by the project, as put in place by the Commission services and the Agency, had failed (including debit note, reminders, formal notices, full repayment, repayment by instalment, offsetting, etc.), the sole remaining action was the enforced recovery procedure initiated via the above-mentioned Commission Decision.

    Commission Decision C(2023)5035 outlines the grounds for the enforced recovery procedure.

    • [1] European Ombudsman https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/120801.
    Last updated: 21 May 2025

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: MEDIA ADVISORY: Sanders to Call on Republicans to Support Trump, Lower Prescription Drug Prices

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Vermont – Bernie Sanders
    WASHINGTON, May 21 – After President Trump issued a vague executive order claiming to slash drug costs by linking them to international prices, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), today announced he would ask for unanimous consent on the Senate floor to pass legislation that would actually do just that by ensuring Americans pay no more than people in other countries for the exact same prescription drug, forcing anyone who opposes actually lowering drug prices to rise in opposition.
    On May 5, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order entitled “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients.” In that order, he proposes a “a rulemaking plan to impose most-favored-nation pricing” but does not cite specific legislative authority. As a result, the executive order will be blocked by the courts. Congressional action is needed.
    The Prescription Drug Price Relief Act will put an end to the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and help save lives by lowering drug prices. This legislation would ensure Americans do not pay more for prescription drugs than the median price paid in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan.
    Details:
    What: Sen. Sanders floor speech calling for unanimous consent to pass legislation to make sure Americans pay no more than people in other countries for prescription drugs
    When: Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. ET
    Where: Senate floor. His remarks will also be livestreamed on Sanders’ social media.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Highland Council’s Progress Update on Net Zero Programme

    Source: Scotland – Highland Council

    At today’s meeting of the Highland Council’s Climate Change Committee, Members were given an update on the Council’s Net Zero Programme.

    Members welcomed the development of projects that will deliver carbon reductions, operational efficiencies and financial savings.

    Councillor Sarah Fanet, Chair of the Climate Change Committee said: “Delivery of the Council’s Route Map to Net Zero requires a cross-service collaborative approach. The Climate Change and Energy Team continues to work closely with services across the Council to develop and deliver projects that will accelerate the Council’s transition to Net Zero and becoming a climate-ready organisation.”

    Projects include piloting reusable lunch packaging in Kingussie High School to reduce the amount of single-use canteen containers. This is part of a wider project to benchmark waste and recycling rates in schools.

    A short-term working group has been formed to support High Life Highland in its ambitions to achieve gold standard in the Green Tourism Award for the Inverness Castle Experience scheduled to open in 2025. The award recognises sustainable practices in the tourism sector.

    Additionally, the Council will continue to implement a fleet replacement programme to transition diesel/petrol vehicles to Ultra Low Emission Vehicles. Data relating to staff business travel was presented to the Committee with detailed analysis of the data ongoing to identify opportunities for cost optimisation, improved efficiency, and reduced emissions.

    Councillor Sarah Fanet added: “The Climate Change Committee is responsible for the oversight of the Net Zero Programme including the scrutiny of progress and performance, and it is encouraging to see a number of projects coming to fruition following Member discussion.”

    For more information on the Highland Council’s Net Zero Programme and to view the full reports, please visit: https://www.highland.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/5161/climate_change_committee

    21 May 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Senator Jason Anavitarte Appointed to High School Athletics Overview Committee

    Source: US State of Georgia

    ATLANTA (May 21, 2025) — Sen. Jason Anavitarte (R–Dallas) has been appointed by Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones to serve on the High School Athletics Overview Committee, a joint legislative body tasked with examining the operations and oversight of high school athletics in Georgia.

    Originally established during the 2013–2014 biennium, the High School Athletics Overview Committee was created to promote transparency, accountability, and excellence in athletic programs across Georgia’s secondary schools. Sen. Anavitarte joins a bipartisan group of appointees whose mission is to ensure student-athletes are supported by fair policies and quality programs.

    “It’s an honor to be appointed to this important committee,” said Sen. Anavitarte. “High school sports play a critical role in developing leadership, discipline, and teamwork in our young people. As a former local school board member and father of daughters who play high school sports, I understand how deeply these programs shape our students’ futures. I look forward to working with my colleagues to strengthen athletic opportunities and uphold high standards across all school districts.”

    The committee, which includes members from both the House and Senate, is charged with monitoring athletic associations, reviewing policies impacting eligibility and recruitment and ensuring the equitable treatment of all student-athletes.

    Senator Billy Hickman (R–Statesboro), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Youth, will also serve as committee co-chair. Additional Senate appointees include Senators Emanuel Jones (D–Decatur), Randy Robertson (R–Cataula), Sonya Halpern (D–Atlanta), and Chuck Payne (R–Dalton).

    # # # #

    Sen. Jason Anavitarte serves as Chairman of the Senate Majority Caucus. He represents the 31st Senate District, which includes Polk County and a portion of Paulding County. He may be reached via email at Jason.Anavitarte@senate.ga.gov.

    For all media inquiries, please reach out to SenatePressInquiries@senate.ga.gov.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Rep. Pfluger Announces San Angelo Senior as Winner of Congressional Art Competition

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman August Pfluger (TX-11)

    Rep. Pfluger Announces San Angelo Senior as Winner of Congressional Art Competition

    San Angelo, May 19, 2025

    SAN ANGELO, TX — Congressman August Pfluger (TX-11) announced Korbin Jastrow as the winner of the 2025 Congressional Art Competition in Texas’s 11th Congressional District. Jastrow is a Senior at San Angelo Central High School. This year’s theme was ‘Texas to Me’, and the winning artwork will be displayed in the U.S. Capitol building for the next year.

    “For yet another year, I was completely blown away by the talent and creativity of so many art submissions from students across TX-11. While it was hard to select a winner from all the incredible entries, in a blind selection process, the committee picked Ms. Jastrow’s piece ‘The Exception’ because of its unique take on Texas agriculture, as well as its incorporation of our beloved Texas wildflowers. It’s a great combination of multiple parts of the district – embodying the rugged, agriculture-centric spirit of West Texas and the lush, colorful brightness of the Texas Hill Country, both of which I am honored to represent,” said Rep. Pfluger.

    In her submission, Ms. Jastrow explained how she created the piece, stating, “The cow was drawn with pencil, then stamped with handmade stamps representing the Indian paintbrush and bluebonnets. The background was done with acrylic paint, and the shadows behind the cow were done with tissue paper.”

    Pictured: Korbin Jastrow with her winning piece with Central High School art teacher Heather Shoop-York

    Pictured: Korbin Jastrow (middle) being presented her winning certificate alongside Central High School art teacher Heather Shoop-York (right) and Congressman Pfluger’s San Angelo Regional Director Kathy Keane (left)

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What does it mean for Biden’s prostate cancer to be ‘aggressive’? A urologic surgeon explains

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jason P. Joseph, Assistant Professor of Urology, University of Florida

    Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative was started in honor of his son, Beau Biden, who died from brain cancer. AP Photo/Elise Amendola

    Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. But what does it mean for this type of cancer to be called aggressive?

    As a urologic surgeon who specializes in diagnosing and treating prostate cancer, I often explain to my patients that aggressiveness isn’t based on a single factor. Instead, it comes from understanding how abnormal the cancer cells look, known as the tumor’s grade; how far they’ve spread, known as the tumor’s stage; and their genetic fingerprint.

    Grade: Decoding cancer cell appearance

    One key piece of the puzzle is the cancer’s grade, which indicates the tumor’s potential to grow. After a prostate biopsy, a doctor specializing in examining tissues – a pathologist – grades the tumor by comparing the appearance of its cancer cells with that of normal prostate cells.

    Imagine healthy prostate cells as organized workers in a factory, each performing specific tasks. In contrast, high-grade cancer cells appear chaotic, growing and dividing rapidly.

    As prostate cancer grade increases, individual glands becomes less well formed and the cells more disordered.
    Salvi et al/Cancers, CC BY-SA

    For prostate cancer, doctors use what are called grade groups that range from 1 (least aggressive) to 5 (most aggressive). These groups are a simplification based on an older classification called a Gleason score. Biden’s Gleason 9 cancer falls into grade group 5, indicating the cells appear extremely abnormal with a strong potential for rapid growth and spread.

    While the cancer’s grade helps indicate how tumor cells might behave, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Some high-grade cancers can remain confined to the prostate for months or even years.

    To understand where the cancer is and how far it has advanced, doctors determine its stage.

    Stage: Mapping cancer location and spread

    A tumor’s stage describes if, and how far, cancer has spread beyond where it first formed. Doctors use physical exams, imaging scans and lab tests to stage prostate cancer.

    Medical professionals usually use a detailed system called TNM – short for tumor, nodes, metastasis – to classify a tumor’s stage. But prostate cancer stage can be broadly understood as:

    • Localized (stages 1-2): The cancer is only within the prostate. Think of a weed confined to a small garden bed. Many localized cancers, particularly if low-grade, may not be deemed aggressive and can often be safely monitored.

    • Locally advanced (Stage 3): The cancer has spread out from the prostate and is growing in very nearby tissues, like a weed sending roots into the surrounding lawn.

    • Metastatic (Stage 4): The cancer has spread to distant parts of the body. For prostate cancer, this often means lymph nodes, bones – as in Biden’s case – liver or lungs. This is like the weeds spreading seeds down the street and across town.

    A Stage 4 prostate cancer is considered advanced and aggressive because it has shown that it can travel and form new tumors.

    Doctors determine a cancer’s stage with careful testing.

    A tumor’s stage heavily influences treatment options and goals. For localized or some locally advanced cancers (Stage 1 to Stage 3), treatments such as surgery or radiation may aim for a cure. For metastatic cancer, a cure is usually not possible. Treatment focuses on controlling growth, managing symptoms and maintaining quality of life.

    Many prostate cancers rely on hormones called androgens as fuel for their growth. Therapies that block these hormones can be effective for some time – in most cases, years – especially for hormone-sensitive cancers like Biden’s.

    Fortunately, thanks to improved screening options and increased awareness, about 69% of prostate cancers are found when they are still confined to the prostate (Stage 1 to Stage 2). About 8% of new cases are metastatic at diagnosis.

    Genetics: Uncovering cancer’s DNA blueprint

    In addition to grade and stage, doctors are increasingly using a cancer’s genomic profile – its specific genetic makeup – both for deeper insights into its aggressiveness and potential treatment pathways.

    DNA acts like a detailed instruction manual for cells, dictating how they should grow and function as well as when they should stop dividing or die. In cancer, mutations act like typos in this genetic instruction manual, causing cells to ignore these normal controls, grow and spread.

    Genomic testing can identify these specific genetic alterations. This can be performed on the tumor tissue itself to identify changes called somatic mutations that occurred after you were born. Or it can be carried out through blood or saliva samples to detect changes you inherited called germline mutations.

    For men with early-stage prostate cancer, certain genomic tests on the tumor can help clarify the risk of the cancer progressing. This information is valuable in deciding whether active surveillance – closely monitoring the cancer without immediate treatment – is a safe approach, or whether more immediate treatment is warranted.

    In advanced or metastatic prostate cancer, identifying specific mutations is particularly critical. For instance, mutations in genes such as BRCA1 or BRCA2 – more commonly associated with breast and ovarian cancer risk – can also occur in prostate cancer. These mutations can make the cancer more aggressive but also potentially susceptible to a specific type of drug called a PARP inhibitor, especially if the cancer becomes resistant to hormone therapy.

    National guidelines now recommend genomic testing for all men with metastatic prostate cancer to look for these “actionable” mutations. This move toward personalized medicine means treatments can be increasingly tailored to the unique fingerprint of a patient’s cancer.

    Understanding cancer ‘aggressiveness’

    It’s essential to understand that “aggressive” isn’t just a simple label for cancer, but rather a multilayered evaluation. An aggressive-looking cancer caught early and confined to the prostate (Stage 1 and Stage 2) can have a nearly 100% five-year relative survival rate. However, if the same high-grade cancer has already spread widely (Stage 4), five-year relative survival drops significantly, to around 38%.

    This stark difference in survival rates highlights a critical point. To obtain the clearest picture of a cancer’s potential threat, a comprehensive assessment combines insights from multiple qualities of a tumor to help patients and their health care teams make informed decisions.

    Thankfully, advances in genomics, imaging and targeted therapies continue to improve how aggressiveness is defined, how its behavior is predicted and how treatment is personalized. This progress offers growing hope for better outcomes, even for patients with the most aggressive prostate cancers.

    Jason P. Joseph 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. What does it mean for Biden’s prostate cancer to be ‘aggressive’? A urologic surgeon explains – https://theconversation.com/what-does-it-mean-for-bidens-prostate-cancer-to-be-aggressive-a-urologic-surgeon-explains-257100

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Renowned Chinese Russianist Becomes Honorary Doctor of IKS RAS

    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

    Moscow, May 21 /Xinhua/ — Leading Chinese researcher of Russia, professor at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Li Yongquan has become an honorary doctor of the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ICSA RAS). The corresponding sign was presented to him by the director of ICSA RAS Kirill Babaev.

    Director of the Institute of European and Asian Social Development of the Development Research Center of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Vice Chairman of the China-Russia Friendship Society, Professor Li Yongquan has been researching modern Russia, Chinese-Russian relations, Eurasian integration, development of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for over 50 years. He is the author of over 200 scientific and journalistic works, and a translator of Russian book publications. He also worked as a journalist in Moscow and led numerous important applied studies at the level of ministries and departments.

    In an interview with Xinhua, Professor Li Yongquan said he was flattered to be awarded the title of Honorary Doctor of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “The importance of the healthy development of Chinese-Russian relations for the multipolarity of the world, the stability of the Eurasian region and the development of both sides cannot be overestimated. Chinese and Russian scientists should make their contribution to this,” he emphasized.

    Director of the Institute of Crystallographic Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences K. Babaev noted the contribution of Professor Li Yongquan to the development of mutual understanding and friendship between Russia and China. “We hope that this event will become an incentive for further expansion of our cooperation in research, exchange of experience and training of new generations of specialists capable of building strong and mutually beneficial relations between Russia and China. We are confident that Professor Li’s contribution and dedication will serve as an inspiration for future joint projects and initiatives that will contribute to the deepening of our strategic partnership,” said K. Babaev. –0–

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: SPC Tornado Watch 310 Status Reports

    Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Clownfish shrink during marine heatwaves – new study

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Theresa Rueger, Senior Lecturer in Tropical Marine Biology, Newcastle University

    Clownfish that shrank during heatwaves were more likely to survive them. Morgan Bennett-Smith

    As the world contemplates dealing with more extreme temperatures, one coral reef fish has found a novel way to beat the heat: shrinking.

    Wanting to know how clownfish cope with changes to their environment, we repeatedly measured 134 wild fish in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, during a marine heatwave that started in March 2023 and is part of an ongoing global mass coral bleaching event. Clownfish have unique markings, which make it easy to identify and measure them underwater.

    To our complete surprise, we found that 100 of the fish we measured shrank during our study from February to August 2023. Those that shrank had a better chance of surviving the heatwave.

    The clownfish, Amphiprion percula, lives in small social groups within anemones on coral reefs. As the movie Finding Nemo indicated, clownfish rarely, if ever, leave their host anemone because the anemone offers them protection from predators.

    Sadly, this also means that clownfish cannot move to cooler areas as marine heatwaves become more common on coral reefs due to rising global temperatures. Clownfish need other strategies to survive the heat.

    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.

    This is the first time that coral reef fish have been shown to shrink in response to heat stress. And by shrink, we don’t mean getting skinnier – we mean getting shorter.

    This is surprising because growth in vertebrates (animals with backbones, like us) is generally considered to be a one-way street. You get larger over time and you might stop growing if stressed or as you reach your maximum length, but it is rare to find vertebrates shrinking, especially over periods as short as a month, and in response to environmental conditions.

    It may also seem counter-intuitive to shrink. After all, smaller individuals are more prone to being eaten and they breed less. Here, however, being smaller increased the chances of survival for clownfish, possibly because smaller fish need less food and are typically more efficient at foraging and using oxygen, which is scarcer in hot water.

    Orange clownfish in a bleached anemone during the 2023 heatwave in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea.
    Morgan Bennett-Smith

    If you shrink, I shrink

    We found that there is a social component to shrinking and surviving a heatwave.

    A remarkable feature of clownfish social groups is that they maintain strict hierarchies based on size. This means growth – and shrinking – don’t just affect the individual in question, but also risks conflict within the group that could force a fish to be evicted, which usually leads to death. So, shrinking is a risky proposition.

    On each anemone the biggest clownfish is female, the second biggest is male, and together they form a breeding pair. To avoid fights in the pair, males control their growth to keep a fixed size ratio between the two.

    In our study, breeding pairs in which both fish shrank were more likely to survive the heatwave than if only one, or neither, fish shrank.

    We also found that those fish who shrank by a lot could catch up and grow rapidly when conditions improved. That means that it’s not just the shrinking that helps, but being able to shrink and grow flexibly to meet your needs.

    A breeding pair of clownfish. The large female is on the right and the smaller male on the left.
    Theresa Rueger

    While not all fish beat the heat and survived, none of the fish that shrank multiple times in our study died, and even shrinking once increased a clownfish’s survival probability during the heatwave by 78%.

    Our research didn’t investigate how clownfish do this, but studies on other vertebrates might give us clues. Marine iguanas on the Galápagos Islands for example shrink during El Niño years, when water temperatures in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean warm. This reduces the amount of food and prompts the reptiles to shrink by absorbing part of their bones.

    The average size of many marine fish species around the globe is getting smaller according to long-term surveys. This could partly be a result of fishing removing larger fish from populations, as well as the warming climate altering the growth or maximum sizes of fish.

    If our finding of adult fish shrinking in response to environmental stress is more widespread, it could be another reason why fish in the world’s ocean are getting smaller.

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

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Theresa Rueger receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust and the Natural Environment Research Council UK.

    Chancey MacDonald receives funding from the Natural Envirnoment Research Council of UKRI.

    Melissa Versteeg receives funding from Murray Foundation UK, the Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds, the International Coral Reef Society and the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Newcastle University, UK.

    – ref. Clownfish shrink during marine heatwaves – new study – https://theconversation.com/clownfish-shrink-during-marine-heatwaves-new-study-257036

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Construction begins on 65 new affordable homes for Indigenous people in Mission

    Source: Government of Canada regional news

    Indigenous families, Elders and individuals with low incomes will soon have access to 65 new affordable homes in Mission.

    “By partnering with First Nations, we can make a real difference to help more Indigenous people live in affordable homes where they feel culturally safe and supported,” said Ravi Kahlon, Minster of Housing and Municipal Affairs. “This is another example of how we’re taking action to help more people build a stronger future for themselves and their family in the community they love.”

    The Government of B.C., through BC Housing, is providing $19 million to build these homes, in partnership with the Kwantlen First Nation, which is providing land valued at $3.6 million. The Kwantlen First Nation Affordable Housing Society will own and operate the building.

    The new building at 10221 Wilson St. on Kwantlen First Nation land will be family-oriented, with ample space for social activities and community programming. The new homes will be located on a naturally forested hillside, overlooking the Stave River. These natural features will be highlighted by a large outdoor community space, connected to an indoor recreation area on the second floor. Schools and other amenities are located a short drive away.

    More than half the homes will feature two or more bedrooms, with the mix including 12 one-bedroom units, 32 two-bedrooms units and 18 three-bedroom units.

    Funding from the Province is through the Building BC: Indigenous Housing Fund, a $1.7-billion investment to build 3,500 new homes for Indigenous Peoples, on and off reserve. With this commitment in 2018, British Columbia became the first and only province in Canada to invest in First Nations’ housing on reserves, a federal jurisdiction.   

    “This Indigenous-led housing project is a wonderful example of the type of partnerships we need to create new homes and make a real difference in the quality and sense of community in people’s lives,” said Christine Boyle, Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. “I look forward to seeing this become a place of culture and community for the Kwantlen community.”

