Source: United States Senator for Virginia Tim Kaine
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) announced $15,250,000 in federal funding to address sea level rise and expand flood resiliency in Virginia Beach and on Tangier Island.
“Coastal Virginia has long been identified as one of the most vulnerable regions of the country to flooding, but thanks to smart federal investments, we’re not just worrying about it anymore—we’re doing something about it,” said the senators. “We’re proud to announce this funding to advance a citywide plan for flood resilient infrastructure in Virginia Beach and to take a significant step forward in slowing erosion of Tangier Island and restoring it to its historical dimensions to preserve this unique part of Virginia. We will keep working to improve resiliency and combat climate change throughout the Commonwealth.”
The funding is broken down as follows:
$10,300,000 for Tangier Island for maintenance dredging and shoal removal within navigation channels in the Chesapeake Bay. The dredged material will be used to address persistent erosion and will be part of a plan to eventually restore the island.
$4,950,000 for the Virginia Beach and Vicinity Coastal Storm Risk Management Study. The Coastal Storm Risk Management Study will develop and engineer large-scale flood resilience projects to reduce flood vulnerability for the City of Virginia Beach.
Warner and Kaine have long worked to secure significant federal funding to increase resiliency and protect Virginia’s coastal communities from the impacts of sea level rise. The senators previously secured $1.9 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Fiscal Year 2024 government funding bill for the Virginia Beach and Vicinity Coastal Storm Risk Management Study. Warner and Kaine secured $800,000 in the Fiscal Years 2023 and 2024 government funding bills for studying and permitting the use of dredged material to be used to help Tangier address sea level rise and recurrent coastal flooding and storms. The senators have also secured nearly $399 million for the Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk Management project and $3 million for the Peninsula Regional Flood Risk Management feasibility study for the City of Hampton and the surrounding region.
Jefferson City — Today, during a ceremony at the Missouri State Capitol, Missouri National Guard Adjutant General Charles D. Hausman was promoted to the rank of Major General.
“This promotion is a testament to Major General Hausman’s remarkable leadership, dedication, and unwavering commitment to our state and nation,” said Governor Kehoe. “In the months since General Hausman assumed command, he has led Missouri’s soldiers and airmen at home and abroad through both day-to-day trainings and missions to their vital assistance with multiple rounds of winter storms and flooding across the state. On behalf of all Missourians, congratulations to General Hausman and the Hausman family on this well-deserved promotion.”
Governor Kehoe selected Major General Hausman as the next Adjutant General of the Missouri National Guard on January 8, 2025, and he took command on February 1. With over 36 years of service in the Missouri National Guard, the General has an extensive military career with a high level of expertise in operational leadership, military strategy, and interagency coordination.
“It is an honor and privilege to be entrusted with this responsibility,” General Hausman said. “Leading the exceptional soldiers and airmen of the Missouri National Guard as we carry out our mission of serving the people of Missouri and this great nation is the honor of a lifetime.”
General Hausman enlisted in the Army Reserve in 1988, joined the Missouri National Guard in 1989, and transferred to Aviation in 1993. He has commanded at every level from company to brigade and held key staff positions such as Executive Officer of the 35th Combat Aviation Brigade, Deputy Director of Manpower and Personnel of Joint Force Headquarters, Deputy Commander of 70th Troop Command, and Director of Aviation and Safety of Joint Force Headquarters.
In addition to his assignments within the United States and Missouri, General Hausman has had several assignments abroad including in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan.
A seasoned aviation officer and combat veteran, he has earned multiple military awards including the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit with bronze oak leaf cluster, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with three bronze oak leaf clusters, Air Medal with Numeral Two, and the Master Army Aviator Badge. He is qualified in the TH-67, UH-1 Huey, AH-1 Cobra, AH-64D Apache, and is qualified as an instructor pilot in the OH-58A/C and AH-64A Apache.