    This is part of a $19-billion housing investment by the B.C. government. Since 2017, the Province has nearly 92,000 homes that have been delivered or are underway, including nearly 400 homes in Mission and on Kwantlen First Nation land.

    Learn More:

    To learn about the Building BC: Indigenous Housing Fund, visit: https://www.bchousing.org/projects-partners/funding-opportunities/IHF

    To learn about the steps the Province is taking to tackle the housing crisis and deliver affordable homes for people in British Columbia, visit: https://strongerbc.gov.bc.ca/housing/

    A map showing the location of all announced provincially funded housing projects in B.C. is available online: https://www.bchousing.org/projects-partners/Building-BC/homes-for-BC  

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Early-Career Spotlight: Michelle Herrera

    Source: US National Renewable Energy Laboratory

    Welcome to the Materials, Chemical, and Computational Science (MCCS) Early-Career Spotlight, a monthly feature showcasing the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) early-career researchers’ interests, motivations, and achievements. This month, we are featuring Michelle Herrera, who has been a project manager at NREL since 2024.

    The Herrera family enjoys April snow showers. Photo from Michelle Herrera

    Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Michelle Herrera has long known what she wanted to do when she grew up.

    “I knew from a very early age that I wanted to work in renewable energy,” said Herrera, a project manager at NREL. “That motivation has driven the choices I have made in life. However, life has a funny way of taking you on its own path.”

    Even when the details were fuzzy, like what her specific role in the industry would be, the destination was clear. Little did she know that her perseverance would one day pay off.

    Eager for Engineering

    Herrera attended Baylor University, where she chose to pursue a degree that she could apply to her dream career.

    “I chose general engineering, which involved electrical and mechanical electives,” Herrera explained. “I thought that I would need both disciplines. I was able to work on an honors thesis researching the use of biogas in a fuel cell.”

    Engineering degree in hand, Herrera turned to the job market.

    “After graduation, I did not land a renewable energy job and ended up working for Sonoco Flexible Packaging as a process engineer,” Herrera shared.

    But she did not let the minor setback shake her resolve.

    “I started in the production laboratory and gained manufacturing experience,” Herrera said. “I knew I didn’t want to spend my entire career in flexible packaging, so I decided to apply to the Colorado School of Mines for a master’s degree.”

    Ready for Research

    Herrera was offered a position at Mines in a master’s program researching the direct reduction of iron—a cleaner alternative in the steel industry and one step closer to her dream career.

    “At the time, I knew nothing about metallurgy or the steel industry but jumped at the opportunity to go to my dream school. My time at Mines was incredible,” Herrera recalled. “I loved to learn and enjoyed researching carbon formation in direct reduced iron. My thesis involved plant trials changing process conditions to alter the carbon in the final material.”

    After obtaining her master’s, Herrera was offered a research engineering position at voestalpine Texas in Corpus Christi, Texas, a plant she worked with during her master’s program.

    “I spent half my time as a research engineer, building plant simulations and partnering with universities,” Herrera said. “The other half was spent as a process engineer, where I was the engineer on duty for the week and on call for plant shutdowns. I led maintenance turnaround projects and conducted investigations for plant trips. I was first introduced to project management during this job.”

    Doing the Dream

    Herrera spent a little over two years at voestalpine before turning to the job market once more.

    “At the time, I still thought I wanted to be a researcher,” Hererra said. “I landed a project engineering position at a green-ammonia startup. I was finally in renewable energy!”

    Working for the startup was an exciting experience for Herrera. The pace of project execution was much faster than her previous manufacturing role, and she obtained her project management professional certification.

    “It was here that I really fell in love with project management,” Herrera shared. “There is so much joy that comes from successfully finishing a build.”

    The startup began facing financial difficulties, so Herrera decided to explore other opportunities.

    Passionate About Projects

    Herrera applied to NREL and landed her current position as a project manager for the MCCS Research Operations Team.

    “My path has allowed me to see different industrial plants, giving me a solid foundation for engineering and problem-solving,” Herrera explained.

    Herrera currently manages equipment installations and modifications for various research groups within the MCCS directorate. The work involves overseeing projects from the initiation stage all the way to execution and handover. She is also part of the MCCS laboratory space management team and helps manage the Institutional General Purpose Equipment program.

    “I am a data-driven individual,” Herrera said, “so ensuring that project documentation is present and organized effectively is what I strive for. My goal is to make the project execution phase easier for all parties by ensuring that expectations are clearly communicated.”

    Herrera is even managing the modification of a muffle furnace for the direct reduction of iron—a topic closely related to her master’s studies. “Understanding the technology and research helps me better visualize the final outcome compared to the other projects I manage,” she said.

    “The people I work with are what excite me about my job,” Herrera said. “The research operations team consists of a great group of individuals who are excited about the work we do at NREL. Additionally, as a project manager, I get to interact with various teams inside and outside the directorate. Every project brings a unique group of people together, keeping things interesting.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: DOJ Press releases at OCI (Prior Years)

    Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 3

    05/21/2019
    December 10, 2018: Olympus Medical Systems Corporation, Former Senior Executive Plead Guilty to Distributing Endoscopes After Failing to File FDA-Required Adverse Event Reports of Serious Infections

    03/26/2019
    March 30, 2018: KC Paramedic Indicted for Stealing Fentanyl, Morphine from Ambulances

    03/26/2019
    March 30, 2018: Counterfeit Cigarette Smuggler Sentenced to Prison

    03/20/2019
    April 4, 2018: Canadian Pharmacist Sentenced for Distributing Counterfeit and Adulterated Botox to Local Doctors

    03/20/2019
    March 27, 2018: Compounding Pharmacy Owner Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for $10.5 Million Health Care Fraud

    03/20/2019
    March 27, 2018: Federal Jury Finds Three Guilty in Fentanyl Distribution Conspiracy

    03/20/2019
    April 4, 2018: Fences Indicted in Multi-Million Dollar, Multi-State Criminal Theft Operations

    03/19/2019
    March 30, 2018: Lynn Man Sentenced to Over 10 Years in Prison for Role in Counterfeit Steroid Conspiracy

    03/05/2019
    October 1, 2018: AmerisourceBergen Corp. to Pay $625 Million to Settle Civil Fraud Allegations Resulting from Its Repackaging and Sale of Adulterated Drugs and Unapproved New Drugs, Double Billing and Providing Kickbacks

    03/05/2019
    October 18, 2018: Pharmacist Indicted for Taking Drugs, Carrying Firearm in Violation of Court Order

    03/05/2019
    October 15, 2018: Leader of Fraudulent Prescription Conspiracy Sentenced to Six Years in Prison

    03/05/2019
    November 29, 2018: Two Practitioners Sentenced for Drug Crimes in Connection with HOPE Clinic

    03/05/2019
    December 4, 2018: Medical Device Maker ev3 Agrees to Plead Guilty and Pay $17.9 Million for Distributing Adulterated Device

    03/05/2019
    November 20, 2018: Rochester Man Pleads Guilty to Smuggling Counterfeit Cialis and Viagra into the United States

    03/05/2019
    November 19, 2018: Georgia Man Charged with Social Security and Wire Fraud

    03/05/2019
    October 22, 2018: Medical Equipment Company Agrees to Pay $5.25 Million to Resolve Allegations of Fraudulent Claims for Compounded Medical Creams

    03/05/2019
    October 15, 2018: Four Men and Seven Companies Indicted for Billion-Dollar Telemedicine Fraud Conspiracy, Telemedicine Company and CEO Plead Guilty in Two Fraud Schemes

    03/05/2019
    November 5, 2018: Nurse Sentenced for Taking Fentanyl for Personal Use

    03/05/2019
    November 28, 2018: Former Vice President of Insys Pharmaceuticals Pleads Guilty to Racketeering Scheme

    03/05/2019
    October 18, 2018: Grand Jury Returns Superseding Indictment In Shamo Case; Adds Distribution Of Fentanyl Count Resulting In Death

    03/05/2019
    November 29, 2018: Dietary Supplement Ingredient Importers Arrested in Connection with Large-Scale Smuggling and Money Laundering Scheme

    03/05/2019
    December 4, 2018: Memphis Man Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Consumer Products

    03/05/2019
    October 22, 2018: Oklahoma Orthopedic Company to Pay $455,000 to Settle Claims of False Medical Billing

    02/25/2019
    December 13, 2018: Floridian Pleads Guilty in Complex Fraud Scheme Related to the Processing of Credit Card Payments

    02/25/2019
    December 13, 2018: Owner and Four Former Employees of New England Compounding Center Convicted Following Trial

    02/25/2019
    December 7, 2018: VA Nurse Admits to Fraudulently Obtaining and Tampering with Opioid Prescriptions

    02/25/2019
    December 4, 2018: Des Moines Residents Sentenced for Felony Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Offense

    02/13/2019
    October 11, 2018: Two Companies Ordered to Pay More Than $7 Million for Adulterated and Misbranded Pet Food Ingredients

    02/13/2019
    October 4, 2018: Troutdale Doctor Sentenced for Purchasing and Administering Foreign-Sourced Botox and Juvaderm

    09/25/2018
    September 24, 2018: Board Certified Ophthalmologist Agrees to Civil Fraud Settlement in Medicare Fraud Investigation

    09/19/2018
    September 19, 2018: Springfield Doctor Sentenced for Illegally Sharing Patient Medical Files

    09/17/2018
    September 11, 2018: Columbus Pharmacist Sentenced for Health Care Fraud Scheme

    09/17/2018
    September 8, 2017: Galena Biopharma Inc. to Pay More than $7.55 Million to Resolve Alleged False Claims Related to Opioid Drug

    09/10/2018
    September 6, 2018: Cattle Company and Veterinarian Indicted for False Health Certificates on Livestock

    09/06/2018
    August 31, 2018: Former Home Health Nurse Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Patients’ Drugs

    09/04/2018
    August 30, 2018: Massachusetts Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Distribute Misbranded Prescription Horse Drugs

    08/30/2018
    August 28, 2018: Providence Nurse Sentenced for Tampering with Oxycodone

    08/23/2018
    August 22, 2018: Louisiana Pharmacist Convicted of Trafficking and Selling Stolen Medication

    08/20/2018
    August 17, 2018: Unlicensed Pharmacy Technician Pleads Guilty to Working at New England Compounding Center

    08/16/2018
    August 16, 2018: Genesee County Physician and Two Others Charged with Health Care Fraud

    08/16/2018
    August 15, 2018: Florida Man Pleads Guilty to Scheme to Market Dietary Supplements

    08/06/2018
    August 3, 2018: Northwest ENT Associates, P.C. to Pay Approximately $1.2 Million to Resolve False Claims Act Allegations

    08/01/2018
    July 31, 2018: Three Canadians and their Company Sentenced for Wholesale Distribution of Misbranded Prescription Drugs and Money Laundering

    07/31/2018
    July 30, 2018: Two People Guilty of Distributing Tramadol Pills

    07/30/2018
    July 26, 2018: Miami-Dade Resident Charged in Connection with Performance of Illicit Silicone Injections

    07/24/2018
    July 23, 2018: Springfield EMT/Paramedic Pleads Guilty to Stealing Fentanyl, Morphine

    07/19/2018
    July 18, 2018: Medical Device Maker AngioDynamics Agrees to Pay $12.5 Million to Resolve False Claims Act Allegations

    07/17/2018
    July 17, 2018: Former President of Cumberland Distribution, Inc. Sentenced to 15 Years in Federal Prison for $50 Million Drug Diversion Scheme

    07/12/2018
    July 10, 2018: Pawtucket Woman Sentenced for Participation in Opioid Prescription Conspiracy

    07/11/2018
    July 10, 2018: VA Medical Center Nurse Indicted, Arraigned for Allegedly Tampering with and Stealing Prescription Opioids

    07/11/2018
    July 10, 2018: Former Des Moines Pharmacy Technician Sentenced for Illegally Tampering with Fentanyl

    07/11/2018
    July 10: 2018: Former Pharmacy Technician Indicted for Stealing Fentanyl, Morphine

    07/09/2018
    July 6, 2018: Vero Beach Orthopedic Surgeon Sentenced to Life in Prison Following Conviction for Fentanyl Analog Drug Conspiracy Resulting in Death

    07/09/2018
    July 6, 2018: Internet Business Owner Pleads Guilty to Selling $2.3 Million Worth of Non-FDA Approved and Misbranded Botox and Juvederm-Related Products

    07/05/2018
    July 3, 2018: Canton Man Indicted on Fentanyl and Firearms Charges

    06/28/2018
    June 28, 2018: Southern District of Florida Charges 124 Individuals Responsible for $337 Million in False Billing as Part of National Healthcare Fraud Takedown

    06/22/2018
    June 20, 2018: Fitchburg Woman and Saugus Man Sentenced for Roles in Counterfeit Steroid Conspiracy

    06/18/2018
    June 15, 2018: Theranos Founder and Former Chief Operating Officer Charged in Alleged Wire Fraud Schemes

    06/05/2018
    June 5, 2018: Opioid Prescription Conspiracy Leader Pleads Guilty

    05/31/2018
    May 31, 2018: Notification of Stolen Fertility Drugs: Gonal-f® RFF Redi-ject® and Gonal-f® Multi-Dose

    05/21/2018
    May 21, 2018: Mississippi Man Pleads Guilty to Fraud Scheme Involving the Reselling of Food Products That Were to Be Destroyed

    05/08/2018
    May 8, 2018: Notification of Stolen Octagam

    04/19/2018
    April 13, 2018: Canadian Drug Firm Admits Selling Counterfeit and Misbranded Prescription Drugs Throughout the United States

    04/19/2018
    April 12, 2018: Chinese Citizen Pleads Guilty to Mail Fraud Related to Dietary Supplement Scheme

    04/19/2018
    April 6, 2018: New Hampshire Residents Sentenced for Participating in Scheme to Distribute Misbranded Drugs

    03/15/2018
    March 14, 2018: Meridian Nurse Practitioner Pleads Guilty to Obtaining Controlled Substances by Fraud

    03/14/2018
    March 12, 2018: Champaign, Illinois, Resident Sentenced to One Year in Prison for Producing and Selling Over 80,000 Homemade Tramadol Capsules to Customers without Verifying Prescriptions

    03/13/2018
    March 12, 2018: Pharmacist and Pharmacy Employee Sentenced for Involvement in Over $30 Million Health Care Fraud

    03/08/2018
    March 6, 2018: Monterey Park Woman Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for Injecting Foreign Substance into Woman for Buttocks Enhancement

    03/08/2018
    March 8, 2018: Four Individuals Indicted for Trafficking in Counterfeit Goods

    03/05/2018
    March 2, 2018: Woman Sentenced for Injecting Adulterated Liquid Silicone

    03/05/2018
    February 23, 2018: Lake Charles Veterinarian, Pharmacy Sentenced for In-Race Horse Doping Conspiracy

    03/01/2018
    February 28, 2018: Two Doctors Arrested Pursuant to Federal Indictment That Alleges Bogus Sleep Studies Helped 1-800-Get-Thin Fraudulently Bill Insurance Programs Over $250 Million Related to Lap-Band Surgeries

    02/27/2018
    February 27, 2018: Former President of Houston-Based Drug Company Convicted in $50 Million Drug Diversion Scheme

    02/22/2018
    February 21, 2018: Pharmacy Tech Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Tampering with Opioids for IV Fluid

    02/21/2018
    February 20, 2018: U.S. Attorney Announces 69-count Indictment Charging Owners, Managers and Physicians Associated with Hope Clinic

    02/21/2018
    February 14, 2018: Palmer Man Sentenced for Conspiring to Import Prescription Drugs from Pakistan

    02/20/2018
    August 19, 2016: Pharmacy Owner and Medical Doctor Charged in an Internet Scheme to Dispense Medications to Customers without Valid Prescriptions

    02/14/2018
    February 14, 2018: Two Indian Citizens and India-based Corporation Sentenced for Conspiring to Smuggle Counterfeit Cigarettes

    02/12/2018
    February 8, 2018: Queensbury Oncologist and Spouse to Pay $500,000 for Submitting False Claims to Medicare for the Administration of Unapproved Cancer Drugs

    02/12/2018
    February 9, 2018: Tampa Resident Convicted for Involvement with Tricare Health Care Fraud Scheme

    02/05/2018
    February 5, 2018: Pennsylvania Firearms Dealer Sentenced To 100 Months Imprisonment

    02/05/2018
    November 25, 2018: Nevada Man Indicted for Distribution of Anabolic Steroids and Drug Misbranding

    02/05/2018
    February 5, 2018: Three Florida Residents Sentenced for Operating an Illegal Steroid and Counterfeit Prescription Drug Lab

    01/31/2018
    January 31, 2018: New England Compounding Center Pharmacist Sentenced for Role in Nationwide Fungal Meningitis Outbreak

    01/24/2018
    September 25, 2017: U.S. Attorney Charges Pharmacy Tech for Tampering with Opioids

    01/24/2018
    January 13, 2017: Two Louisiana Men Sentenced for Roles in On-line Pharmacy Scheme

    01/24/2018
    May 17, 2017: Gardner Man Charged with Conspiracy to Traffic Counterfeit Steroids

    01/24/2018
    December 6, 2016: Two Sentenced for Trafficking in Counterfeit Viagra and Cialis

    01/24/2018
    September 11, 2017: Knoxville Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Defraud the FDA

    01/24/2018
    December 9, 2016: Carroll County Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Conspiracy Charge

    01/24/2018
    July 18, 2016: Cincinnati Man Sentenced for Illegally Importing Drugs into U.S.

    01/24/2018
    July 7, 2016: Johnston Resident Charged with Drug Trafficking, Money Laundering

    01/24/2018
    January 7, 2016: Former Nurse Pleads Guilty to Stealing Narcotics from Hospital

    01/24/2018
    February 15, 2017: Hampton-Based Spice Dealer Sentenced to 17 Years in Prison

    01/24/2018
    July 13, 2017: Four Charged in Counterfeit Body Building Steroid Conspiracy

    01/24/2018
    December 8, 2016: Pharmaceutical Executives Charged in Racketeering Scheme

    01/24/2018
    December 2, 2016: Woman Arrested For Injecting Adulterated Liquid Silicone

    01/24/2018
    September 20, 2017: Registered Nurse Sentenced for Tampering with Fentanyl

    01/24/2018
    June 28, 2017: Registered Nurse Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Fentanyl

    01/24/2018
    June 27, 2016: Hampton-Based Spice Retailer and Wholesaler Pleads Guilty

    01/24/2018
    May 31, 2016: Worcester Nurse Indicted on Federal Drug Tampering Charges

    01/24/2018
    August 7, 2017: Notification of Stolen Sterile Prescription Injectable Products

    01/23/2018
    January 23, 2018: Two Indian Citizens and India-based Corporation Plead Guilty to Conspiring to Smuggle Counterfeit Cigarettes

    01/17/2018
    January 12, 2018: Owner of Seafood Company Charged in Atlantic Blue Crab Scam

    01/17/2018
    September 22, 2017: Drug Maker Aegerion Agrees to Plead Guilty; Will Pay More Than $35 Million to Resolve Criminal Charges and Civil False Claims Allegations

    01/16/2018
    June 30, 2017: Bath County Man Sentenced For Misbranding Drugs and Obstructing Justice

    01/16/2018
    June 21, 2017: Gardner Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Traffic Counterfeit Steroids

    01/16/2018
    August 28, 2017: Costa Rican Defendant Appears in Federal Court to Face Fraud Charges

    01/16/2018
    July 17, 2017: Leader of $17 Million Health Insurance Fraud Scheme Ordered to Prison

    01/16/2018
    October 11, 2016: Foreign National Pleads Guilty To International Wire Fraud Scheme

    01/16/2018
    August 30, 2017: Two Charged in Federal Court with Smuggling Counterfeit Cigarettes

    01/16/2018
    May 31, 2017: Men Sentenced to Combined 60 Years for Selling Spice in Hampton Roads

    01/12/2018
    December 20, 2016: New England Compounding Center’s National Sales Director Pleads Guilty

    01/12/2018
    July 19, 2017: Texas Man Sentenced to Prison for Conspiring to Import Prescription Drugs

    01/12/2018
    March 13, 2017: Vice-President of SK Labs Found Guilty of Conspiracy, Mail Fraud Charges

    01/12/2018
    December 27, 2016: Providence Nurse Charged in Connection with Tampering with Oxycodone

    01/12/2018
    January 20, 2016: Businessman Sentenced for Marketing and Selling Unapproved Remedies for Cancer

    01/12/2018
    March 2, 2017: Bath County Man Convicted of Obstructing Justice and Selling Misbranded Products

    01/12/2018
    February 6, 2017: Arizona Man Sentenced for Trafficking in Pet Products with Counterfeit Labels

    01/12/2018
    January 17, 2017: Tampa-Area Medical Device Salesman Guilty of Selling Expired Lap-Band Devices

    01/12/2018
    August 1, 2017: Two Kansans Sentenced for Operating Multimillion-Dollar Designer Drug Business

    01/12/2018
    June 2, 2016: Additional Criminal Charges Brought Against Indicted Penn National Horse Trainer

    01/12/2018
    June 15, 2017: Gloucester Woman Charged with Conspiracy to Traffic Steroids and Launder Money

    01/12/2018
    June 15, 2017: Two Kansans Sentenced for Operating Multimillion-Dollar Designer Drug Business

    01/12/2018
    May 15, 2017: Vitamin Shop Owner Guilty of Selling Misbranded Drugs and Controlled Substance

    01/12/2018
    August 15, 2016: Second Trafficker Convicted of Distributing Dangerous Counterfeit Viagra and Cialis

    01/12/2018
    July 17, 2017: Gloucester Woman Pleads Guilty to Her Role in Counterfeit Steroid Trafficking Scheme

    01/12/2018
    October 12, 2016: Colombian National Charged for Unlawfully Injecting Silicone into Victims Bodies

    01/12/2018
    July 28, 2017: Westerly Resident to Plead Guilty to Trafficking Steroids, Money Laundering Charges

    01/12/2018
    September 22, 2016: Hoover Man Charged for Marketing Misbranded Male Enhancement Drugs from China

    01/12/2018
    September, 22, 2016 Hoover Man Charged for Marketing Misbranded Male Enhancement Drugs from China

    01/12/2018
    August 2, 2016: Colombian National Charged for Unlawfully Injecting Silicone into Victims’ Bodies

    01/12/2018
    December 13, 2016: Tampa Resident Indicted for Involvement with Tricare Health Care Fraud Scheme

    01/12/2018
    September 5, 2017: New Hampshire Residents Plead Guilty to Conspiracy Involving Misbranded Drugs

    01/12/2018
    April 3, 2017: Printing and Packaging CEO Pleads Guilty to Trafficking in Counterfeit Labels and Packaging

    01/12/2018
    March 14, 2017: Woman Admits to Causing the Death of Another Person by Injecting Her with Liquid Silicone

    01/12/2018
    April 12, 2017: Former Medical Product Distributor Charged with False Statements about Hormone Shipments

    01/12/2018
    September 29, 2016: New York Man Pleads Guilty To Conspiring To Illegally Manufacture Designer Steroids

    01/12/2018
    July 1, 2016: New Hampshire Couple Indicted On Two Counts Of Illegal Distribution Of Prescription Drugs

    01/12/2018
    September 22, 2017:Woman Admits to Illegally Selling Prescription Drugs Not Approved for Use in the US

    01/12/2018
    June 22, 2016: Former Nurse Sentenced to 82 Months for Stealing and Tampering with Patient Medications

    01/12/2018
    June 13, 2017: Cherry Hill Doctor and Son Admit Defrauding Medicare, Agree To $1.78 Million Settlement

    01/12/2018
    December 19, 2016: New York Man Sentenced to Lengthy Prison Term for Selling Unsafe Dietary Supplements Online

    01/12/2018
    September 25, 2017: Pharmacy Manager Pleads Guilty to Illegal Prescription Drug Diversion and Money Laundering

    01/12/2018
    July 28, 2017: Tampa Woman Sentenced to Prison For Misbranded Drugs Used in Connection with Buttocks Injection

    01/12/2018
    March 28, 2017: Former Atlantic County, New Jersey, Man Charged with Smuggling and Dispensing Misbranded Drugs

    01/12/2018
    September 12, 2017: Former Paramedic Pleads Guilty to Stealing Pain-killing Drugs, Replacing Vials with Water

    01/12/2018
    July 29, 2016: Majority Owner of NECC and Husband Plead Guilty to Illegal Cash Withdrawals Following Outbreak

    01/12/2018
    May 15, 2017: Printing and Packaging Business Owner Convicted of Trafficking in Counterfeit Veterinary Labels

    01/12/2018
    July 14, 2017: Senior Executives of Medical Drug Re-Packager Plead Guilty to Defrauding Healthcare Providers

    01/12/2018
    July 20, 2016: Former Acclarent, Inc. Executives Convicted of Crimes Related to the Sale of Medical Devices

    01/12/2018
    June 6, 2016: Pharmaceutical Companies To Pay $67 Million To Resolve False Claims Act Allegations Relating To Tarceva

    01/12/2018
    February 16, 2017: Atlanta Man Convicted of Illegally Importing and Distributing Male Enhancement Products from China

    01/11/2018
    January 11, 2018: Former New Hampshire Pharmacist Pleads Guilty for Tampering with Narcotics at Bedford Pharmacy

    01/11/2018
    July 22, 2016: Medical Device Manufacturer Acclarent Inc. to Pay $18 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations

    01/11/2018
    November 15, 2016: Miami-Dade Resident Sentenced to Fifteen Months in Prison for Distributing Contaminated Cheese

    01/11/2018
    September 25, 2017: Millions of Medicines Seized in Largest INTERPOL Operation Against Illicit Online Pharmacies

    01/11/2018
    January 3, 2017: Notification of Stolen Reckitt Benckiser Retail, Non-Prescription, Consumer Healthcare Products

    01/09/2018
    August 1, 2017: Radford Nurse Who Tampered with Liquid Morphine Intended for Nursing Home Patients Sentenced in Federal Court

    01/09/2018
    November 4, 2016: Two Pakistani Nationals Sentenced for Conspiring to Illegally Ship Pharmaceuticals into the United States

    01/09/2018
    November 29, 2016: Eight Defendants Convicted For Conspiracy to Manufacture and Distribute Counterfeit 5-Hour Energy Drink

    01/09/2018
    September 11, 2017: Three Florida Residents Arrested After Law Enforcement Discover Steroid and Fake Prescription Drug Lab

    01/09/2018
    June 21, 2017: Counterfeiters Sentenced for Convictions in Nationwide Conspiracy to Distribute Fake 5-Hour Energy Drink

    01/09/2018
    May 31, 2017: Drug Trafficking Organization Faces Indictment For Involvment In Manufacturing Fake Prescriptions Drugs With Fentanyl

    01/09/2018
    July 6, 2016: New Jersey Medical Device Manufacturer Admits Selling Contaminated Ultrasound Gel; Court Orders Permanent Injunction

    01/09/2018
    June 26, 2017: Owner of New England Compounding Center Sentenced for Racketeering Leading to Nationwide Fungal Meningitis Outbreak

    01/09/2018
    June 21, 2016: Two Pharmacists Sentenced to Prison for Adulteration of Drugs in Connection with Alabama-Based Compounding Pharmacy

    01/09/2018
    February 14, 2017: Two Miami-Dade Women Charged in Connection with Their Operation of a Spa Performing Illicit Silicone Injections

    01/09/2018
    June 22, 2017: Pharmacy Owner and Director of Compliance Charged with Defrauding United States and Distributing Adulterated Drugs

    01/09/2018
    April 12, 2017: Owners of Two Los Angeles-Area Drug Wholesale Companies Arrested in $20 Million Federal ‘Structuring’ Conspiracy

    01/09/2018
    December 2, 2016: Former Police Officer Sentenced in White Plains Federal Court to 8 Years in Prison for Selling Date Rape Drug

    01/09/2018
    February 7, 2017: Randallstown Woman Pleads Guilty to Injecting Non-Medical Grade Silicone into the Bodies of Victim Customers

    01/09/2018
    August 30, 2017: Miami-Dade Resident Sentenced to More Than 6 Years in Prison for Operating a Miami Spa Performing Illicit Silicone Injections

    01/09/2018
    March 28, 2017: 3 Canadians and their Vancouver Company Charged with Conspiring to Sell Foreign-Made Drugs to Western Pennsylvania Pharmacists

    01/09/2018
    March 9, 2017: Internet Business Owner Indicted for Selling Non-FDA Approved and Misbranded Versions of Botox and Juvederm Related Products

    01/09/2018
    June 8, 2017: Houston, Texas Man convicted of Smuggling Korean Human Growth Hormone Drugs to Local Patients and Professional Wrestlers

    01/09/2018
    February 16, 2017: Oncology Practice, Doctor and Practice Manager Pay $1.7 Million to Resolve Allegations They Billed Medicare for Illegally Imported Drugs

    01/09/2018
    June 27, 2017: Physician and Wife to Pay $1.2 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations That They Billed Medicare and Medicaid for Unapproved Drugs

    01/09/2018
    December 13, 2016: O.C. Man Charged with Selling Pet Meds Without a Prescription, Some of Which Were Not Approved for Distribution in the United States

    01/09/2018
    September 6, 2017: Bronx Pharmacist Pleads Guilty To Illegally Selling Millions Of Prescription Pills On The Internet And Agrees To Forfeit $9 Million

    01/09/2018
    November 10, 2016: Nurse Who Operated Spa in Laguna Niguel Agrees to Plead Guilty to Illegally Dispensing Botox Not Approved for Use in United States

    01/09/2018
    March 30, 2017: Lincoln Mother and Son Convicted of Conspiracy to Distribute Misbranded Substances, Drug Paraphernalia, and Related Financial Crimes

    01/09/2018
    January 12, 2017: Baxter Healthcare Corporation to Pay More than $18 Million to Resolve Criminal and Civil Liability Relating to Sterile Products

    01/09/2018
    September 20, 2017: Miami-Dade Resident Sentenced to More Than 4 Years in Prison for Managing a Miami Spa Performing Illicit Silicone Injections

    01/09/2018
    May 23, 2017: Citizen of Pakistan and United Kingdom Sentenced For International Wire Fraud Scheme That Sold False Cures For Multiple Illnesses

    01/09/2018
    April 18, 2017: SCM True Air Technologies, of Ohio and Kentucky, and Its Former Company President – Guilty of Delivering Misbranded Medical Devices from Unregistered Facilities to a Georgia V.A. Medical Center and Obstructing an FDA Investigation into their Conduct

    01/09/2018
    November 28, 2016: Iowa Cancer Clinic and Oncologist to Pay More Than $176,000 To Settle False Claims Act Allegations They Recklessly Billed for Cancer Drugs That Were Unapproved, Misbranded, or Counterfeit and Improperly Upcoded Office Visit Claims

    01/09/2018
    September 9, 2016: Owner of Major Online Colored Contact Lens Business Pleads Guilty in Largest-Ever Investigation of Counterfeit and Misbranded Contact Lenses in the United States

    01/09/2018
    November 7, 2016: Medical Device Maker Biocompatibles Pleads Guilty to Misbranding and Agrees to Pay $36 Million to Resolve Criminal Liability and False Claims Act Allegations

    01/09/2018
    September 26, 2017: Houston, Texas Man Sentenced to 40 Months and a $95,000 Fine for Smuggling Korean Human Growth Hormone Drugs to Local Patients and Professional Wrestlers

    01/09/2018
    December 7, 2016: GNC Enters Into Agreement with Department of Justice to Improve Its Practices and Keep Potentially Illegal Dietary Supplements Out of the Marketplace

    01/09/2018
    September 27, 2017: Amerisourcebergen Specialty Group Pleads Guilty to Distributing Misbranded Drugs and is Sentenced to Pay $260 Million to Resolve Criminal Liability

    01/09/2018
    December 5, 2016: Medical Device Saleswoman Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Charges Relating to the Transport of Stolen Medical Devices and Money Laundering

    01/09/2018
    May 26, 2017: Florida Woman Sentenced to Federal Prison for Causing the Death of One Victim and Hospitalization of Others by Injecting them With Liquid Silicone

    01/09/2018
    September 11, 2017: Owner of O.C. Pet Products Company Pleads Guilty to Selling Pet Meds without Prescriptions, Some of Which Were Not Approved for U.S. Sale

    09/17/2018
    September 8, 2017: Galena Biopharma Inc. to Pay More than $7.55 Million to Resolve Alleged False Claims Related to Opioid Drug

    01/24/2018
    September 25, 2017: U.S. Attorney Charges Pharmacy Tech for Tampering with Opioids

    01/24/2018
    January 13, 2017: Two Louisiana Men Sentenced for Roles in On-line Pharmacy Scheme

    01/24/2018
    May 17, 2017: Gardner Man Charged with Conspiracy to Traffic Counterfeit Steroids

    01/24/2018
    September 11, 2017: Knoxville Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Defraud the FDA

    01/24/2018
    February 15, 2017: Hampton-Based Spice Dealer Sentenced to 17 Years in Prison

    01/24/2018
    July 13, 2017: Four Charged in Counterfeit Body Building Steroid Conspiracy

    01/24/2018
    September 20, 2017: Registered Nurse Sentenced for Tampering with Fentanyl

    01/24/2018
    June 28, 2017: Registered Nurse Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Fentanyl

    01/24/2018
    August 7, 2017: Notification of Stolen Sterile Prescription Injectable Products

    01/17/2018
    September 22, 2017: Drug Maker Aegerion Agrees to Plead Guilty; Will Pay More Than $35 Million to Resolve Criminal Charges and Civil False Claims Allegations

    01/16/2018
    June 30, 2017: Bath County Man Sentenced For Misbranding Drugs and Obstructing Justice

    01/16/2018
    June 21, 2017: Gardner Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Traffic Counterfeit Steroids

    01/16/2018
    August 28, 2017: Costa Rican Defendant Appears in Federal Court to Face Fraud Charges

    01/16/2018
    July 17, 2017: Leader of $17 Million Health Insurance Fraud Scheme Ordered to Prison

    01/16/2018
    August 30, 2017: Two Charged in Federal Court with Smuggling Counterfeit Cigarettes

    01/16/2018
    May 31, 2017: Men Sentenced to Combined 60 Years for Selling Spice in Hampton Roads

    01/12/2018
    July 19, 2017: Texas Man Sentenced to Prison for Conspiring to Import Prescription Drugs

    01/12/2018
    March 13, 2017: Vice-President of SK Labs Found Guilty of Conspiracy, Mail Fraud Charges

    01/12/2018
    March 2, 2017: Bath County Man Convicted of Obstructing Justice and Selling Misbranded Products

    01/12/2018
    February 6, 2017: Arizona Man Sentenced for Trafficking in Pet Products with Counterfeit Labels

    01/12/2018
    January 17, 2017: Tampa-Area Medical Device Salesman Guilty of Selling Expired Lap-Band Devices

    01/12/2018
    August 1, 2017: Two Kansans Sentenced for Operating Multimillion-Dollar Designer Drug Business

    01/12/2018
    June 15, 2017: Gloucester Woman Charged with Conspiracy to Traffic Steroids and Launder Money

    01/12/2018
    June 15, 2017: Two Kansans Sentenced for Operating Multimillion-Dollar Designer Drug Business

    01/12/2018
    May 15, 2017: Vitamin Shop Owner Guilty of Selling Misbranded Drugs and Controlled Substance

    01/12/2018
    July 17, 2017: Gloucester Woman Pleads Guilty to Her Role in Counterfeit Steroid Trafficking Scheme

    01/12/2018
    July 28, 2017: Westerly Resident to Plead Guilty to Trafficking Steroids, Money Laundering Charges

    01/12/2018
    September 5, 2017: New Hampshire Residents Plead Guilty to Conspiracy Involving Misbranded Drugs

    01/12/2018
    April 3, 2017: Printing and Packaging CEO Pleads Guilty to Trafficking in Counterfeit Labels and Packaging

    01/12/2018
    March 14, 2017: Woman Admits to Causing the Death of Another Person by Injecting Her with Liquid Silicone

    01/12/2018
    April 12, 2017: Former Medical Product Distributor Charged with False Statements about Hormone Shipments

    01/12/2018
    September 22, 2017:Woman Admits to Illegally Selling Prescription Drugs Not Approved for Use in the US

    01/12/2018
    June 13, 2017: Cherry Hill Doctor and Son Admit Defrauding Medicare, Agree To $1.78 Million Settlement

    01/12/2018
    September 25, 2017: Pharmacy Manager Pleads Guilty to Illegal Prescription Drug Diversion and Money Laundering

    01/12/2018
    July 28, 2017: Tampa Woman Sentenced to Prison For Misbranded Drugs Used in Connection with Buttocks Injection

    01/12/2018
    March 28, 2017: Former Atlantic County, New Jersey, Man Charged with Smuggling and Dispensing Misbranded Drugs

    01/12/2018
    September 12, 2017: Former Paramedic Pleads Guilty to Stealing Pain-killing Drugs, Replacing Vials with Water

    01/12/2018
    May 15, 2017: Printing and Packaging Business Owner Convicted of Trafficking in Counterfeit Veterinary Labels

    01/12/2018
    July 14, 2017: Senior Executives of Medical Drug Re-Packager Plead Guilty to Defrauding Healthcare Providers

    01/12/2018
    February 16, 2017: Atlanta Man Convicted of Illegally Importing and Distributing Male Enhancement Products from China

    01/11/2018
    September 25, 2017: Millions of Medicines Seized in Largest INTERPOL Operation Against Illicit Online Pharmacies

    01/11/2018
    January 3, 2017: Notification of Stolen Reckitt Benckiser Retail, Non-Prescription, Consumer Healthcare Products

    01/09/2018
    August 1, 2017: Radford Nurse Who Tampered with Liquid Morphine Intended for Nursing Home Patients Sentenced in Federal Court

    01/09/2018
    September 11, 2017: Three Florida Residents Arrested After Law Enforcement Discover Steroid and Fake Prescription Drug Lab

    01/09/2018
    June 21, 2017: Counterfeiters Sentenced for Convictions in Nationwide Conspiracy to Distribute Fake 5-Hour Energy Drink

    01/09/2018
    May 31, 2017: Drug Trafficking Organization Faces Indictment For Involvment In Manufacturing Fake Prescriptions Drugs With Fentanyl

    01/09/2018
    June 26, 2017: Owner of New England Compounding Center Sentenced for Racketeering Leading to Nationwide Fungal Meningitis Outbreak

    01/09/2018
    February 14, 2017: Two Miami-Dade Women Charged in Connection with Their Operation of a Spa Performing Illicit Silicone Injections

    01/09/2018
    June 22, 2017: Pharmacy Owner and Director of Compliance Charged with Defrauding United States and Distributing Adulterated Drugs

    01/09/2018
    April 12, 2017: Owners of Two Los Angeles-Area Drug Wholesale Companies Arrested in $20 Million Federal ‘Structuring’ Conspiracy

    01/09/2018
    February 7, 2017: Randallstown Woman Pleads Guilty to Injecting Non-Medical Grade Silicone into the Bodies of Victim Customers

    01/09/2018
    August 30, 2017: Miami-Dade Resident Sentenced to More Than 6 Years in Prison for Operating a Miami Spa Performing Illicit Silicone Injections

    01/09/2018
    March 28, 2017: 3 Canadians and their Vancouver Company Charged with Conspiring to Sell Foreign-Made Drugs to Western Pennsylvania Pharmacists

    01/09/2018
    March 9, 2017: Internet Business Owner Indicted for Selling Non-FDA Approved and Misbranded Versions of Botox and Juvederm Related Products

    01/09/2018
    June 8, 2017: Houston, Texas Man convicted of Smuggling Korean Human Growth Hormone Drugs to Local Patients and Professional Wrestlers

    01/09/2018
    February 16, 2017: Oncology Practice, Doctor and Practice Manager Pay $1.7 Million to Resolve Allegations They Billed Medicare for Illegally Imported Drugs

    01/09/2018
    June 27, 2017: Physician and Wife to Pay $1.2 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations That They Billed Medicare and Medicaid for Unapproved Drugs

    01/09/2018
    September 6, 2017: Bronx Pharmacist Pleads Guilty To Illegally Selling Millions Of Prescription Pills On The Internet And Agrees To Forfeit $9 Million

    01/09/2018
    March 30, 2017: Lincoln Mother and Son Convicted of Conspiracy to Distribute Misbranded Substances, Drug Paraphernalia, and Related Financial Crimes

    01/09/2018
    January 12, 2017: Baxter Healthcare Corporation to Pay More than $18 Million to Resolve Criminal and Civil Liability Relating to Sterile Products

    01/09/2018
    September 20, 2017: Miami-Dade Resident Sentenced to More Than 4 Years in Prison for Managing a Miami Spa Performing Illicit Silicone Injections

    01/09/2018
    May 23, 2017: Citizen of Pakistan and United Kingdom Sentenced For International Wire Fraud Scheme That Sold False Cures For Multiple Illnesses

    01/09/2018
    April 18, 2017: SCM True Air Technologies, of Ohio and Kentucky, and Its Former Company President – Guilty of Delivering Misbranded Medical Devices from Unregistered Facilities to a Georgia V.A. Medical Center and Obstructing an FDA Investigation into their Conduct

    01/09/2018
    September 26, 2017: Houston, Texas Man Sentenced to 40 Months and a $95,000 Fine for Smuggling Korean Human Growth Hormone Drugs to Local Patients and Professional Wrestlers

    01/09/2018
    September 27, 2017: Amerisourcebergen Specialty Group Pleads Guilty to Distributing Misbranded Drugs and is Sentenced to Pay $260 Million to Resolve Criminal Liability

    01/09/2018
    May 26, 2017: Florida Woman Sentenced to Federal Prison for Causing the Death of One Victim and Hospitalization of Others by Injecting them With Liquid Silicone

    01/09/2018
    September 11, 2017: Owner of O.C. Pet Products Company Pleads Guilty to Selling Pet Meds without Prescriptions, Some of Which Were Not Approved for U.S. Sale

    12/21/2017
    December 19, 2017: Senior Executives of Medical Drug Repackager Sentenced for Defrauding Healthcare Providers

    12/21/2017
    December 20, 2017: Fitchburg Woman Pleads Guilty to Role in Counterfeit Steroid Conspiracy

    12/18/2017
    December 18, 2017: Cherry Hill Doctor and Son Sentenced to Prison for Defrauding Medicare

    12/14/2017
    December 12, 2017: Iserve Technologies, Inc. Pled Guilty in Connection with Guilty Pleas of Former Exec and Manager of Med-Fast Pharmacy Inc.