The General received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aviation Technology from the University of Central Missouri in 1991 and a Master of Science degree in Aviation Safety from the University of Central Missouri in 1993. He completed a Master of Arts degree in National Security and Strategic Studies through the United States Naval War College in 2015.
General Hausman is a native of Saint Joseph, Missouri, and currently resides in Jefferson City with his wife, Julie, and has two adult children, Alex and Libby.
Pictures of the promotion ceremony will be available on Governor Kehoe’s Flickr page.
Mexican beauty influencer Valeria Marquez was shot dead during a TikTok livestream.@V___marquez / Instagram
Valeria Marquez, a beauty influencer, was shot dead by a man on May 14 while live streaming on TikTok at her beauty salon in the Mexican city of Guadalajara. The authorities are investigating the case as a suspected femicide, where women or girls are killed on account of their gender.
The killing of Marquez is part of a gender-based violence epidemic that has gripped Latin America for decades. The threat of such violence there is so severe that in 2020, as the world battled COVID, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, called it a “shadow pandemic”.
The situation in Mexico is especially alarming. A 2021 report by Amnesty International found that at least ten women or girls are murdered in the country every day. The report added that the authorities have largely proved unwilling to take action to stop the killing.
On the surface, Mexico has made significant strides in improving gender equality. Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo became the first woman to be elected as Mexico’s president in 2024. There are also several female governors heading powerful Mexican provinces, and female political leadership can be found in great numbers in regional and municipal bodies.
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But despite the visible presence of women in public life, parts of Mexican society remain deeply sexist. Researchers see the prevalence of machismo, a culture that encourages an extreme sense of masculine pride, as having facilitated male dominance over women.
Femicide in Mexico became particularly rife in the 1990s. The introduction of the North American free trade agreement saw many factories producing goods for export set up near Mexico’s border with the US. These factories are known as maquiladoras.
The emergence of maquiladoras created low-skilled job opportunities. And a generation of women sought economic freedom by working in the factories. By 2006, more than half of the workers at maquiladoras were women, largely the result of their comparatively low wage demands.
While this culture shift allowed women greater economic autonomy, it also created deep resentment from some men. A spate of murders were carried out in the Mexican border city Ciudad Juárez in the 1990s, which claimed the lives of roughly 400 women.
Research has established a connection between female employment in the maquiladoras and the consequent rise in femicide in Mexican border towns. Many of the women killed in Ciudad Juárez worked in the maquiladoras.
Some people also point to the fact that the culture of male chauvinism in Mexico – and throughout Latin America more broadly – is pervasive.
When the Mexican government in 2020 established a hotline to report issues of domestic abuse and violence against women in the country, it was flooded by tens of thousands of reports. But when journalists asked the then president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, about this figure he brushed it aside: “90% of those calls that you’re referring to are fake.”
Culture of impunity
Gender-based violence in Mexico and in large parts of Latin America does not exist solely because of the culture of extreme masculinity. It also thrives because of institutional failure to bring the perpetrators to justice.
There are robust laws and regulations to protect women against abuse in Latin America. The inter-American convention on the prevention, punishment and eradication of violence against women, signed in the Brazilian city of Belém in 1994, is a good example.
It was adopted by all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, formalising violence against women as a violation of their human rights. However, despite the presence of this legal framework, there has not been a corresponding decline in rates of femicide.
Criminal impunity is one of the greatest hindrances to addressing the issue of femicide throughout the region. In Mexico, for example, more than 90% of all crimes go unsolved. And in Brazil, many cases of violence against women go unreported.
When they are reported, the victims and their families often face obstacles in the judicial system. Despite a 39% increase in the number of femicide cases in Brazil from 2019 to 2020, the sentencing for this crime only increased by 24%.
According to a World Bank report from 2023, there is an institutional complicity in perpetrating violence against women in Honduras. The report alleges that the country’s national police force “turn a blind eye to the soaring number of femicides”.
Similarly, according to Diana Portal, of the ombudsman’s office in Peru, femicide in the country is spiralling out of control because the negligent state machinery is incapable of addressing the issue. Consequently, criminals feel they can “rape, disappear or kill a woman without consequence”.