    12/04/2017
    November 30, 2017: Lynn Man Pleads Guilty to Counterfeit Steroid Conspiracy

    12/04/2017
    November 30, 2017: Paramedic Sentenced for Stealing Fentanyl from Ambulance Company

    12/04/2017
    November 28, 2017: Champaign, Illinois, Resident Guilty of Producing and Selling Over 80,000 Homemade Tramadol Capsules to Customers Without Verifying Prescriptions

    12/04/2017
    November 29, 2017: Knoxville Man Sentenced for Conspiring to Defraud the FDA

    11/27/2017
    November 21, 2017: Williamsville Couple Pleads Guilty

    11/27/2017
    November 22, 2017: Former Pharmacy Compliance Director Pleads Guilty to Introducing Adulterated Drugs into Interstate Commerce and Conspiracy to Defraud the United States

    11/27/2017
    November 20, 2017: Vitamin Shop Owner Sentenced for Misbranded Drugs and Controlled Substance Conviction

    11/21/2017
    November 20, 2017:Queensbury Oncologist and Office Manager Plead Guilty in Connection with Administering Unapproved Drugs

    11/21/2017
    November 16, 2017: Palmer Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Import Prescription Drugs from Pakistan

    11/20/2017
    November 7, 2017: Federal Jury Convicts Lake Charles Veterinarian, Pharmacy in Race Horse Doping Conspiracy

    11/06/2017
    November 3, 2017: Vero Beach Orthopedic Surgeon Charged in Drug Conspiracy Resulting in Death

    11/06/2017
    November 3, 2017: Five Charged in Alleged Opioid Prescription, Healthcare Fraud Scheme

    11/06/2017
    November 1, 2017: New York Man Pleads Guilty to Selling Misbranded Animal Drugs Containing Steroids

    11/01/2017
    November 1, 2017: FDA Supervisor and Local Businessman Charged in Bribery Scheme

    11/01/2017
    November 1, 2017: Pair Sentenced on Federal Conspiracy

    10/31/2017
    October 31, 2017: South Korean Maker of Contact Lenses, Company CEO Charged with Smuggling Products into U.S. by Failing to Declare Full Value

    10/31/2017
    March 28, 2017: Oakland Man Pleads Guilty to Role in Conspiracy to Manufacture Counterfeit Drugs

    10/30/2017
    October 27, 2017: Central Kentucky Pharmacist Sentenced for Conspiracy to Distribute Oxycodone and Money Laundering

    10/26/2017
    October 26, 2017: Founder and Owner of Pharmaceutical Company Insys Arrested and Charged with Racketeering

    10/26/2017
    October 25, 2017: Five Chinese Citizens and Four Chinese Companies Indicted in Scheme to Sell Mislabeled Dietary Supplements

    10/26/2017
    October 25, 2017: Supervisory Pharmacist of New England Compounding Center Convicted of Racketeering Leading to Nationwide Fungal Meningitis Outbreak

    10/17/2017
    October 16, 2017: Omak, Washington Nurse Sentenced to Federal Prison for Adulterating and Misbranding Pain Medications

    10/10/2017
    October 4, 2017: Med-Fast Pharmacy Inc. and Former Exec Agree to Resolve Criminal and Civil Charges

    10/03/2017
    October 2, 2017: Compounding Pharmacy Owner Charged with $10 Million Health Care Fraud

    10/02/2017
    September 29, 2017: Randallstown Woman Sentenced To 2 Years In Prison For Injecting Non-Medical Grade Silicone Into The Bodies Of Victim Customers

    09/28/2017
    September 20, 2017: Pair Plead Guilty to Federal Conspiracy Charge

    08/29/2017
    August 28, 2017: Shrewsbury Man Pleads Guilty to Operating Counterfeit Steroid Scheme

    08/18/2017
    August 18, 2017: Former Police Officer Pleads Guilty to Trafficking Steroids, Money Laundering

    07/18/2017
    July 6, 2017: North Olmsted Man Charged with Selling Misbranded Drugs

    07/03/2017
    June 28, 2017: Former VA Nurse Re-Sentenced for Stealing and Tampering with Patient Medications

    07/03/2017
    June 28, 2017: Distributor of Counterfeit Medications Arrested

    06/28/2017
    June 23, 2017: Monterey Park Woman Arrested on Federal Charges after Allegedly Injecting Foreign Substances into Woman for Buttocks Enhancement

    06/26/2017
    June 22, 2017: Paramedic Pleads Guilty to Removing Liquid Fentanyl from Ambulance

    06/19/2017
    June 16, 2017: Leawood Woman Charged With Importing Misbranded Drugs

    06/09/2017
    June 9, 2017: Providence Nurse Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Oxycodone

    04/24/2017
    April 19, 2017: Radford Nurse, Who Tampered with Liquid Morphine Intended for Nursing Home Patients, Pleads Guilty

    04/13/2017
    April 12, 2017: Six Charged with Trafficking Counterfeit Steroids

    04/06/2017
    April 5, 2017: Worcester Nurse Sentenced for Drug Tampering

    03/30/2017
    March 22, 2017: Diamond Bar Man Pleads Guilty to Smuggling ED Drugs that Were Sold as ‘Herbal Enhancement’ Products without Prescriptions

    03/27/2017
    March 22, 2017: Owner of New England Compounding Center Convicted of Racketeering Leading to Nationwide Fungal Meningitis Outbreak

    01/19/2017
    January 18, 2017: Owner of Major Online Colored Contact Lens Business Sentenced to 46 Months in Prison in Largest-Ever Scheme to Import and Sell Counterfeit and Misbranded Contact Lenses Prosecuted in the United States

    01/19/2017
    January 13, 2017: Paramedic Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Drugs

    01/17/2017
    January 11, 2017: Worcester Nurse Pleads Guilty to Drug Tampering

    02/20/2018
    August 19, 2016: Pharmacy Owner and Medical Doctor Charged in an Internet Scheme to Dispense Medications to Customers without Valid Prescriptions

    01/24/2018
    December 6, 2016: Two Sentenced for Trafficking in Counterfeit Viagra and Cialis

    01/24/2018
    December 9, 2016: Carroll County Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Conspiracy Charge

    01/24/2018
    July 18, 2016: Cincinnati Man Sentenced for Illegally Importing Drugs into U.S.

    01/24/2018
    July 7, 2016: Johnston Resident Charged with Drug Trafficking, Money Laundering

    01/24/2018
    January 7, 2016: Former Nurse Pleads Guilty to Stealing Narcotics from Hospital

    01/24/2018
    December 8, 2016: Pharmaceutical Executives Charged in Racketeering Scheme

    01/24/2018
    December 2, 2016: Woman Arrested For Injecting Adulterated Liquid Silicone

    01/24/2018
    June 27, 2016: Hampton-Based Spice Retailer and Wholesaler Pleads Guilty

    01/24/2018
    May 31, 2016: Worcester Nurse Indicted on Federal Drug Tampering Charges

    01/16/2018
    October 11, 2016: Foreign National Pleads Guilty To International Wire Fraud Scheme

    01/12/2018
    December 20, 2016: New England Compounding Center’s National Sales Director Pleads Guilty

    01/12/2018
    December 27, 2016: Providence Nurse Charged in Connection with Tampering with Oxycodone

    01/12/2018
    January 20, 2016: Businessman Sentenced for Marketing and Selling Unapproved Remedies for Cancer

    01/12/2018
    June 2, 2016: Additional Criminal Charges Brought Against Indicted Penn National Horse Trainer

    01/12/2018
    August 15, 2016: Second Trafficker Convicted of Distributing Dangerous Counterfeit Viagra and Cialis

    01/12/2018
    October 12, 2016: Colombian National Charged for Unlawfully Injecting Silicone into Victims Bodies

    01/12/2018
    September 22, 2016: Hoover Man Charged for Marketing Misbranded Male Enhancement Drugs from China

    01/12/2018
    September, 22, 2016 Hoover Man Charged for Marketing Misbranded Male Enhancement Drugs from China

    01/12/2018
    August 2, 2016: Colombian National Charged for Unlawfully Injecting Silicone into Victims’ Bodies

    01/12/2018
    December 13, 2016: Tampa Resident Indicted for Involvement with Tricare Health Care Fraud Scheme

    01/12/2018
    September 29, 2016: New York Man Pleads Guilty To Conspiring To Illegally Manufacture Designer Steroids

    01/12/2018
    July 1, 2016: New Hampshire Couple Indicted On Two Counts Of Illegal Distribution Of Prescription Drugs

    01/12/2018
    June 22, 2016: Former Nurse Sentenced to 82 Months for Stealing and Tampering with Patient Medications

    01/12/2018
    December 19, 2016: New York Man Sentenced to Lengthy Prison Term for Selling Unsafe Dietary Supplements Online

    01/12/2018
    July 29, 2016: Majority Owner of NECC and Husband Plead Guilty to Illegal Cash Withdrawals Following Outbreak

    01/12/2018
    July 20, 2016: Former Acclarent, Inc. Executives Convicted of Crimes Related to the Sale of Medical Devices

    01/12/2018
    June 6, 2016: Pharmaceutical Companies To Pay $67 Million To Resolve False Claims Act Allegations Relating To Tarceva

    01/11/2018
    July 22, 2016: Medical Device Manufacturer Acclarent Inc. to Pay $18 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations

    01/11/2018
    November 15, 2016: Miami-Dade Resident Sentenced to Fifteen Months in Prison for Distributing Contaminated Cheese

    01/09/2018
    November 4, 2016: Two Pakistani Nationals Sentenced for Conspiring to Illegally Ship Pharmaceuticals into the United States

    01/09/2018
    November 29, 2016: Eight Defendants Convicted For Conspiracy to Manufacture and Distribute Counterfeit 5-Hour Energy Drink

    01/09/2018
    July 6, 2016: New Jersey Medical Device Manufacturer Admits Selling Contaminated Ultrasound Gel; Court Orders Permanent Injunction

    01/09/2018
    June 21, 2016: Two Pharmacists Sentenced to Prison for Adulteration of Drugs in Connection with Alabama-Based Compounding Pharmacy

    01/09/2018
    December 2, 2016: Former Police Officer Sentenced in White Plains Federal Court to 8 Years in Prison for Selling Date Rape Drug

    01/09/2018
    December 13, 2016: O.C. Man Charged with Selling Pet Meds Without a Prescription, Some of Which Were Not Approved for Distribution in the United States

    01/09/2018
    November 10, 2016: Nurse Who Operated Spa in Laguna Niguel Agrees to Plead Guilty to Illegally Dispensing Botox Not Approved for Use in United States

    01/09/2018
    November 28, 2016: Iowa Cancer Clinic and Oncologist to Pay More Than $176,000 To Settle False Claims Act Allegations They Recklessly Billed for Cancer Drugs That Were Unapproved, Misbranded, or Counterfeit and Improperly Upcoded Office Visit Claims

    01/09/2018
    September 9, 2016: Owner of Major Online Colored Contact Lens Business Pleads Guilty in Largest-Ever Investigation of Counterfeit and Misbranded Contact Lenses in the United States

    01/09/2018
    November 7, 2016: Medical Device Maker Biocompatibles Pleads Guilty to Misbranding and Agrees to Pay $36 Million to Resolve Criminal Liability and False Claims Act Allegations

    01/09/2018
    December 7, 2016: GNC Enters Into Agreement with Department of Justice to Improve Its Practices and Keep Potentially Illegal Dietary Supplements Out of the Marketplace

    01/09/2018
    December 5, 2016: Medical Device Saleswoman Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Charges Relating to the Transport of Stolen Medical Devices and Money Laundering

    12/15/2016
    December 13, 2016: Conagra Subsidiary Sentenced in Connection with Outbreak of Salmonella Poisoning Related to Peanut Butter

    12/13/2016
    December 9, 2016: Two South Florida Residents Charged with Conspiring to Misbrand and Sell Expired Gastric Banding Systems

    11/21/2016
    November 18, 2016: Palm Harbor Oncologist Convicted Of Buying Unapproved Cancer Medications From Foreign Sources And Defrauding Medicare

    11/08/2016
    November 4, 2016: University Hospital Nurse Arrested Following Grand Jury Indictment for Illegally Obtaining and Tampering with Fentanyl and Hydomorphone

    10/17/2016
    October 11, 2016: Florida Man Pleads Guilty to Manufacturing, Distributing Performance Enhancing Drugs

    09/26/2016
    September 9, 2016: Medical Device Saleswoman Convicted on Charges of Conspiring to Transport Stolen Medical Devices in Interstate Commerce, Money Laundering and Other Charges

    08/19/2016
    August 19,2016: North Carolina Man Sentenced to 14 Years in Federal Prison for Providing Silicone Buttocks Injections Resulting in the Death of a Client

    07/26/2016
    July 25, 2016: Three Charged with Manufacturing, Distributing Performance Enhancing Drugs

    06/20/2016
    June 20, 2016: R.I. Businessman Pleads Guilty to Running International Scheme to Label and Sell Misbranded Drugs

    06/08/2016
    June 2, 2016: President of Pharmaceutical Companies Sentenced to 60 Months in Prison for Long-Running Scheme to Sell Misbranded and Unapproved Chemotherapy and Other Prescription Drugs

    05/27/2016
    May 26, 2016: Owner of “The Wholesale Source” Convicted for Selling Unsafe Dietary Supplements Online

    05/27/2016
    May 27, 2016: North Carolina Man Admits Receiving and Selling Misbranded Silicone for Buttocks Injections Resulting in the Death of a Client

    05/23/2016
    May 9, 2016: California Man Pleads Guilty to Selling Unapproved Drug in Rhode Island

    05/19/2016
    May 18, 2016: Woman Charged with Illegally Administering Silicone Injections

    05/16/2016
    May 13, 2016: Two Key Players in Illegal Online Pharmacy Scheme Sentenced to Prison

    05/16/2016
    May 12, 2016: Windsor Mill Woman Indicted for Allegedly Injecting Non-Medical Grade Silicone into the Bodies of Victim Customers

    05/09/2016
    May 9, 2016: Owner of Bodybuilding Drug Companies Sentenced for Selling Misbranded Drugs

    05/09/2016
    May 9, 2016: Lodi Oncologist and Office Administrator Pay $300,000 to Settle False Claims Act Allegations

    05/06/2016
    May 5, 2016: Florida Man Sentenced To Prison For Illegal Diet Pill Scheme

    05/05/2016
    May 4, 2016: Former Buffalo Nurse Sentenced For Stealing Pain Medications Intended For Patients From Local Hospital

    05/04/2016
    April 28, 2016: Jury Convicts Former Police Officer For Selling Date Rape Drug

    05/04/2016
    May 3, 2016: Gainesville Physician Convicted of 162 Counts of Health Care Fraud

    05/02/2016
    April 29, 2016: Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Arrest Of Black Market Distributor Of Diverted HIV Medications Worth Approximately $4 Million

    04/20/2016
    April 20, 2016: Norfolk Man Pleads Guilty to Illegally Distributing Insulin

    04/14/2016
    April 7, 2016: Former Nurse Sentenced for Stealing Narcotics from Hospital

    04/06/2016
    April 4, 2016: Former Carlsbad Resident Jailed for Sale of Unapproved “Energy Wave” Medical Devices

    03/24/2016
    March 23, 2016: Federal Jury Convicts Destrehan Woman in Scheme to Sell Illegal and Mislabelled Diet Pills

    03/24/2016
    March 23, 2016: Detroit-Area Physician Sentenced to 45 Months in Prison for Role in $5.7 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme

    03/21/2016
    March 18, 2016: Bookkeeper for Online Pharmacy Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Money Laundering

    03/11/2016
    March 8, 2016: Cincinnati Man Pleads Guilty to Illegally Importing Drugs into U.S.

    03/08/2016
    March 7, 2016: Tehachapi Doctor Sentenced to 6 Months in Prison for Defrauding Patients and Insurers by Implanting Unapproved IUDs

    03/08/2016
    March 4, 2016: First of Seven Defendants Who Operated Illegal Online Pharmacy Sentenced to Prison

    03/04/2016
    March 4, 2016: Mumbai, India, Man Sentenced on Misbranding Charge

    03/03/2016
    March 1, 2016: Principal of Dietary Ingredient Companies Pleads Guilty to Multi-Million Dollar Fraud and Meth Precursor Scheme

    02/29/2016
    February 26, 2016: Florence Man Sentenced for Smuggling and Distributing Prescription Drugs

    02/25/2016
    February 17, 2016: Danville Man Pleads Guilty to Manufacturing and Distributing Illegal Dietary Supplements

    02/24/2016
    February 24, 2016: Former VA Nurse Pleads Guilty To Stealing Controlled Substance From Hospital Syringes

    02/24/2016
    February 17, 2016: Two Men Sentenced For Involvement in Scheme to Distribute Misbranded Drugs

    02/23/2016
    February 10, 2016: Las Vegas Resident Indicted For Running Counterfeit and Misbranded Contact Lens Operation

    02/19/2016
    February 17, 2016: United States And Vermont Doctor Resolve Matter Involving Non-FDA Approved Drugs And False Claims

    02/19/2016
    February 16, 2016: Swedish Medical Center Surgical Tech/Technologist Indicted by Federal Grand Jury in Denver on Charges of Tampering with a Consumer Product and Obtaining a Controlled Substance by Deceit

    02/19/2016
    February 10, 2016: Owner of Cancer Treatment Clinic Convicted of Providing Fraudulent Medical Treatments to Patients

    02/04/2016
    January 28, 2016: Federal Criminal Charges Filed Against Two Pharmacists for Adulteration of Drugs in Connection with Alabama-Based Compounding Pharmacy

    02/02/2016
    February 1, 2016: Pakistani Man Makes Appearance in U.S. District Court in Denver Following Indictment and Arrest for Sale and Distribution of New, Misbranded and Counterfeit Prescription Drugs

    02/02/2016
    February 1, 2016: Worcester Nurse Sentenced for Stealing Oxycodone from Patients

    02/02/2016
    January 22, 2016: Counterfeit Cigarette Smuggler Receives Jail Sentence

    02/02/2016
    January 5, 2016: Two Defendants Sentenced to Prison in Conspiracy to Distribute Over $6.6 Million in Contraband Cigarettes

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Statement of Commissioner Kristin N. Johnson on Her Departure from the CFTC

    Source: US Commodity Futures Trading Commission

    It has been an honor and privilege to serve as a Commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Having completed my full term, I have notified the President of my intent to step down as a CFTC Commissioner later this year. Although this is a difficult decision, I am proud of the work that I have accomplished and am deeply grateful for the chance to develop meaningful relationships with staff and current and former Commissioners during my tenure at the CFTC.
    I am exceptionally fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve our great nation and am honored that President Joseph R. Biden nominated me to serve in two critical roles as a financial market regulator. In addition to nominating me to serve a three-year term as a CFTC Commissioner in the fall of 2021, last summer, President Biden nominated me to serve as Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the United States Department of the Treasury. 
    As a graduate of Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, the invitation to return to Washington, D.C. as a CFTC Commissioner resonated with my life-long commitment to be “in service of others.” When I accepted the nomination to serve as a CFTC Commissioner, I requested a three-year leave of absence from Emory University School of Law where I serve as Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law. On March 28, 2022, I was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. On March 30, 2022, not long after teaching my last class for the semester at Emory Law School, I was sworn in to serve as a CFTC Commissioner.
    This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the CFTC, a small-but-mighty agency that works daily to advance effective supervision and oversight in derivatives markets. In 1974, Congress passed and Former President Gerald Ford[1] signed into law the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act creating the CFTC. A few months later, on April 15, 1975, four of the first five Commissioners, including the first Chairman of the Commission, were sworn in to service.
    As the Commission celebrates this important milestone, I celebrated my third anniversary at the Commission. A few days after my third anniversary, my term expired.
    Our derivatives markets operate as a critical resource for price discovery, risk management, and hedging functions for many sectors in our economy but, most notably, the agriculture, energy, and financial services sectors. One of the greatest strengths of our federal government and, more specifically, the federal agencies that supervise many of the largest global financial market participants in the world, is the intellectual leadership of our regulators.[2] Over the last several decades significant events have tested the resilience of our markets. In each instance, the Commission and its regulations developed through robust engagement among the Commissioners—with the support of the Commission staff—have served to address liquidity and default risk management concerns and to enhance the integrity and stability of our derivatives markets.
    I have endeavored to support the Commission’s work through constructive, substantive engagement with my fellow Commissioners, Commission staff, and the diverse businesses that we supervise. I am deeply committed to encouraging the Commission to develop well-informed, research-based, data-driven regulatory solutions that are well-tailored and fit-for-purpose. Thoughtful, effective regulation ensures that our markets are resilient even during periods of significant or persistent challenges.
    It has been a privilege to serve alongside my fellow Commissioners and to have had the opportunity to work with the exceptional and indefatigable staff at the Commission. The Commission staff works tirelessly to support the Commission in tackling complex and consequential issues through careful and thoughtful deliberative processes. I am confident that the Commission will continue to do important work protecting investors and customers, combatting fraud and market manipulation, and ensuring market integrity and stability.
    A Survey of Service
    Serving in leadership at the Commission, I have enjoyed driving intellectual and policy developments on several critical issues facing our markets. I led the Commission by advancing proposed and final rules that enhance risk management for derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs), cyber-resilience, and effective recovery, resilience, and wind-down regulations.
    I have strongly advocated for careful reflection regarding the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in financial markets and advocated for a number of policies and strategies to enhance the Commission’s ability to better understand industry integration of AI, including information gathering; the creation of an inter-agency task force encouraging domestic and international harmonization and collaboration on guidance or policies addressing the adoption of AI; the creation of a CFTC AI Fraud and Market Manipulation Task Force; and efforts to ensure sufficient human capital and financial resources to enable the Commission staff to keep pace with rapidly-evolving AI technologies.
    In the wake of a crypto-crisis in the fall of 2022, I delivered a keynote address at the inaugural Digital Assets @Duke conference, where I called for the Commission to organize roundtables and convene discussions to better understand the type of regulatory interventions that may lead to effective supervision of rapidly developing and evolving decentralized finance markets.[3] I encouraged the Commission to begin a multi-stakeholder dialogue on digital asset markets that would help to prepare the Commission staff to create regulation to carry out a Congressional mandate and, at the same time, offer educational workshops on foundational issues such as corporate governance, resolution planning, and customer protection features of CFTC regulation.[4] These regulatory pillars are hardwired in our supervision and should be part of the regulatory architecture for any novel assets or markets that come under Commission supervision. Same risks, same rules. Moreover, these governance and operational guardrails have historically served to ensure that firms are able to withstand anticipated shocks (for example, by promoting enterprise risk management) and that markets remain resilient—even in times of significant distress. 
    I am proud to have served as Sponsor of the Market Risk Advisory Committee (MRAC). I am grateful for the hard work of Alicia Crighton (Chair of the MRAC), the members of the MRAC, and the members of the MRAC Subcommittees—the Market Structure, Central Counterparty Risk & Governance, Interest Rate Benchmark Reform, Climate-Related Market Risk, and Future of Finance Subcommittees.
    As Sponsor of the MRAC, I led the Commission in taking on, in real-time, emerging cyber defense and cyber resilience concerns. In March of 2023, the MRAC hosted a first-of-its-kind hearing to examine cyber threats and potential solutions in derivatives markets. Over the last three years, the MRAC has submitted three sets of recommendations and a cutting-edge report to the Commission. The recommendations and report address system safeguards, critical third-party service providers and cyber resilience for institutions at the center of our market infrastructure; the efficacy of recovery, resilience, and wind-down policies for intermediaries in our markets; risk management related to the cash-futures basis trade; and a report on the state of the futures commission merchant market.
    The central tenants of the Commodity Exchange Act inform the CFTC’s mandate—to prevent fraud and market manipulation, protect investors and customers, and ensure the stability and integrity of our markets. In order to deter escalating or future misconduct, I have strongly supported efforts to ensure that the Commission upholds this mandate, enhances customer protection, and holds bad actors accountable.
    Artificial Intelligence in Financial Markets 
    While derivatives transactions in financial markets date back to ancient Greece, none of the Greek philosophers who lived two thousand years ago had the ability to generate a philosophical tome or literary masterpiece by simply typing a few questions into ChatGPT.[5]  Simply stated, today’s financial markets are evolving at an unprecedented and accelerated pace. I arrived at the Commission deeply committed to advancing the Commission’s understanding of AI and AI use cases relevant to our markets. During my tenure at the Commission, I partnered with leadership across the industry, government regulators, public interest advocates, academics, and Commission staff to initiate a dialogue on the increasing adoption of AI by our market participants as well as the incorporation of AI in regulatory oversight and supervision.
    Information-Gathering
    In January 2024, I rolled up my sleeves during a winter storm and worked in collaboration with talented CFTC senior staff to develop the Commission’s first request for comment on AI in CFTC-regulated markets.[6] Later in the year, I represented the Commission in the development of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s request for information on AI.[7] I also represented the Commission by serving in an association of federal regulators across government agencies engaged in understanding the implications of integrating AI in government supervision and regulation.
    In June of 2023, I joined a group of market regulators reflecting on the integration of AI in supervisory technology (SupTech) at the International Organization of Securities Commissions’ (IOSCO) Annual Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. Days after IOSCO’s Annual Meeting in June 2023, I launched an annual international roundtable to explore AI and other novel technologies and the impact of these technologies on market structures with the former U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Andorra, Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón.[8] I have served as a keynote speaker at dozens of industry and trade association conferences as well as academic institutions including Yale, Stanford, Duke, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown, the University of Chicago, and Cornell Law Schools, as well as Rice University’s Baker Institute, among other institutions where I have been fortunate to engage in thoughtful conversations with leading experts representing diverse viewpoints.
    My engagement with market participants, U.S. market and prudential regulators, and global market regulators around the world has left me with the impression that we are still in a learning phase and are continuing to develop more precise understandings of the power, potential, and limits of developed and developing applications of AI, including generative and agentic AI.    I have, however, advocated for a few accessible policy initiatives that the Commission should begin to take steps to introduce.
    An Inter-Agency Task Force – Collaboration and Coordination
    Over the last three years, I have advocated for AI policy priorities that must be at the center of the CFTC and other regulators’ policy agenda.[9] I have called for coordination among regulators to ensure that regulators are informed and have the depth of expertise to respond effectively to emerging technologies. I have asked the Commission and other financial market regulators to create an Inter-Agency AI Task Force to establish a pathway for open dialogue through deep dive, public and closed-door roundtables among the Commission, market participants, other market and prudential regulators, and public interest advocates.[10] Shortly after the announcement of my proposal, the Commission named its first Chief AI Officer.
    CFTC AI Fraud and Market Manipulation Task Force
    Our markets are faced with increasingly sophisticated forms of AI driven fraud. Evidence suggests that hackers are repurposing AI-based tools previously used in cyber defense tactics to identify weaknesses in networks and cybersecurity applications. These weaknesses open back doors for cyber-attacks. Generative AI may enable sophisticated actors to execute more convincing phishing campaigns. Deep fakes and similar campaigns may be more difficult to detect, especially for less sophisticated consumers and retail participants.
    I have encouraged the Commission to create an internal AI task force within the Division of Enforcement and introduce heightened civil monetary penalties in instances where bad actors use AI to engage in fraud or market manipulation. In conversations with regulators in jurisdictions around the world, I have advocated for regulators to better understand AI as a SupTech resource that may enhance our ability to more precisely target AI fueled cyber and fraud attacks that threaten to upend the integrity and stability of domestic and global financial markets causing severe market disruption.
    Human Capital and Financial Resources
    The CFTC continues to punch above its weight. The agency, however, must have both financial and human resources to keep pace as industry participants integrate increasingly complex iterations of AI. As our markets become more complex and reflect the incorporation of and reliance on novel technologies, the Commission must have the resources to effectively supervise more sophisticated markets. I believe that the Commission would benefit from increased resources dedicated to enabling several of the Divisions within the Commission to prepare for and meet the challenges of regulating innovative trading, clearing, and settlement technologies.[11]
    The Market Risk Advisory Committee
    In my role as Sponsor of the MRAC, I have convened stakeholders with diverse perspectives to address critical, complex issues facing our markets. Under my leadership and working in collaboration with industry executives representing exchanges, clearinghouses, futures commission merchants, as well as public interest advocates, academics, and many others, the MRAC examined many of the most pressing risks across our financial markets, including systemic issues that could threaten the stability of derivatives markets.
    During my time as Sponsor, the MRAC has focused on increasing concerns presented by cyber threats; the significance of critical third-party service providers such as cloud-based service providers; the introduction of artificial intelligence in market infrastructure and commercial and retail transactions; and novel and nascent issues that arise with the introduction of decentralized financial products such as digital assets or cryptocurrency and other emerging markets.
    In March of 2023, the MRAC hosted a first-of-its-kind post-mortem on the implications for markets following the cyberattack on back-office service provider ION. The hearing included presentations by Matthew Cronin of the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director; Tom Sexton, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Futures Association; Walt Lukken, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Futures Industry Association; Julie Holzrichter of CME Group; Amanda Olear, Former Director of the Market Participants Division of the CFTC; Greg Ruppert, Executive Vice President of FINRA; Ashwini Panse of Intercontinental Exchange; Suyash Paliwal, Former Director of the CFTC Office of International Affairs (OIA); and Senior Special Counsel Kirsten Robbins of the CFTC OIA, among others.[12]
    At the MRAC’s most recent meeting, the Committee voted to submit recommendations on many issues—a report and recommendation on the need to evaluate our regulations governing critical third party service providers (particularly in areas marked by concentration risks due to a limited number of competitive service providers); cyber resilience for derivatives clearing organizations; and best practices for managing market, liquidity, counterparty credit, and other risks related to the cash futures basis trade.[13] In addition to these significant contributions, the MRAC advanced important recovery and resolution proposals and published a cutting-edge report on concentration risk engendered by a decline in the market for futures commission merchant services over the last two decades.[14]
    The MRAC’s work on each of these critical questions will help the Commission to address emerging issues and enhance the Commission’s ability to promote the stability and integrity of derivatives markets.
    The Importance of Public Service
    I began my legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. I am thankful that the Judge was willing to take a chance on me; the Judge hired me as a second-year law student to serve as his law clerk upon my graduation from law school. Having spent the better part of his career as a federal prosecutor and later a federal judge, Judge Greenaway taught me to value public service and the importance of building relationships in the communities in which we serve. 
    I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to serve the CFTC community. Every well-developed proposed or final rule review, open or closed meeting briefing and engagement, advisory committee meeting agenda, and policy initiative advanced by my office benefited tremendously from the tireless work and commitment of my current and former staff. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who served my office in any counsel, policy advisor or law student intern role. I am also grateful to the incomparable executive assistants who supported the administrative functions of the office.
    About Commissioner Johnson
    Immediately prior to joining the Commission, Commissioner Johnson served as a tenured professor with an endowed professorship (Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law) and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at Emory University School of Law. Commissioner Johnson also held a named professorship and served as Associate Dean for Faculty Research at Tulane University School of Law. Prior to law teaching, Commissioner Johnson served as a lawyer in private practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLC’s New York and London offices supporting the mergers and acquisitions, private credit and public and private capital markets practices. Upon leaving private practice, Commissioner Johnson joined J.P. Morgan Chase as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel in the Treasury Services Division supporting private funds. Before attending law school, Commissioner Johnson served as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in the Asset Management Division.
    Commissioner Johnson is the co-author of two forthcoming books—The Cambridge University Press Handbook on Artificial Intelligence & The Law and Artificial Intelligence & The Law: Cases and Materials.  Her recent work examines the implications of emerging innovative technologies including distributed digital ledger technologies that enable the creation of digital assets or cryptocurrency as well as networked, centralized and decentralized transaction-enabling infrastructure. Her early scholarship focuses on financial market disruptions that may create systemic risk concerns, with particular emphasis on the origination of derivatives and other complex financial products as well as secondary market trading, clearing, and settlement. She has testified before Congress on the benefits and risks of integrating emerging technologies such as blockchain or distributed digital ledger technologies and AI in financial markets.[15]

    [3] Keynote Address of Commissioner Kristin Johnson at Digital Assets @ Duke Conference, Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering and Duke Financial Economics Center, Mitigating Crypto-Crises: Applying Lessons Learned in Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (January 26, 2023), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opajohnson2.

    [4] See Kristin N. Johnson, Commissioner, CFTC, Federal Reserve of Chicago Financial Markets Group Fall Conference, Investing in Investor Protection (Nov. 16, 2022), available on file with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; see also Nahiomy Alvarez, Nomaan Chandiwalla, Alessandro Cocco, 2022 Financial Markets Group Fall Conference–Recap, https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/blogs/ chicago-fed-insights/2023/2022-fmg-fall-conference-recap (Feb. 6, 2023).

    [5] Kristin N. Johnson, Regulating Cryptocurrency Secondary Market Trading Platforms, 1/8/2020 U. Chi. L. Rev. Online 1 (2020).

    [7] See U.S. Department of the Treasury, Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services (Dec. 2024), https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Artificial-Intelligence-in-Financial-Services.pdf (Treasury December Report).

    [15] In April of 2021, Commissioner Johnson testified before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions. In July of 2019, she testified before the House Financial Services Committee Artificial Intelligence Task Force on the implications of integrating artificial intelligence in financial technology (fintech) platforms. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How male anatomy became the default in medicine – and why that’s a problem

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol

    Imagine waking up from surgery to discover that the implants designed to save your life were too large, too rigid, and never meant for someone like you. Imagine arriving at the emergency department with chest pain, only to be sent home because your symptoms don’t match the “classic” heart attack signs taught to doctors.

    Picture taking a routine dose of medication and experiencing severe side-effects, only to learn that the drug was never tested on women during its clinical trials. Or recovering from a fracture, only to find that the rehabilitation plan you’re following doesn’t align with how your bones heal.

    This isn’t the story of a medical mishap. It’s the consequence of centuries of anatomical science using one model for every body: the male.

    From textbooks to medical devices, the female form has often been an afterthought, leading to treatments that don’t fit, symptoms that go unnoticed, and lives put at risk. How did anatomical science come to overlook half the population? And what are the consequences of this oversight today?

    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.

    To understand how this situation came about, we must go back to the roots of modern anatomy.

    Early anatomical texts, such as those by Andreas Vesalius in the 16th century, were based almost exclusively on male bodies. Female anatomy was included only when it differed in obvious reproductive ways, often cloaked in language that presented the female form as a deviation or inversion of the male norm.

    By the 19th century, with the institutionalisation of medical schools and dissection, anatomical teaching still relied predominantly on male cadavers. This wasn’t simply due to availability. It was also cultural.

    The male body was perceived as universal, rational, and worthy of study, while the female body was seen as variable, emotional, and biologically preoccupied with reproduction. The “ideal body”, in anatomical terms, was male.

    Even when women were studied, it was often through a lens of pathology or deviation: hysteria, wandering wombs, and fragile constitutions – the femme fragile.

    This historical lens cast a long shadow: well into the 20th century, and in many respects still today, anatomical models, surgical techniques, and medical training continue to prioritise the male form.

    When ‘normal’ doesn’t fit

    The implications of this anatomical bias are not just theoretical. They affect everyday clinical practice and outcomes. For example, women experiencing heart attacks often report symptoms like fatigue, nausea, or jaw pain – symptoms not listed in the “typical” presentation historically taught to doctors. As a result, they are more likely to be misdiagnosed or dismissed, leading to higher mortality rates.



    Read more:
    Are heart attack symptoms sexist?

    Orthopaedic implants, such as hip and knee replacements, have also been shown to potentially underperform in women, in part because they were designed around male bone dimensions and joint angles.

    Even crash test dummies – the silent arbiters of car safety design – were based on male physiology until disturbingly recently. When a “female” dummy was finally introduced, it was essentially a scaled-down man, not a biologically accurate model. Women’s bodies are still not standard or required in car safety tests.

    Then there’s the world of pharmaceuticals. Until the early 1990s, women were routinely excluded from clinical trials due to concerns about hormonal fluctuations and potential pregnancy risks. As a result, the dosage, metabolism, and side-effect profiles of countless medications were understood only in male bodies – sometimes with dangerous consequences.

    In 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration halved the recommended dose of the sleep aid zolpidem (Ambien) for women after discovering that they were far more affected by it than men. Something that could have been predicted had women been included in the initial studies.

    Artificial joints underperform in women – because they’re based on male anatomy.
    Sylvie Pabion Martin/Shutterstock.com

    Anatomy and inclusion

    Bones, muscles, blood vessels, fat distribution, and even immune responses vary between sexes. Female skeletons are generally lighter, with different angles in the pelvis and knees. Tendons and ligaments respond differently to stress and hormones, affecting injury risk and recovery.

    Pain perception and response to analgesics differ, too. Not just because of socialisation, but because of real, measurable differences in anatomy and neurobiology.

    Anatomical diagrams in textbooks still depict male figures as standard, with female anatomy relegated to the reproductive chapter.

    Simulation models for surgical training rarely reflect the full range of female body types or internal variation. If the first step of medicine is to know the body, we must ask: whose body are we really teaching?

    Change is coming. More researchers are calling for sex-disaggregated data in studies, and journals increasingly require it

    New generations of anatomists, doctors, and designers are beginning to challenge the one-body-fits-all paradigm. We’re finally starting to build a model of medicine that sees all bodies clearly, from the inside out.