Latin America and the Caribbean has never had a dearth of female public figures. The region has had more than a dozen female leaders as of 2025. Argentina, Brazil and Chile have recently had female heads of state, while Peru, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico currently have female presidents. Mexico’s patron saint, Virgen de Guadalupe, is also a woman.
However, the presence of these high-profile figures in public life has not deterred sections of society from targeting women with violence.
Incensed by the culture of impunity and male chauvinism that perpetuates femicide in Latin America, the late Pope Francis denounced the practice. In a visit to Peru in 2018, he said violence against women cannot be treated as “normal”. “It is not right for us to look the other way and let the dignity of so many women, especially young women, be trampled upon.”
Unfortunately, despite the moral homily contained in his message, Latin America has been utterly incapable of addressing this subculture of gender violence.
Amalendu Misra is a recipient of Nuffield Foundation and British Academy fellowships.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cassie Brummitt, Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies, University of Nottingham
Sinners, a blues-soaked horror film set in 1930s Mississippi, was preemptively tagged by many film industry insiders as an inevitable flop. But it became a word-of-mouth sleeper hit that continues to draw huge audiences globally, weeks after its release.
On its opening weekend, premium screening formats such as in Imax cinemas accounted for 45% of the film’s ticket sales. Indeed, Imax technology has been central to the marketing of Sinners.
Trailers declared that the film was “shot with Imax cameras” and its cast and crew have discussed their experiences working with this technology in interviews. Director Ryan Coogler even takes us to film school in a ten-minute video where he talks about his love of physical film reels, explaining the differences between seeing Sinners in different aspect ratios – particularly Imax.
Imax is both a filmmaking format and a viewing technology. Imax cameras use large physical film reels and are very unwieldy due to their size, so they’re a rare filmmaking method and are usually only associated with big-budget directors such as Christopher Nolan.
This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.
Sinners was shot using Imax cameras as well as an Ultra Panavision 70 camera. These cameras shoot in a completely different aspect ratio to normal films. The result is a much shallower depth of field and greater image resolution that allowed Coogler and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw to best “tell the story with the flat horizon of the Mississippi landscape.”
Imax cinema screens are specially designed to display this immersive, high-quality format. But what many people don’t know is that there are different kinds of Imax.
“True” Imax requires massive screens that use a specific aspect ratio (1:43:1) and special film projectors capable of playing the extra-large film reels. There are only two auditoriums in the UK that fit this description – the British Film Institute’s Imax in Waterloo and the Ronson Theatre Imax screen in the Science Museum – and both are in London.
The kind of Imax you’re likely to have experienced in your local cinema uses digital projectors, and often the screens will vary in size – though they are still bigger than average.
Regardless, the ongoing popularity of high-quality formats like Imax is a result of audiences increasingly seeking out the cinema for immersive, “premium” screening experiences.
The draw of Imax in offering a spectacular, high-intensity experience is a big part of why it was central to Sinners’ marketing campaign. Media academic Leora Hadas, in her book Authorship as Promotional Discourse in the Screen Industries, claims today’s movie marketing is largely about giving a film a distinct identity that makes it feel different among the overwhelming number of entertainment options we can choose from.
It makes total sense to play on Imax’s reputation for quality and spectacle in promoting a prestige film like Sinners. But I think it’s also trying to tell us something even more significant about the value of the cinema space for watching films.
The rise of streaming services has led to many changes in audience viewing habits. We can now access a wide range of content for a monthly subscription equal to the cost of a single cinema ticket.
The traditional model the film industry is built on – where a film’s success is judged by how much money it makes in cinemas – is increasingly precarious. This has caused much anxiety for film studios and cinemas alike, as more and more films are released straight to streaming platforms. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos even said recently that making films for the cinema is an “outdated concept”.