    Michelle Spear 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 male anatomy became the default in medicine – and why that’s a problem – https://theconversation.com/how-male-anatomy-became-the-default-in-medicine-and-why-thats-a-problem-255648

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Universal vaccines could reshape how we fight future outbreaks – but a broad approach is needed

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Antony Black, Lecturer, Life Sciences, University of Westminster

    raker/Shutterstock.com

    Every year, the race begins anew. Scientists scramble to track mutating viruses, pharmaceutical companies reformulate vaccines and public health systems brace for another season of jabs and logistics.

    This relentless cycle is our frontline defence against threats like flu and COVID – but it comes at a steep price. Globally, billions are poured into strain and variant surveillance, vaccine development and distribution, leaving already-stretched health systems — particularly in lower-income countries – struggling to keep pace.

    That’s why scientists have long aimed to develop universal vaccines – ones that protect against all major forms of a virus, including both seasonal and pandemic types. But designing these vaccines has proved to be tricky.

    The difficulty lies in the way viruses mutate. Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) change rapidly, allowing them to escape the immune system’s memory responses triggered by past infections or vaccinations. To make a universal vaccine, researchers must identify parts of the virus that stay the same across different strains and variants – known as “conserved regions”.

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    These conserved regions are harder for the immune system to recognise, so scientists are developing strategies to enhance the body’s response to them. One approach removes the rapidly mutating parts of the virus from the vaccine entirely, helping the immune system focus on the parts that don’t change.

    Another strategy involves “mosaic” vaccines, which combine elements from many virus strains to trigger a broad, protective immune response.

    Several technologies used to deliver these vaccines are at various stages of development. For example, mRNA vaccines use lab-made strands of messenger RNA (a type of genetic material) to instruct cells to produce viral proteins to trigger an immune response.

    Another type relies on “viral vectors” – harmless viruses that deliver genetic material into human cells to stimulate immunity. Both types of vaccines were gamechangers during the COVID pandemic.

    Other technologies include nanoparticles, which use synthetic biological particles to improve delivery and immune response. And “virus-like particles”, which trigger immune responses by imitating the structure of viruses, but don’t contain any genetic material.

    Researchers are also using powerful computational tools to design vaccines that could work across multiple strains.

    These platforms aren’t just being explored for flu and COVID – similar efforts are underway for other fast-evolving viruses, such as HIV.

    Cash injection

    Earlier this month, the US government announced a US$500 million (£377 million) investment to accelerate research into universal vaccines. After years of underfunding, experts say this backing is long overdue – especially following the COVID pandemic, which temporarily shifted focus to emergency vaccine production.

    The rapid development of COVID vaccines showed how targeted funding and global collaboration can lead to scientific breakthroughs. A similar approach could now help bring universal vaccines closer to reality by supporting early research, funding clinical trials and improving manufacturing and distribution systems.

    However, the investment has not been without controversy. Some scientists have raised concerns that the funding may be overly directed toward a narrow set of researchers or outdated methods, rather than being open to the most promising technologies.

    Critics argue that a broad, flexible portfolio of vaccine strategies – rather than a single approach – is the key to success.

    Ultimately, the goal of a universal vaccine is not just scientific. It’s also practical and global: reducing the burden on health systems, lowering costs and transforming how the world responds to future outbreaks.

    Antony Black 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. Universal vaccines could reshape how we fight future outbreaks – but a broad approach is needed – https://theconversation.com/universal-vaccines-could-reshape-how-we-fight-future-outbreaks-but-a-broad-approach-is-needed-256656

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Teachers knew what children needed to recover from the pandemic – but their insights were ignored

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alice Bradbury, Professor of Sociology of Education, UCL

    PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    Five years have passed since schools and nurseries closed in England as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns. This unprecedented disruption to children’s normal routines created considerable concern – both at the time and in the years since.

    But based on our research into the impact of school closures on children, we believe that many of the long-term effects have been misdiagnosed or ignored. Funding has been channelled in the wrong direction, hampering real recovery.

    We researched what was happening in primary schools during the pandemic. We used surveys, interviews and school-based case studies to collect insights from school staff and parents.

    Our survey data and case studies showed that teachers recognised straight away how the pandemic was affecting the children they taught and their families.

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    Schools knew that not receiving free school meals and being confined to inadequate housing during lockdown would affect children’s health and nutrition. They saw that some children would be exposed to greater risk from being at home, and that they needed to take action. They also recognised that children living in poverty would be affected the most.

    We also conducted two systematic literature reviews which assessed the findings of a large range of scholarly research. In one, we reviewed the evidence for how schools recover from sudden closures due to natural disasters or epidemics. In the other, we assessed studies published towards the end of the pandemic on the harm done to pupils.

    Priorities for recovery

    We wanted to know the key areas to focus on to help children recover from the disruption of lockdown. Our own research in schools arrived at similar answers to the review of research on school closures associated with natural disasters.

    First, it is important to recognise the value of local knowledge. Recovery strategies that are decided without insight into the local context may be poorly designed and unable to address the actual issues facing particular schools.

    Second, schools need to have the freedom to reset the pace at which the curriculum is taught, as both pupils and staff needed time to process what had happened during the pandemic. Rushing to catch up would prove counter-productive. And third, government responses need to make staff and pupil welfare a priority, and help repair wellbeing.

    Our review of the evidence of harm to pupils, published as the pandemic ended, found negative effects on physical health and nutrition, mixed effects on mental health and uncertainty about effects on learning.

    We saw how far the impact of COVID-19 on employment, and the prevalence of household bereavements, varied from place to place. We advised the Department for Education that insights from local communities were needed to help recovery, and that without them, centrally designed schemes might be unsuccessful.

    But instead, the government focused its immediate efforts on a time-limited national tutoring programme, intended to counter “learning loss” – to help pupils recover the knowledge they missed out on learning during school closures and to close the attainment gap.

    But the programme was poorly reviewed. Funding for tutors with no knowledge of the school or its pupils led to disappointing uptake and an early switch to a school-led funding route.

    The government’s appointed “catch-up tsar”, Kevan Collins, resigned early on. He commented that the “support announced by government so far does not come close to meeting the scale of the challenge”. This has proved true.

    Lasting consequences

    Five years on, it is not in the areas of learning loss that the long-term effects are being most felt. Evidence of learning loss is mixed, with exam results showing near recovery to pre-pandemic standards.

    Rather, it is the complex interactions between pupil absence and exclusions, the ongoing impacts on children with special educational needs and disabilities (as the strongest predictor of persistent absence) and the impacts on wellbeing that are most clearly indicative of an ongoing problem.

    Children’s wellbeing should be a key focus of continuing pandemic recovery.
    New Africa/Shutterstock

    A recent report from the charities The Institute For Public Policy Research and The Difference has found that absence and suspensions are two-thirds higher in England than before the pandemic. The findings suggest that this is the “lost learning” we should be concerned about.

    This has been compounded by a cost-of-living crisis that is deepening child poverty.

    Schools need support to help get past the consequences of the pandemic. This means a better funding formula that resources them properly for what they do – including the role they play in addressing child poverty. Teachers’ expertise needs to be recognised, and they need to feel valued.

    What’s more, the social value of primary school matters. It should not be seen only as preparation for an academic secondary school curriculum. Room for play, for physical activity, for arts and self-expression would greatly enrich this phase and set good foundations for the later years.

    While it may be many years until we really understand what the pandemic meant for children, we can at least use what we know now to inform the long process of recovery.

    Alice Bradbury receives funding from the Helen Hamlyn Trust which funds the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy at UCL. She has also received research funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and Department of Education/SAGE for the research discussed here. She is a member of the Labour Party and the Universities and College Union.

    Gemma Moss receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for the research discussed here.

    Sinead Harmey receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for the research discussed here.

    – ref. Teachers knew what children needed to recover from the pandemic – but their insights were ignored – https://theconversation.com/teachers-knew-what-children-needed-to-recover-from-the-pandemic-but-their-insights-were-ignored-253181

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Israel allows a ‘limited’ amount of aid back into Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is desperate

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sarah Schiffling, Deputy Director of the HUMLOG (Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management Research) Institute, Hanken School of Economics

    After 11 weeks of blockading the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the Israeli government asked the UN to resume “limited” aid deliveries on May 18. The move came amid growing international outrage over what the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has called a “policy of siege and starvation” in Gaza that “makes a mockery of international law”.

    Israel cleared nine aid trucks on Monday, May 19, only five of which entered Gaza. The Israeli military says closer to 100 trucks were inspected the following day. But, according to the UN, none of this aid has been distributed yet.

    It also goes without saying that even 100 aid trucks per day will not satisfy the desperate needs of Gaza’s 2.1 million inhabitants. The British, French and Canadian leaders have criticised Israel’s decision to allow a “basic amount of food” to enter the territory as “wholly inadequate”.

    The blockade has caused the already desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza to deteriorate further. Food security experts from the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification platform say the entire territory is now facing crisis levels of food insecurity, with 22% of the population at risk of starvation.

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    The World Food Programme ran out of supplies in Gaza in late April. Other organisations have had the same problem. This has caused 60% of community kitchens, which many Gazans rely on for a daily meal, to close down. Many food items are now unavailable and diets are extremely limited, largely consisting of bread and pulses.

    Prices of what little food is available have also skyrocketed. The price of wheat flour, for example, has risen by more than 4,000% since the start of the 11-week long blockade. And with 90% of households in Gaza experiencing financial hardship, it is impossible for many people to buy essentials.

    Cooking oil is no longer available and firewood has become scarce. The majority of people now burn waste, making cooking unsafe and unhealthy. On top of this, the healthcare system is on the brink of collapse and access to clean drinking water is very limited.

    At the same time, the efforts of humanitarian organisations to combat malnutrition have nearly come to a standstill because they lack necessary supplies. Malnutrition makes people more susceptible to disease.

    Militarising aid delivery

    The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said it was necessary to resume aid to Gaza because Israel’s allies would not tolerate “images of mass starvation”. The move has still been criticised by some Israeli politicians, with hardline defence minister Israel Katz calling it a “grave mistake”.

    For now, aid will enter Gaza through established mechanisms. But the US and Israel are backing a proposal for a new aid delivery system involving private companies. The system will be managed by a newly formed independent American aid organisation called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which expects to become operational by the end of May.

    The GHF plans to set up what it is calling “secure distribution sites” in southern and central Gaza. From these sites, it will distribute food, hygiene kits and medical supplies initially to 1.2 million people – eventually scaling-up operations to cover the whole population. The GHF says it will coordinate with the IDF but that its sites will be protected by private military contractors.

    While the GHF claims to have secured funding and be in the process of procuring large amounts of goods, no details are currently available to the public on this massive undertaking. The plan has received widespread criticism and has been rejected by the UN.

    The main criticism of the plan is that it violates so-called humanitarian principles. It is generally accepted that humanitarian action is based upon four main principles: humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.

    The principle of humanity states that suffering must be addressed wherever it is found, with a special focus on the most vulnerable people. Neutrality means that, in an armed conflict, humanitarian aid should not favour any side.

    Impartiality requires that humanitarian aid is provided based solely on need without any discrimination. And independence means that humanitarian objectives should be autonomous of political, economic, military or other objectives.

    Humanitarian bodies argue that the GHF’s plan does not stand up to these principles. It would force people to travel long distances to acquire heavy aid goods, so excludes those who are less mobile and more vulnerable.

    Meanwhile, humanitarian organisations have rejected the plan as a “humanitarian cover for a military strategy of control and dispossession”. They have raised concerns that the limited number of food distribution sites, as well as their location, could encourage the forced displacement of Palestinians from northern Gaza.

    Satellite images showing the construction of sites in Gaza that are expected to be used as aid distribution centres also suggest they will be close to Israeli military bases. While private security contractors will secure the distribution sites, the mere presence of military forces so close by may make people hesitant to approach for fear of being targeted.

    UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations have refused to participate in the proposed plan. Any involvement with a plan that is allegedly aligned with Israel’s military strategy could undermine the ability of the UN to play a meaningful humanitarian role in Gaza in the future. And it would also be seen as an endorsement of the militarisation of aid delivery around the world.

    As humanitarian experts point out, there is already an established system for providing aid to Gaza. Humanitarian organisations have the people, distribution networks and the necessary goods – 160,000 pallets full of them – in place. Almost 9,000 aid trucks are ready to be dispatched across the border as soon as Israel allows it.

    During the ceasefire earlier in 2025, UN agencies and humanitarian organisations demonstrated how quickly they could scale-up a predictable and accountable delivery of aid to those in need all across Gaza. This can be done again.

    The authors 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. Israel allows a ‘limited’ amount of aid back into Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is desperate – https://theconversation.com/israel-allows-a-limited-amount-of-aid-back-into-gaza-where-the-humanitarian-situation-is-desperate-257137

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Lilo & Stitch: can Disney’s latest live-action animation remake reignite interest in the genre after Snow White box-office disaster?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura O’Flanagan, PhD Candidate, School of English, Dublin City University

    Lilo & Stitch (2025) is another release in a long line of “reimaginings” of Disney animated features. Described as “live-action” they rework animations with humans and real-life settings (and the occasional animated character). These, for the most part, have been lucrative and successful for the studio. However, Disney’s mining of their own back catalogue has also yielded controversy and backlash.

    Following the troubled release of Snow White earlier this year – a film that failed to recoup its $270m (£201m) budget – it was announced that the production of a live action version of Tangled had been put on hold. Could Lilo and Stitch reignite confidence in the commercial viability of Disney’s recent live-action trend?

    The animated Lilo & Stitch (2002) was a hit when it was released, earning US$273m (£204m) at the box office on its $80m budget. Stitch has become a symbol of the Disney corporation in the decades since the film was released, rivalling Mickey Mouse himself as the Disney mascot most merchandised around the world.

    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    The film seems like an obvious candidate for a live-action rendition. The trailers show Stitch unchanged. He is roguish, naughty, lovable, hilarious and full of personality. This begs the question: what is the point, then? The cynical response to this is lucrative merchandise. But cynicism has no place in Disney films, so let’s dive in.

    The live-action Lilo & Stitch recreates a lot of the charm of the original animated film from 2002. Stitch (the original creator and voice, Chris Sanders) is a chaotic monster, who, when exiled from his home planet, escapes to Earth where he joins Lilo’s family in Hawaii.

    Recently orphaned, six-year old Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and her older sister and guardian, Nani (Sydney Adugong) struggle to maintain family life, and face the prospect of being separated by a social worker (Tia Carrere). Stitch’s arrival creates new upheaval as Nani attempts to keep the family together.

    The film’s strengths lie in the ways in which it echoes the original film. Hawaii’s beaches and surf are stunning onscreen, and an animated Stitch blends flawlessly with his real-life surroundings as he creates a whirlwind of mayhem everywhere he goes.

    Newcomer Maia Kealoha shines as Lilo, and there is magic onscreen when she shares scenes with Stitch. Their adventures together possess an undeniable charm, representing the film’s most compelling and memorable moments. Children will be delighted by Stitch’s hilarious naughtiness, and his journey to understanding and acceptance is heartwarming and well-paced.

    The threat of familial separation is portrayed as nuanced, complicated and less apocalyptic than in the original animated film. The social worker played by Tia Carrere (who voiced Nani in the animation) is a warm and empathetic presence, and her interactions with Nani have gravity and credibility.

    Although this is a welcome change, these scenes lack the energy of the Lilo and Stitch hijinks. They do add a degree of depth, but ultimately slow the story down, making the emotional moments feel unearned and somewhat lacking.

    The other central adults in the film, two alien hunters posing as humans played by Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnusson, feel out of place. The filmmakers’ decision to transform them from animated form into human form just doesn’t work in the world of the film. Their oafish and exaggerated physical performances are too jarring in a real-world setting, and would have been better remaining as vocal performances accompanying animation onscreen.

    Their home planet, Planet Turo is spectacularly animated. Hannah Waddingham gives a wonderful vocal performance as the grand councilwoman and new a comedic character resembling a pink axolotl (an amphibious salamander), makes this film feel very of the moment, given the recent media interest in this strange little creature.

    The film ultimately falls down in the final act as the strands of story come together in an overly complicated way. Changes to the ending create a sluggish finale which lacks the emotional payoff of the original.

    Overall, though, the new Lilo and Stitch is a joyful summer adventure that offers plenty of fun for children. Every scene where Stitch is onscreen is delightful. A modern cinematic icon, he is largely unchanged from the original 2002 film. The film updates the original through masterful depiction of Stitch’s interactions with humans onscreen.

    Stitch’s successes as a character in the original film are replicated here – his narrative arc, his design, his voice and his behaviour. The essence of what made Stitch an icon remains.

    Where the film is lacking is in over-complication of plot. There’s nothing wrong with refreshing the plot, as long as the heart, pacing and charm of the original remain intact. Perhaps Disney should turn their focus to what audiences loved about the original films, and what made the stories and characters so memorable.

    So, could the live-action Lilo and Stitch reignite confidence in this burgeoning genre? If Disney recognises that returning to source material with a modern touch means upholding the central elements key to these films’ enduring legacy, then maybe it can. Just don’t mention Snow White. And the merchandising opportunities can’t hurt them either.

    Laura O’Flanagan 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. Lilo & Stitch: can Disney’s latest live-action animation remake reignite interest in the genre after Snow White box-office disaster? – https://theconversation.com/lilo-and-stitch-can-disneys-latest-live-action-animation-remake-reignite-interest-in-the-genre-after-snow-white-box-office-disaster-257281

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Lilo & Stitch: can Disney’s latest live-action animation remake reignite interest in the genre after Snow White box-office disaster?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura O’Flanagan, PhD Candidate, School of English, Dublin City University

    Lilo & Stitch (2025) is another release in a long line of “reimaginings” of Disney animated features. Described as “live-action” they rework animations with humans and real-life settings (and the occasional animated character). These, for the most part, have been lucrative and successful for the studio. However, Disney’s mining of their own back catalogue has also yielded controversy and backlash.

    Following the troubled release of Snow White earlier this year – a film that failed to recoup its $270m (£201m) budget – it was announced that the production of a live action version of Tangled had been put on hold. Could Lilo and Stitch reignite confidence in the commercial viability of Disney’s recent live-action trend?

    The animated Lilo & Stitch (2002) was a hit when it was released, earning US$273m (£204m) at the box office on its $80m budget. Stitch has become a symbol of the Disney corporation in the decades since the film was released, rivalling Mickey Mouse himself as the Disney mascot most merchandised around the world.

    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    The film seems like an obvious candidate for a live-action rendition. The trailers show Stitch unchanged. He is roguish, naughty, lovable, hilarious and full of personality. This begs the question: what is the point, then? The cynical response to this is lucrative merchandise. But cynicism has no place in Disney films, so let’s dive in.

    The live-action Lilo & Stitch recreates a lot of the charm of the original animated film from 2002. Stitch (the original creator and voice, Chris Sanders) is a chaotic monster, who, when exiled from his home planet, escapes to Earth where he joins Lilo’s family in Hawaii.

    Recently orphaned, six-year old Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and her older sister and guardian, Nani (Sydney Adugong) struggle to maintain family life, and face the prospect of being separated by a social worker (Tia Carrere). Stitch’s arrival creates new upheaval as Nani attempts to keep the family together.

    The film’s strengths lie in the ways in which it echoes the original film. Hawaii’s beaches and surf are stunning onscreen, and an animated Stitch blends flawlessly with his real-life surroundings as he creates a whirlwind of mayhem everywhere he goes.

    Newcomer Maia Kealoha shines as Lilo, and there is magic onscreen when she shares scenes with Stitch. Their adventures together possess an undeniable charm, representing the film’s most compelling and memorable moments. Children will be delighted by Stitch’s hilarious naughtiness, and his journey to understanding and acceptance is heartwarming and well-paced.

    The threat of familial separation is portrayed as nuanced, complicated and less apocalyptic than in the original animated film. The social worker played by Tia Carrere (who voiced Nani in the animation) is a warm and empathetic presence, and her interactions with Nani have gravity and credibility.

    Although this is a welcome change, these scenes lack the energy of the Lilo and Stitch hijinks. They do add a degree of depth, but ultimately slow the story down, making the emotional moments feel unearned and somewhat lacking.

    The other central adults in the film, two alien hunters posing as humans played by Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnusson, feel out of place. The filmmakers’ decision to transform them from animated form into human form just doesn’t work in the world of the film. Their oafish and exaggerated physical performances are too jarring in a real-world setting, and would have been better remaining as vocal performances accompanying animation onscreen.

    Their home planet, Planet Turo is spectacularly animated. Hannah Waddingham gives a wonderful vocal performance as the grand councilwoman and new a comedic character resembling a pink axolotl (an amphibious salamander), makes this film feel very of the moment, given the recent media interest in this strange little creature.

    The film ultimately falls down in the final act as the strands of story come together in an overly complicated way. Changes to the ending create a sluggish finale which lacks the emotional payoff of the original.

    Overall, though, the new Lilo and Stitch is a joyful summer adventure that offers plenty of fun for children. Every scene where Stitch is onscreen is delightful. A modern cinematic icon, he is largely unchanged from the original 2002 film. The film updates the original through masterful depiction of Stitch’s interactions with humans onscreen.

    Stitch’s successes as a character in the original film are replicated here – his narrative arc, his design, his voice and his behaviour. The essence of what made Stitch an icon remains.

    Where the film is lacking is in over-complication of plot. There’s nothing wrong with refreshing the plot, as long as the heart, pacing and charm of the original remain intact. Perhaps Disney should turn their focus to what audiences loved about the original films, and what made the stories and characters so memorable.

    So, could the live-action Lilo and Stitch reignite confidence in this burgeoning genre? If Disney recognises that returning to source material with a modern touch means upholding the central elements key to these films’ enduring legacy, then maybe it can. Just don’t mention Snow White. And the merchandising opportunities can’t hurt them either.

    Laura O’Flanagan 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. Lilo & Stitch: can Disney’s latest live-action animation remake reignite interest in the genre after Snow White box-office disaster? – https://theconversation.com/lilo-and-stitch-can-disneys-latest-live-action-animation-remake-reignite-interest-in-the-genre-after-snow-white-box-office-disaster-257281

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Did humans evolve to prefer religion? Research shows many atheists intuitively favour faith

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Will Gervais, Reader in Psychology, Brunel University of London

    Wikipedia, CC BY-SA

    Many atheists consider themselves to be highly rational people who rate evidence and analytical thinking above religion, superstition and intuition. They might even argue that atheism is the most rational worldview.

    But that doesn’t make them immune to having intuitive beliefs themselves. Science suggests the link between rationality and atheism is far weaker than is often assumed.

    A study my colleagues and I conducted, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that even avowed atheists in some of the most secular countries on Earth might intuitively prefer religion to atheism. We argue this new evidence challenges simplistic notions of global religious decline and the beginning of an “atheist age”.

    In his 2007 book, Breaking the Spell, the philosopher Daniel Dennett speculated that, although atheists lack belief in god(s), many of them may retain what he dubbed “belief in belief”. This is the impression that religious belief is a good thing, and the world would be better off with more of it.

    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.

    But is this true? Our research investigated belief in belief among around 3,800 people in eight of the world’s least religious countries: Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. To test for belief in belief, we turned to the “Knobe effect”, a task honed by experimental philosophers for evaluating judgements of morality and intent.

    The classic Knobe effect demonstration goes something like this. Imagine a CEO mulling a new policy for their company that will increase revenue, but will also harm the environment. The CEO declares that they don’t care one way or another about the environment, they care only for the bottom line. They adopt the policy, money is made, environmental harm occurs. Here’s the crucial question: did the CEO intentionally harm the environment?

    Most people (upwards of 80% in Knobe’s first demonstration) report that the CEO did, in fact, intentionally harm the environment. However, if people receive an identical vignette in which the environment is incidentally helped rather than harmed, people’s intuitions entirely reverse, with only around 20% of people thinking the CEO intended to help.

    This reveals a stark asymmetry, whereby people intuitively feel that harmful side effects are intentionally caused, whereas helpful ones are not.

    We presented participants with a modified Knobe effect vignette in which a journalist publishes a story that sells a lot of papers. The story either leads to more atheism in the world, or to more religious faith. Crucially, we asked our participants to rate whether the ensuing religious shifts were intentionally caused by the journalist.

    Vignettes used in experiment.
    Author, CC BY-SA

    So, would our participants view increasing societal atheism as more intentionally caused (like harming the environment) or incidental (like helping the environment)?

    Overall, our participants’ odds of rating the religious outcome as intentionally caused were about 40% higher when the news story created more atheists, as opposed to more believers. This effect persisted across most countries in our sample, and was even evident among participants who were themselves atheists.

    People are more likely to judge that a news story intentionally created atheists (purple) than believers (turquoise)
    Author, CC BY-SA

    Participants in the original Knobe effect studies viewed environmental pollution as an intentionally caused insult. Our participants intuitively viewed creating more atheists as similarly intentionally caused – a spiritual rather than environmental pollution, perhaps.

    This sounds a lot like belief in belief. Dennett illustrated this as suggesting “belief in God is a good state of affairs, something to be strongly encouraged and fostered wherever possible: If only belief in God were more widespread!”

    Why might intuitions favouring religion persist among atheists in some of the world’s least religious societies?

    10,000+ years of religion

    Over the past few decades, markers of religious commitment – self-reported religious attendance, belief in god(s), private prayer – have steadily declined in some parts of the world. This rapid secularisation stands against a backdrop of more than 10,000 years of potent religious influence.

    My recent book Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species asks how a species as historically religious as Homo sapiens could nonetheless have rising numbers of atheists. It ultimately provides important context for our new study’s results.

    A consideration of religion’s deep history gives us hints as to why belief in belief might exist among atheists in secular countries today. One prominent theory holds that religions may have helped unlock our species’ cooperative potential, allowing us to expand from our humble origins to become our planet’s dominant species.

    As religions reshaped our lives to boost cooperation, people increasingly came to view religion and morality as largely synonymous. Over cultural evolutionary time, the association between religious belief and moral goodness has become deeply culturally ingrained. This has left its trace on individual intuitions – as illustrated in the recent study by me and my co-authors and those by other researchers.

    Because religions have exerted tremendous influence on our societies for millennia, it would be genuinely surprising if some latent religious trace didn’t culturally linger as overt expressions of faith decline. Our newest results are consistent with this possibility.

    Belief may be wavering in many countries, but belief in belief persists, complicating any conclusion that we’ve truly entered an “atheist age”.

    Will Gervais has received funding from various organizations over the years, including The Leverhulme Trust and the John Templeton Foundation

    – ref. Did humans evolve to prefer religion? Research shows many atheists intuitively favour faith – https://theconversation.com/did-humans-evolve-to-prefer-religion-research-shows-many-atheists-intuitively-favour-faith-256391

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why the UK government is opposing universities on immigration

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chris Millward, Professor of Practice in Education Policy, University of Birmingham

    PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    The UK government has announced its plans for controlling immigration, and these include new rules for international students.

    The recent white paper on immigration proposes that most graduates will be allowed to stay in the UK for 18 months after their course finishes. This is six months less than currently permitted.

    There will be a higher bar for universities to sponsor visas, excluding those universities at which higher numbers of students fail to complete their courses. The white paper also proposes a 6% levy on universities’ income from international students.

    Universities think these changes will worsen their financial problems. However, this appears less important to the government than controlling immigration.

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    Universities are one of the UK’s strongest global assets, generating influence alongside export income. After the general election last year, science minister Peter Kyle vowed Labour would end what he termed the “war on universities” conducted by the previous Conservative government. That included a more welcoming approach to international students.

    One reason for the change in tone and policy signalled by the white paper is common to other popular destinations for international students: the rise of nationalist parties opposed to immigration. But there is another reason specific to the UK, which is the government’s aim to reform higher education.

    Politics and immigration

    Two weeks before the release of the immigration white paper, the Reform party secured control of ten local authorities across England, winning 677 seats. The party’s rising popularity will be of increasing concern to the Labour government.

    Reform is concerned about the effects of immigration on communities and wages. This affects international students because they figure within immigration statistics and increasingly stay for work.

    Like nationalist and anti-immigration parties in other countries, Reform also gains more support from voters without a university degree.

    In the US and Netherlands, similar movements have taken steps to reduce university funding and international students once in power. But these policies are not confined to nationalist parties.

    Canada and Australia’s Liberal and Labour governments also signalled caps on international student recruitment before their re-election earlier this year.

    This appears to be the strategy adopted by the UK’s Labour party – that it wants to assure voters who are more concerned about immigration than university finances.

    Higher education policy

    Alongside this, the government thinks employers are too reliant on migrant labour, and universities on international students. It wants them to focus more on developing the UK workforce. That requires employers to invest in skills development, and universities to provide courses that build crucial capabilities for the future.

    The white paper states that “at a time when skills matter more than ever to the economy and people’s employment prospects, there has been a long-term lack of coordination or investment to deliver the skills and capabilities our economy needs”.

    In England, coordinated higher education investment is difficult because most government funding is routed through loans to students. This encourages universities to meet demand from young people, which does not necessarily align with economic and public service priorities.

    After years of anaemic economic and productivity growth but repeated increases to the minimum wage, one-tenth of graduates now earn little more than that threshold.

    Higher education policy is increasingly focused on key skills.
    goodluz/Shutterstock

    In response, the last government encouraged young people to take apprenticeships rather than university degrees. It also allowed student maintenance loans and fees to decline in value in real terms.

    Universities filled the gap in their income with international students – particularly one-year taught postgraduates from Nigeria and India who often bring family members then stay for work. This made universities reliant on short-term income, while increasing immigration statistics.

    Changes to family visa rules, combined with a global economic downturn and geopolitical tensions, have led universities to forecast a 21% reduction in new international student entrants this year. And 44% of universities are expecting to be in financial deficit.

    Unlike its predecessor, the government accepts that UK student fees should increase with inflation, so has allowed this for the first time since 2017. But it wants a change from universities in return. Rather than relying on international students, they should make efficiencies and focus on courses that align with government priorities.

    In a system mostly financed by student fees, there are few levers for influencing this. The Office for Students, which regulates higher education, has been asked to focus on managing quality and financial risks rather than policy.

    Its funding for strategic priorities has been reduced. There are, though, three measures highlighted within the white paper that could become influential.

    First, the government is reforming the apprenticeships levy, so it can be used more flexibly for workforce development priorities. Second, the tightening of sponsorship rules aims to drive international recruitment towards courses supplying the highest levels of skills and knowledge. Third, the proposed levy on international student income equips the government to invest in priority courses, rather than relying on student choice.

    The first measure is already being implemented. A new organisation, Skills England, has been established to determine priorities for investment.

    This may include funds from the proposed levy on international student income, though the precedent of Australia suggests that may be difficult. Regardless, there is a mood in government for higher education reform.

    Chris Millward is a member of staff at the University of Birmingham. He is also a board member of MEDR, the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research in Wales, and a Trustee of the Academy of Social Sciences. All of these organisations are affected by the issues addressed in this article.

    – ref. Why the UK government is opposing universities on immigration – https://theconversation.com/why-the-uk-government-is-opposing-universities-on-immigration-256526

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre explores what its like being human in relation to other human beings

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Leigh Wilson, Professor of English Literature, University of Westminster

    The French writer Anne Serre has been very clear in interviews that she has no truck with a type of fiction that is fashionable in the UK at the moment. Readers drawn to fiction that blurs the line with autobiography – what Serre calls “the story of someone’s life, or of an episode in that life, passing itself off as a novel” – are, in her view, being “sold a lemon”.

    She is clear, too, about her reason: “The whole point of a novel should be that we don’t know who is speaking.” This seemingly simple claim undoes so much new fiction in English – fiction as memoir, fiction in the first person, autofiction in which you always know who is speaking.

    This feeling of Serre’s also underpins and invigorates A Leopard-Skin Hat, her fourth work, which has been translated by Mark Hutchinson and was nominated for the International Booker prize.

    Published in France in 2008 as Un chapeau léopard, A Leopard-Skin Hat is a novel about a friendship between its protagonists, a woman called Fanny and a man known throughout only as “the Narrator”. However, while he is a writer, he is not the narrator of this novel.

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    The narrator of A Leopard-Skin Hat is not named, although they do sometimes refer to themselves as “I”. Other than this, they are a mystery. What they tell us, though, is the story of Fanny and the Narrator’s friendship over 20 years, years during which the Narrator sees Fanny gradually lose the fight against madness (the novel’s word) and, in the end, death.

    We know early on that Fanny will die at the age of 43, that isn’t a mystery, but what the novel centres on is how mysterious others are to us, and how we narrate to try to understand people who are not us, but whom we love.

    What is most extraordinary about Serre’s novel is the way it shows us two friends doing very ordinary things – going out for dinner, going on holiday, walking in the countryside and swimming in lakes – but shows us through this the strangeness and complexity of friendship, love and of life.

    It’s not just the mysterious narrator, though, that distinguishes Serre’s novel from so many of the orthodoxies of contemporary fiction in English. Against the advice of every creative writing course, A Leopord-Skin Hat tells rather than shows.

    It is largely written in the tense that in English is known as the past habitual, which uses the conditional or a description of what used to happen. What the narrator tells us is hardly ever rooted in “scenes”, where we enter into the present of the world of the novel and listen to characters talking to each other. Describing Fanny’s pilfering of the titular leopard-skin hat, for example, we are told: “She would tell you about the theft with the amused and somewhat shamefaced air of a little girl and, were she to put on the hat, would resemble the woman she might have been”.

    There is no dialogue in the novel until the last two pages. Its use of the past habitual and the almost absence of dialogue could make for a coolness or a lack of emotional engagement, but its effect is the opposite.

    The narrative position is not tricksy. Actually, the best writing that experiments with narrative position – from Virginia Woolf, through W.G. Sebald to Lucy Ellman’s Ducks, Newburyport – does so in order to represent as faithfully as possible what it is like to be a human being in relation to other human beings. At the centre of such experiments is the question, how can we know other people?

    While Fanny’s death is the melancholy heart of the novel, in its final, amazing chapter – which switches from the past habitual to the present tense – the narrator recounts Fanny’s experiences after death, as the narrator character cannot, and as only the unknown narrators of novels can. As she ascends into the sky, Fanny becomes Fanny:

    Here she is, then, continuing her ascent, her hand still on her head, her blue eyes wide open and inhabited at last. Inhabited by someone who nobody ever saw on earth, I can assure you. Someone not unlike the woman in the leopard-skin hat, only better; less mysterious, fully present from head to toe. For the first time in I don’t know how long, Fanny is once again the woman she used to be.

    The unknown narrators of novels can tell us who other people really are; we can never know that ourselves. All we can do is read novels and love those other people anyway.

    Leigh Wilson 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. A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre explores what its like being human in relation to other human beings – https://theconversation.com/a-leopard-skin-hat-by-anne-serre-explores-what-its-like-being-human-in-relation-to-other-human-beings-257167

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the UK-EU deal turns the page on Brexit – and what happens next

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Magdalena Frennhoff Larsén, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster

    At their first bilateral summit since Brexit, UK and EU leaders set out a range of areas they will seek to forge closer ties. European Council President António Costa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hailed the agreement as a historic landmark deal that opens a new chapter in the EU-UK relationship.

    But it is only the beginning of – potentially long – negotiations to thrash out the details of closer cooperation in areas like trade, youth mobility and energy.

    As the two parties sit down at the negotiating table, they will, for the first time since Brexit, agree on how to make trade and cooperation easier. For example, one anticipated agreement will align UK food safety and animal health standards with those of the EU, thereby removing the need for most border checks and ease the flow of agriculture and food products between the two parties. And the expected youth mobility scheme will allow young people to travel, work and study in the EU and the UK for a limited period of time.

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    The looming negotiations will be relatively narrow in scope. The Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement still provide the basis for the EU-UK relationship. The UK is not compromising on its red lines of not joining the single market, the customs union or allowing free movement of people.

    The negotiations will consequently not fundamentally alter the current relationship. While the impact of the agreements may be significant for specific sectors, the overall economic impact is expected to be relatively modest.

    This is not to say that the upcoming negotiations will be easy or void of controversies. Over the next months, negotiators will have to agree on quotas, time limits, exceptions and financial contributions. Compromises and trade-offs will have to be found.

    There will be domestic resistance on both sides. Concerns have already emerged that France might oppose the participation of British defence companies in EU defence procurement programmes.

    And in the UK, critics argue that the decision to dynamically align UK rules and standards with those of the EU in certain sectors will make the country a rule-taker once again.

    But the answer to the question on many people’s minds: “Will this bring us back to all those years of difficult and protracted Brexit negotiations?” is no – this time around, things are different.

    In comparison with the Brexit negotiations, these negotiations should be far easier and swifter. They are less consequential and backed by strong political will from both sides.

    Recent polling indicates that both Britons and EU citizens favour a closer relationship between the UK and the EU.

    The agreement reached at the summit is seen as the first concrete manifestation of Starmer’s long sought-after reset of the relationship.

    Moving on

    The Brexit negotiations focused on establishing less cooperation compared with when the UK was a member of the EU. It was a question of addressing increasing barriers to trade and cooperation – something many perceived as a lose-lose situation. The upcoming negotiations, on the other hand, are seen to lead towards a win-win reset of relations. The parties enter the negotiations with a mindset of finding solutions that increase trade and facilitate cooperation.

    The UK is now negotiating as an independent, sovereign country. During the Brexit negotiations the UK was an EU member (or a closely aligned former member in the case of the negotiations of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement).

    It was thus important for the EU to make the benefits of membership clear and to discourage other members from leaving. As a result, it drove a hard bargain and the UK had limited influence on the negotiations.

    However, unlike the UK – where Brexit has never fully disappeared from the political debate – the EU moved on quickly after Brexit. In Brussels, many now consider the UK an independent but like-minded strategic partner.

    This is seen not least in the area of security, where the two parties agreed on a security and defence partnership. They set out a framework for closer cooperation in areas of joint interest, such as sanctions, information sharing and cybersecurity, and allowing them to better respond to shared global challenges and uncertainties.

    Zooming out, the geopolitical picture has changed dramatically since the Brexit negotiations. With the war in Ukraine and the resulting instability in Europe, combined with the shifting priorities of US foreign policy, there is now an even greater need for EU-UK cooperation.

    Magdalena Frennhoff Larsén 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 the UK-EU deal turns the page on Brexit – and what happens next – https://theconversation.com/how-the-uk-eu-deal-turns-the-page-on-brexit-and-what-happens-next-257158

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Continuing to seek Chinese investment in the UK comes at a heavy political price

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jeffrey Henderson, Professor Emeritus of International Development, University of Bristol

    Steel blast furnaces in Scunthorpe, UK. Baxter Media/Shutterstock

    One major consequence of the UK government’s resistance to rejoining the European single market is that it is forced to go around the world seeking trade deals and investment.

    Recently, the government has boasted of successful arrangements with India, the US, and some new agreements with the EU. But it has also found itself courting one highly dubious suitor.

    Since the chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, went to Beijing in January 2025, the government has been focusing much of its attention on China. And while investment from the world’s second-largest economy is fairly unproblematic in a few sectors (some services and domestic real estate, for example), other areas are a cause for concern.

    Relying on Chinese money to support key sectors such as steel, telecommunications, advanced electronics, power and transport – all vital for Britain’s economic and geopolitical security – is potentially dangerous.

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    Yet it has been going on for years. Efforts to secure funding by a previous Conservative government even allowed state-owned Chinese companies to invest in the UK’s nuclear future, despite considerable criticism from the likes of MI5 and the British military.

    Then there was the 2017 acquisition by a Chinese state-backed private equity firm of cutting-edge semi-conductor company, Imagination Technologies. Subsequent concerns over the leaking of its intellectual property prompted a parliamentary enquiry into foreign corporate asset-stripping.