Crucially, Imax is a technology that can only be experienced in cinemas. After Sinners opened to an explosive US$58 million (£43 million) at the box office globally, Coogler penned an open letter thanking cinema audiences, saying it was “always a film that we wanted to make for audiences in theaters … to entertain you, and move you in the way only cinema can”.
This letter makes his stance on the value of cinema very clear: “I believe in cinema. I believe in the theatrical experience. I believe it is a necessary pillar of society.”
Coogler’s efforts to promote the “theatrical experience” can encourage us all to celebrate the cinema as a space for entertainment, immersion and art. Clearly, his message has resonated: the BFI Imax screen in London has brought Sinners back due to popular demand.
But the film’s marketing strategy also reveals the underlying vulnerability of an industry fighting to survive in an era of competition from streaming services. Imax technology contributes to Sinners’ identity as a prestige film, but it also creates a narrative around the value of preserving the cinema.
Cassie Brummitt 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Edward Armston-Sheret, IHR Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London
By July 1858, the English explorer John Hanning Speke had been in Africa for 18 months. His eyes and body were weakened by fever, and he still hadn’t found what he set out to discover – the source of the River Nile.
Squinting through the heat on July 30, however, he spotted a body of water, about four miles away, surrounded by grass and jungle. At first, he could see only a small creek, flanked by lush fertile land used for growing crops and grazing by local people. But he pressed onward, dragging a reluctant donkey through jungle and over dried-up streams.
It wasn’t until August 3 that he could comprehend the full size of the lake. After winding up a gradual hill near Mwanza, located in the north of modern-day Tanzania, Speke was finally able to see a “vast expanse” of “pale-blue” water. He gazed on the lake’s islands and could see the outline of hills in the distance. Speke was arrested by the “peaceful beauty” of the scene. At the same time he was excited – he was convinced that this lake was what he’d been looking for. He was right. The Nile is the lake’s only outlet, and the huge body of water – now known as Lake Victoria – is the world’s second-largest freshwater lake.
Lack of time and money prevented Speke from travelling any further, so he came to understand the lake’s size by speaking to local people. As he didn’t speak any African languages, such conversations had to be translated multiple times. Thankfully, he had Sidi Mubarak Bombay to help him, a key figure in the expedition, who spoke both Hindi (which Speke could understand) and Swahili.
Despite another multi-year expedition from Zanzibar travelling inland to the area, in his own lifetime, Speke struggled to prove his claims. That’s because he only saw part of the lake and was unable to follow the river that flowed out of it the whole way to the coast. He died in 1864 from self-inflicted wounds sustained during a strange shooting incident, shortly before speaking at a debate about the source of the Nile.
But at least he is remembered by history. Bombay and the hundreds of African men and women who made his journey possible have since been largely forgotten. Such people did most of the hard work of exploration, building camps, navigating, cooking food and caring for Speke when he was sick.
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They are not the only ones. As a researcher specialising in the history of geography, I’ve spent almost eight years examining Victorian and Edwardian exploration and learned about the lives and experiences of African and Asian explorers, including Bombay. They included men and women who were formerly enslaved and were either forced into the work, or paid a pittance. Some of the women were forced into sexual relationships and marriages. Many were killed or badly injured in floggings at the hands of their brutal “masters” keen to administer punishment for perceived transgressions.
Their names should be in the pantheon of exploration, but all too often they are either ignored or misrepresented within the historical record. These are just some of their stories.
The illness and suffering Speke endured left a lasting mark on his body. Though he claimed to have fully recovered, his fellow British explorer on the expedition, the eccentric Richard F. Burton, argued in his book The Lake Regions of Central Africa (1860) that Speke had sustained brain damage from sun stroke. In reality, he might have been showing the after effects of malaria and hearing loss. At one stage, a beetle had crawled into his ear, leaving him deaf for a month.
Even so, Speke led a further expedition to Africa to try to prove once and for all that he had “discovered” the source of the Nile.
He also published two books on his journeys. In the front of one, he used an etching of himself (based on a painting) standing before Lake Victoria. A copy of this painting still hangs in the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington, London.
The image depicts Speke as a heroic and masculine figure. What we don’t see are the men and women who did the hard work of bringing Speke to the lake in the first place.
Sidi Mubarak Bombay was one of the most important figures within Speke’s expeditions. From Speke’s book about the expedition, which included a short biography of Bombay, we know he was born in 1820 near the modern border of Tanzania and Mozambique. His mother died when he was young, yet he remembered life in his village as one of “happy contentment” until, at the age of 12, when he was captured and enslaved by Swahili-speaking merchants.
He was then marched to the coast in chains before being sold at a slave market in Zanzibar. The man who bought him then transported him to India. Eventually, his owner died, and Bombay was freed. He returned to East Africa and enlisted in the Sultan of Zanzibar’s army. There, he met Speke and joined the East African Expedition in February 1857 and was paid five silver dollars a month.
The appointment changed Bombay’s life. The expedition was led by Burton, who had become famous for travelling to Mecca and Medina disguised as a Muslim pilgrim. Bombay became a key member of the expeditionary party.
Not only did he translate both Burton and Speke’s orders, but he also negotiated with local leaders for food, shelter and safe passage through their territory and cared for the explorers when they were sick. Bombay developed an active interest in the expedition’s work. In his book, Speke wrote that “by long practice, he has become a great geographer”.
When Speke returned to Zanzibar in 1860 for his next expedition, Bombay was one of the first men he recruited. He stayed with the expedition on its multi-year journey from Zanzibar to Cairo. Bombay went on to work for other European explorers, including Henry Morton Stanley who searched for the “lost” explorer David Livingstone, and Verney Lovett Cameron, who sought to investigate the lakes and rivers of Africa.
With Lovett Cameron, Bombay crossed equatorial Africa from coast to coast, completing much of the journey on foot. Even Victorian geographers recognised Bombay’s contribution, and he eventually received an award and pension from the Royal Geographical Society.
Anonymous labour and explorers’ violence
Bombay was a remarkable man. But Speke’s explorations also depended on many people we know far less about.
Both of Speke’s journeys to Lake Victoria were huge undertakings, involving hundreds of people. Much of the hard work was carried out by Nyamwezi porters from the central region of modern-day Tanzania. These men often worked on the pre-existing trade routes that connected the lake regions to the east African coast.
They carried the explorers’ supplies, basic equipment, trade goods and food. Explorers’ accounts often describe these people in racially offensive ways. Even so, their private letters also show their reliance on them.
An image from Speke’s book Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, illustrated by James Grant, showing ‘Speke’s faithfuls’. Wiki Commons
On his journey to Lake Victoria, Speke struggled to recruit enough porters and complained: “I cannot move independently of the natives, and now the natives are not to be got for love or money [sic]. This alone has detained me here four whole months doing nothing.”
Alongside the porters, Speke also employed Swahili-speaking men from Zanzibar. These men often had their origins in East Africa and had often been enslaved in childhood. In his published account, Speke portrayed them in terms that drew on colonial tropes about childlike Africans.
In one letter to the British consul in Zanzibar, sent on December 12 1860, he was more positive, saying that such men do “all the work and do it as an enlightened and disciplined people”. These contrasting assessments perhaps reflect Speke’s varying mood. However, the different way he wrote in public might also be part of an effort to emphasise the difficulty of the journey and his leadership qualities.
Yet explorers sometimes struggled to maintain control over the parties they led. One problem was the fact that, once away from the coast and the power of the Zanazibari state, expedition members could easily slip away. Understandably, porters were more likely to leave an expedition when conditions became bad and food scarce.
Violent punishments were also a common feature of expeditions in this region. The explorers did not invent them – such punishments were also used by Arabic or Swahili-speaking merchants travelling in the area – but they showed little hesitation in using them. In his book on their 1856-59 expedition, Burton boasted that the expedition’s porters referred to him as “the wicked white man”.