    British Steel was also a target. Sold in 2019, it is now owned by a private company, Jingye, which in April 2025 moved to shut down operations at its Scunthorpe site by not supplying the raw materials required for its blast furnaces.

    In response, the UK government took emergency control of production in a scramble to stop the furnaces from going cold.

    That incident should have served as an urgent reminder to the government that it needs to be wary of the effect Chinese companies can have on the UK.

    Early signs, however, are not reassuring. Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds commented that Jingye was not acting in the “rational way” he would expect of a company in a market economy.

    But the government should know that when it comes to strategic decision-making, Chinese companies do not operate in ways that others consider rational. Put simply, they are not comparable to their equivalents in Britain or other liberal-market economies – because they are effectively controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    According to the CCP’s data, by 2017 it had established a formal presence inside 92% of larger private companies and 73% of all private companies in China. Those figures will certainly be higher now. And, as with the digital-technology firm Huawei, senior CCP members are often on a company’s boards of directors.

    So, while Jingye almost eliminated British Steel as a viable company, it can be reasonably assumed that a decision of such strategic and geopolitical importance would not have been taken by Jingye’s executives alone. They would have been “guided” by the CCP.

    Influence and infrastructure

    And of course, it’s not just steel production the UK should be concerned about. Chinese ownership now extends across many vital sectors.

    There’s the Chinese state-owned company, Beijing Construction Engineering helping to build a new science and innovation park next to Manchester airport. And the private Hong Kong company, CK Infrastructure which owns water companies serving north-east England, Essex and Suffolk.

    China Investment Corporation (state-owned) owns part of Heathrow, while China Huaneng (state-owned) operates Europe’s largest battery storage facility in Wiltshire. Meanwhile, wind turbine producer Mingyang (privately owned and reputedly linked to the Chinese military) is the preferred bidder for a new Scottish wind farm, despite being barred from a similar Norwegian development.

    All of these companies, irrespective of formal ownership, are likely to be subject to varying degrees of CCP influence and control (comment on the issue from Chinese companies is rare). And successive UK governments have either failed to appreciate the implications of this, or have accepted it as the price of gaining greater access to the Chinese market – especially for London’s financial sector.

    This was almost certainly a factor behind China’s involvement in the building of Hinkley Point’s new nuclear power station, and was at the forefront in Rachel Reeves’s discussions with the Chinese government earlier this year.

    Separately, Chinese investment in non-strategic sectors is much less controversial. One private conglomerate (Fosun) owns the Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers and formerly owned Thomas Cook.

    But the lesson from the British Steel fiasco is clear. We are now in a world where the political interests of major states trump the economic interests of their business corporations. Geopolitics takes precedence over geoeconomics.

    Consequently, Chinese firms – regardless of ownership status – should be barred from industries vital to the UK’s economic and political security. Anything less risks subordinating British interests to those of the Chinese Communist Party.

    Funding from European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), for the China in Europe Research Network, contributed to the research on which this article is based.

    – ref. Continuing to seek Chinese investment in the UK comes at a heavy political price – https://theconversation.com/continuing-to-seek-chinese-investment-in-the-uk-comes-at-a-heavy-political-price-255340

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Canadian Business Delegation Visits Denver, Colorado to Promote Cross-Border Trade, Investment and Innovation

    Source: US State of Colorado

    DENVER — A delegation of more than a dozen public, private, and nonprofit leaders from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, is visiting Denver this week as part of a strategic trade and investment mission designed to strengthen economic ties between Colorado and Saskatchewan. 

    Led by Economic Development Regina (EDR), in partnership with the Global Business Development division within Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade (OEDIT), Denver Economic Development & Opportunity (DEDO), and Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the visit comes at a pivotal moment for North American trade and innovation. 

    “Colorado is proud to be hosting leaders from Regina and Saskatchewan Canada to continue strengthening our economic and social partnerships and protect both nations key industries from Trump’s reckless tariffs. I recently celebrated Colorado Canada Friendship Day, and worked with our neighbors to the north to solidify Colorado’s commitment to fostering healthy and beneficial trade relations to support both our growing and diverse economies,” said Governor Jared Polis. 

    The mission follows the celebration of Colorado Canada Friendship Day in March and coincides with the launch of new daily, non-stop United Airlines service between Regina and Denver, creating a direct link between Denver’s thriving economy and Saskatchewan’s capital – a hub for agriculture innovation, traditional and renewable energy, advanced manufacturing and supply chain connectivity into Western Canada. 

    Canada is already Colorado’s largest import and export partner. Colorado exports to Canada have grown at an average annual rate of 5.8% over the last five years, reaching $1.8 billion in 2023, while importing $5.5 billion from Canada. Colorado and Saskatchewan also enjoy a strong economic relationship, with more than $220.1 million in goods flowing between the two jurisdictions in the past year. 

    “At a time of growing trade uncertainty, cities like Denver and Regina can play a vital role in promoting open, collaborative economic relationships,” EDR CEO Chris Lane said. “This mission is about building connections, exploring business and investment opportunities, and growing together in sectors where our economies align.” 

    Denver-based organizations and investors stand to gain from enhanced access to Regina’s fast-growing agri-business sector, clean energy projects, and a workforce known for engineering, logistics, and manufacturing innovation. Conversely, Denver’s leadership in sustainability, post-secondary research, and global commerce presents important collaboration opportunities for Saskatchewan innovators. 

    During the visit, the host agencies will show off many of the things that contribute to Denver’s vibrant economy. Highlights include: 

    • A Leadership Roundtable and reception bringing together business leaders, post-secondary institutions, and trade agencies;
    • Active participation in World Trade Day, Colorado’s premier international business event;
    • Visits to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Colorado State University’s SPUR campus, exploring shared research interests in clean tech and food systems;
    • A WorldDenver Premier Briefing on U.S.-Canada economic relations. 

    “Colorado’s strong relationship with Canada supports trade, foreign direct investment and tourism between the two regions, supporting business growth and expansion as well as job creation. We are thrilled to welcome our partners from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada and celebrate the new nonstop flight that will strengthen our relationship and economic development opportunities,” said Eve Lieberman, Executive Director of OEDIT. 

    “Denver is honored to welcome a distinguished delegation from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Our cities share much in common. We are both located in the heartlands of our nations, aligned in time zones that make collaboration seamless, and we’re both dynamic centers for innovation in emerging industries like Agtech. With United Airlines’ new nonstop flight connecting Denver and Regina, we are excited to deepen our friendship with our Canadian neighbors. We look forward to continued collaboration and building an even stronger relationship in the years ahead,” said DEDO’s Global Director, Stephanie Garnica. 

    “This delegation reflects the kind of intentional, cross-border collaboration that drives innovation and economic growth on both sides of the border,” said Raymond H. Gonzales, President of the Metro Denver EDC. “Colorado and Saskatchewan share strengths in advanced manufacturing, clean energy, ag-tech, and workforce excellence. By connecting our ecosystems through direct air service and strategic partnerships, we’re accelerating opportunities for shared prosperity.” 

    The Regina delegation includes representatives from the Government of Saskatchewan, the Regina Airport Authority, the University of Regina, Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership, Canadian Western Agribition, Regina Chamber of Commerce, Regina Hotel Association, City of Moose Jaw, Global Transportation Hub and Saskatchewan-based manufacturing businesses. 

    About the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade 

    The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) works to empower all to thrive in Colorado’s economy. Under the leadership of the Governor and in collaboration with economic development partners across the state, we foster a thriving business environment through funding and financial programs, training, consulting and informational resources across industries and regions. We promote economic growth and long-term job creation by recruiting, retaining, and expanding Colorado businesses and providing programs that support entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes at every stage of growth. Our goal is to protect what makes our state a great place to live, work, start a business, raise a family, visit and retire—and make it accessible to everyone. Learn more about OEDIT. 

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Stein’s Statement on the House Budget Proposal

    Source: US State of North Carolina

    Headline: Governor Stein’s Statement on the House Budget Proposal

    Governor Stein’s Statement on the House Budget Proposal
    lsaito

    Raleigh, NC

    Today Governor Josh Stein released the following statement on the NC House budget proposal:

    “The House’s proposed budget isn’t perfect. But I am pleased that the House raises teacher pay to make North Carolina’s starting teacher salaries the second-highest in the Southeast and rewards our state employees with a raise. The House budget also makes important investments in public safety, child care, and workforce training. Importantly, the House budget cuts taxes for working families while recognizing that North Carolina is a growing state and reduces personal income tax rates after this year only when the economy is growing. In contrast, the Senate’s fiscally irresponsible revenue scheme will result in fewer teachers and law enforcement officers and diminished services that would harm our people.

    “There is more work to be done to ensure our state invests in North Carolina’s most valuable resource: our people. I look forward to working with the House and Senate to negotiate a budget that supports teachers, law enforcement, state employees, and critical services and infrastructure. That’s how we’ll build a North Carolina that is safer, stronger, and more prosperous with opportunity for every person.” 

    May 21, 2025

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: Best Betting Apps in Texas – BetWhale Picked As the Top TX Sportsbook Mobile App

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    New York City, May 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —

    In Texas, sports aren’t just entertainment—they’re a way of life. Texans wear their team loyalties like badges of honor, proudly supporting everything from Friday night high school football under stadium lights to major league events packed with screaming fans. 

    JOIN THE BEST BETTING APP IN TEXAS: BETWHALE

    Although Texas has historically maintained strict regulations on gambling, passionate sports fans have turned to online betting apps to add even more excitement to the games they love. Betting apps in Texas have opened a thrilling new dimension for sports enthusiasts eager to test their predictions and expertise while potentially earning some extra cash.

    What Makes BetWhale the Best Betting App in Texas

    When evaluating betting apps in Texas, BetWhale clearly stands out. Several features contribute to its unmatched popularity among Texans:

    Generous Bonuses

    BetWhale offers a highly competitive welcome bonus, rewarding new users with a 125% bonus up to $1,250 on their first deposit. Regular promotions and loyalty programs further enhance the user experience, providing consistent value to bettors.

    Comprehensive Sports Coverage

    The app provides extensive coverage of major sports such as NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and collegiate sports. Additionally, BetWhale includes niche markets like MMA, esports, international soccer leagues, and even entertainment and political betting, catering to a diverse betting audience.

    Seamless User Experience

    BetWhale’s intuitive platform ensures easy navigation across all devices. Quick-loading pages, clearly displayed odds, and streamlined bet placements create a hassle-free experience for both new and experienced bettors.

    Live Betting and Streaming

    One of BetWhale’s standout features is its live betting platform. Real-time odds adjustments, comprehensive live betting markets, and streaming of selected sports events significantly heighten the excitement and engagement of betting in real-time.

    Security and Reliability

    The app employs advanced encryption technology and secure payment gateways, ensuring user data and transactions are safe. Quick, reliable transactions paired with responsive customer support further solidify its appeal.

    TAKE THE 125% BONUS AT BETWHALE

    Why Texans Love to Bet on Sports

    Texans don’t just casually follow sports; they live and breathe them. Their deep cultural and community ties to teams—from high school through professional leagues—make sports betting a natural extension of their sports fandom. Betting apps in Texas capitalize on this passion by offering a wide variety of betting options tailored to local interests, ensuring Texans can engage fully with the excitement of each sporting event.

    This passion translates into significant betting engagement throughout the year, peaking around major events, championships, and rivalry games. The sheer variety of sports and teams ensures that there is always action available on Texas betting apps, providing continuous excitement and opportunities to win.

    How to Join Texas Betting Apps

    Joining betting apps in Texas, such as BetWhale, is simple and hassle-free. Here’s a step-by-step guide to ensure a smooth registration and betting process:

    1. Choose a Reputable Betting App

    Your first step should always involve selecting a secure and trusted betting app that accepts Texas residents. BetWhale is highly recommended due to its robust security, diverse betting markets, user-friendly interface, and reliable customer service.

    2. Complete the Registration Form

    Once you’ve chosen the right app, click the “Join” or “Register” button prominently featured on the homepage. A registration form will appear, requiring you to fill in essential personal details accurately. It’s essential to double-check your information for accuracy to avoid potential verification issues later.

    3. Account Verification Process

    After registering your account, betting apps like BetWhale will require verification to ensure compliance with regulatory standards and to protect your account from unauthorized access. 

    Typically, this involves providing a clear image or scan of your government-issued ID, such as a driver’s license, passport, or state ID and supplying a recent utility bill, bank statement, or official document showing your current residential address clearly and accurately.

    4. Deposit Funds into Your Betting Account

    Once your account is verified, the next step is depositing funds to place bets. Betting apps in Texas, including BetWhale, typically offer various convenient and secure payment methods such as credit/debit cards, e-wallets, and prepaid cards. 

    Select your preferred payment method, enter the amount you wish to deposit, and follow the instructions provided. Deposits are usually processed instantly, allowing you to start betting immediately.

    5. Placing Bets on Your Favorite Sports

    With funds securely in your account, you’re now ready to start placing bets. Navigate through the intuitive user interface provided by BetWhale or your chosen app to explore various sports and markets available.

    Most Popular Sports Texans Bet On

    Texans have a deeply ingrained passion for sports, and this passion translates directly into enthusiastic betting activity. Betting apps in Texas see robust action, especially around sports that resonate deeply with local pride. Here’s an expanded breakdown of the most popular sports Texans love betting on:

    Football: King of Texas Sports

    In Texas, football isn’t just a sport—it’s a cultural phenomenon. Whether it’s the thrilling atmosphere of Friday Night Lights at local high school stadiums or the grandeur of Sunday afternoons with NFL action, Texans are deeply invested in football. The betting activity surrounding football peaks dramatically during the season.

    NFL Football

    Dallas Cowboys: Known affectionately as “America’s Team,” the Cowboys boast one of the largest fanbases in the United States. Texans bet extensively on Cowboys games, especially rivalry matchups against NFC East opponents such as the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, and Washington Commanders.

    Houston Texans: Despite their comparatively younger history, the Texans have quickly developed a dedicated following, with bettors consistently wagering on their games, particularly intra-division clashes in the AFC South against rivals like the Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans.

    College Football

    Texas Longhorns (University of Texas at Austin): With an iconic burnt orange and white color scheme and the famous “Hook ’em Horns” chant, the Longhorns command statewide loyalty. High-profile games against rivals such as Oklahoma in the Red River Showdown or matchups against Texas Tech and Baylor see intense betting activity.

    Texas A&M Aggies: Aggie pride runs deep in College Station. Betting on Aggies games, especially against SEC powerhouses like Alabama and LSU, captures significant attention throughout the season.

    Football consistently remains the top choice among betting apps in Texas, with considerable excitement and betting volume accompanying major events such as the NFL playoffs, College Football Playoff, and bowl games.

    Basketball: Texas’ Second Love

    Basketball, both professional and collegiate, also attracts extensive betting attention across Texas. Enthusiasm peaks during playoff seasons and March Madness, drawing large numbers of sports bettors to the apps.

    NBA Basketball

    Houston Rockets: With a history of championship success in the ’90s, Rockets games remain popular betting events, especially during playoff contention years.

    Dallas Mavericks: Led historically by stars such as Dirk Nowitzki and now Luka Dončić, the Mavericks have a robust following that fuels betting activity throughout the season, spiking significantly during playoff runs.

    San Antonio Spurs: Known for their consistent excellence and championship pedigree under legendary coach Gregg Popovich, the Spurs have maintained a loyal betting fanbase that actively engages during critical playoff matchups.

    College Basketball

    Texans don’t limit their basketball enthusiasm to the professional ranks. March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament, sees heightened interest, especially when local teams participate:

    Baylor Bears: Recent successes, including their 2021 national championship win, have elevated Baylor’s profile and significantly increased betting engagement during tournament seasons.

    Texas Tech Red Raiders: A recent powerhouse in college basketball, their strong showings in tournaments have translated directly into heightened betting interest across Texas betting apps.

    Baseball: Texas’ Summer Tradition

    Baseball remains a cherished tradition throughout Texas, particularly during the warm months, and Texans enthusiastically wager on their beloved MLB teams.

    Houston Astros: The Astros’ recent World Series victories and consistent playoff appearances have propelled them into a national spotlight. Their postseason games, especially matchups against rivals such as the New York Yankees, consistently draw high betting volumes.

    Texas Rangers: Playing out of Arlington, the Rangers maintain a passionate fan base. During strong competitive seasons or playoffs, Rangers games generate considerable betting interest statewide.

    Major League Baseball betting peaks dramatically in Texas during postseason play, as the excitement surrounding the playoffs and World Series leads to increased betting activity.

    Factors to Consider When Choosing Texas Betting Apps

    Selecting the right betting app in Texas involves more than just picking the first platform that appears attractive. It’s essential to examine specific aspects that can significantly impact your betting experience. Here’s a detailed exploration of key factors you should consider:

    Licensing and Security

    The cornerstone of a reliable betting app is its adherence to strict licensing and robust security protocols. Choosing a betting app that operates under credible licensing authorities ensures you’re dealing with a trustworthy provider that complies with international gambling standards.

    Betting Markets and Odds

    Another critical factor when choosing betting apps in Texas is the breadth and depth of available betting markets, along with the competitiveness of odds provided.

    Ideal apps provide comprehensive coverage across a wide variety of sports including major leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB), collegiate sports, international soccer, horse racing, and niche markets like esports and MMA. Extensive market coverage allows you to explore different betting opportunities and diversify your wagering.

    Betting odds directly impact your potential winnings. Choosing apps that consistently offer attractive, competitive odds can significantly increase your potential returns. It’s beneficial to compare odds across various platforms to determine which app frequently provides the best value, particularly in popular markets like football or basketball.

    User-Friendly Interface

    A well-designed, user-friendly interface can markedly improve your betting experience, making it easier and more enjoyable to engage with sports betting regularly.

    Apps that feature intuitive navigation allow users to quickly locate their favorite sports, markets, and betting options without confusion. Clear, organized menus and fast-loading pages are key aspects of superior app design.

    Payment Options

    The availability and reliability of multiple payment methods significantly influence the convenience and practicality of any betting app in Texas. A good betting app should provide a wide range of secure payment methods. 

    Commonly used options include:

    • Credit/Debit Cards: Visa, MasterCard, and American Express are standard for quick and straightforward deposits.
    • E-Wallets: Payment systems like PayPal, Skrill, Neteller, and ecoPayz offer speedy, secure, and discreet transactions.
    • Prepaid Cards: Options such as Paysafecard allow deposits without the necessity of linking directly to a personal bank account or credit card.
    • Bank Transfers: Direct bank transfers offer a secure option for larger transactions, albeit with slightly longer processing times compared to other methods.

    Customer Service

    High-quality customer support can dramatically influence your betting experience, especially when resolving technical issues or answering account-related questions promptly.

    Efficient, responsive customer service is essential for addressing queries or issues swiftly. Top-tier betting apps in Texas usually offer customer support that is quick to respond, typically within minutes via live chat and within a few hours via email.

    A reputable betting app should provide multiple customer support channels, including live chat, email, phone support, and FAQ pages.

    Place Bets at the Top Texas Betting Apps

    When choosing betting apps in Texas, considering these factors in detail ensures you select a reliable, user-friendly, and enjoyable betting platform. Evaluating licensing and security, betting markets and odds, app usability, payment methods, and customer support quality will collectively guide you toward an app that enhances your sports betting experience.

    Making the right choice not only offers security and convenience but also greatly enhances the enjoyment and potential profitability of sports betting activities in Texas.

    Editorial Note

    This article is provided solely for informational and entertainment purposes. Nothing within should be interpreted as legal, financial, or professional advice. Readers should carry out their own research before participating in any gambling activities or signing up with any online casinos mentioned. 

    Gambling Caution

    Online gambling comes with financial risks and may lead to addictive behavior or monetary loss. We urge all readers to gamble responsibly. If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, professional help is available. The National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) can be contacted at 1-800-522-4700 or visited online at www.ncpgambling.org.

    21+ only. It is up to each individual to verify whether online gambling is permitted under their local, state, or federal laws. Neither the publisher, the authors, nor any syndication partners condone or support unlawful gambling. Participation in online gambling is done at the reader’s own discretion and risk.

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