Porters referred to Richard F. Burton as ‘the wicked white man’. Hulton Archive
On Speke’s second expedition to Lake Victoria, his Scottish companion Grant described how one man “roared for mercy” when he was flogged 150 times after stealing cloth to buy food. In a letter to the Royal Geographical Society on February 17 1861, Speke wrote that this was the maximum number of lashes he would give out “for fear of mortal consequences”.
Later expeditions, such as those led by the Welsh-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley were even more violent.
During the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition (1887-89), Stanley decided to divide the party, leaving a “rear column” behind. Conditions in this group soon deteriorated, due to food shortages and disease. The column’s leader, the explorer Major Edmund Bartlott, carried out a string of violent punishments. One Sudanese porter was executed, while a Zanzibari man was flogged so many times that he died of the injuries.
Bartlott was only stopped from carrying out further acts of violence when he was killed by an African man fearful that he was about to attack his wife.
Women and girls on African expeditions
When Speke’s final expedition arrived in Cairo in 1863, having travelled from Zanzibar, the party also contained four young women who were photographed there. Their presence shows that African women often formed part of explorers’ expeditionary parties.
Sometimes the women joined voluntarily, often as the partners of porters. Others were enslaved women and girls purchased by other expedition members. One of the girls photographed in Cairo was named Kahala. Along with an older girl named Meri, she had been “given” to Speke by the queen mother of the African Kingdom of Buganda during Speke’s extended stay in the country.
Women and girls in Speke’s party in Cairo, from his Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, 1863. CC BY-SA
Speke’s relationship with Meri took a remarkable turn. In an unpublished draft of his book, now held at the National Library of Scotland, he described her as “18 years or so” and “in the prime of youth and beauty”.
The manuscript also implies that their relationship had a sexual dimension, although it’s unclear if this was consensual. On April 12 1862, Speke claimed that he spent the night “taming the silent shrew” – alluding to a play by William Shakespeare in which a husband torments his strong-willed wife into submission. Even in his highly edited published account, Speke described himself as a “henpecked husband”.
His account then described the breakdown of their relationship in early May 1862. The breakup, Speke wrote in the unpublished draft of his book, “nearly drove my judgement from me” and left him with a “nearly broken … heart.” After this, Meri apparently showed “neither love, nor attachment for me”, suggesting she had shown some before this.
Speke eventually “gave” the younger girl, Kahala, to Bomaby because “she preferred playing with dirty little children to behaving like a young lady”. At first, Kahala was unhappy about this transfer and tried to run away. But she was soon found and returned to the party. She then stayed with the expedition to Cairo and travelled with Bombay when he returned to Zanzibar.
It was not unusual for women to try to join expeditionary parties. Explorers often had concerns about the presence of unmarried women within their ranks. For instance, in his book To The Central African Lakes and Back (1881) Joseph Thomson, who led an expedition to the Lake Regions of central Africa between 1878 and 1880, reported finding a woman in the expedition’s camp who was trying to reach the coast.
On the advice of the expedition’s experienced African headman James Chuma (who, like Bombay, became involved in multiple expeditions), Thomson forced the woman to marry one of the expedition’s porters. The woman does not seem to have been happy with this arrangement. While she stayed with the expedition for a while, she slipped away when they neared the coast.
We only know the names of a small fraction of the women involved in such expeditions. Grant wrote a book on their journey that gives further details about women in the party.
In it he noted that several of the porters travelled alongside female partners who were “generally carrying a child each on their backs, a small stool … on their heads, and inveterately smoking during the march. They would prepare some savoury dish of herbs for their men on getting into camp, where they lived in bell-shaped erections made with boughs of trees”.
Such passages give us only a tantalising glimpse of these women. We’re left without a detailed knowledge of their names or lives. But we do know that they contributed to these expeditions in important ways.
Isabella Bird and Ito
More well known are the stories of the growing number of British women who became explorers in the Victorian era. Foremost among them was Isabella Bird.
Isabella Bird wearing Manchurian clothing from a journey through China. New York Public Library
Born in 1831 to an upper-middle class family and less than 5ft tall, Bird did not begin her career as an explorer until middle age. She was also disabled. At the age of 18, Bird had a “fibrous tumour” removed from the base of her spine and afterwards lived with chronic back pain. She travelled, often on horseback, to every continent of the world except Antarctica. Bird was also one of the first women admitted to the then all-male Royal Geographical Society in 1892.
Bird’s gender and disability shaped how she travelled. Unable to walk for long distances, she often rode cross-saddle, rather than the more traditionally feminine side-saddle, which she found painful. In some places, she faced specific hostility because she was a woman.
Yet, in other ways, Bird’s journeys had shared similarities with those made by men. Like them, she often depended on local people during her journeys. When she travelled through Japan in 1878, she relied on the services of an 18-year-old Japanese man named Itō Tsurukichi. He played a vital role in her journey across the country, arranging much of her travel, translating conversation with local people and explaining what she was looking at.
In Bird’s published accounts, her descriptions of Tsurukichi are often laced with racial prejudice. She often referred to him as a “boy” and was disparaging about his physical appearance. Her perspective on him did soften a little, however, as their journey continued. She was impressed by his qualities as a translator and the fact that he was continually trying to improve his linguistic skills.
Tsurukichi’s essential role was also illustrated when Bird attended a Japanese wedding to which he was not invited. She complained that it was like being “deprived of the use of one of her senses”.
Bird’s account also raises questions of who the leader of their journey through Japan was. “I am trying to manage him, because I saw that he meant to manage me,” she wrote in her book Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880). Bird also reported an incident where a Japanese boy thought “that Ito was a monkey-player, ie. the keeper of a monkey theatre, I a big ape, and the poles of my bed the scaffolding of the stage!”
Bird viewed the child’s misunderstanding as amusing, but it does suggest that some outsiders thought Tsurukichi was leading the party. He was clearly a skilled guide and translator, and he went on to become one of the foremost tour guides in Japan, taking numerous western travellers around the country.
Like Burton and Speke, Bird often depended on guides on her journeys. Sometimes, she led much larger groups. In such situations, others cooked her food, packed her tent, and translated conversations with local people.
When she travelled in China in the 1890s, Bird was carried across much of the country in an open chair on the shoulders of three separate groups of chair-bearers. She often didn’t record the names of the men who did such work and only described their labour in quite general terms – though she did photograph some of them and her chair.
However little men like Bombay and Tsurukichi are remembered, it is at least possible to recover their names.
Scott and Antarctica – exploration in an unpopulated land
In the early 20th century, the exploration of Antarctica was a thoroughly masculine affair. Some women did apply to join Antarctic expeditions, such as those led by Ernest Shackleton, but their applications were turned down. Antarctic expeditions were also less ethnically diverse than those in the Arctic. In the north, explorers often relied on the skills and labour of Indigenous people. There were also Black explorers, including Matthew Henson, an African-American man who claimed to be one of the first men to stand on the North Pole.
Antarctica presented a unique challenge: it is unpopulated, and when British explorers made their first attempts to explore its interior in the early 20th century, they had no idea what to expect.
In contrast to diverse expeditions elsewhere in the world, Antarctic expeditions were comparatively homogenous undertakings. British expeditions, led by Robert Falcon Scott and Shackleton, mostly employed white men from within the British empire. Sledging journeys in Antarctica were quite egalitarian compared with expeditions in Africa and Asia. Sledging often required upper and middle-class officers and scientists to work collaboratively with working class sailors, who often pulled sledges forward by sheer force of muscle.
Shackleton, Scott and Edward Wilson before their march south during the Discovery expedition in 1902. Sledges visible in the background. National Library of New Zealand
On the British National Antarctic Expedition, Scott completed a long sledge journey to the Polar Plateau with stoker William Lashly and petty officer Edgar Evans. The men cooked, ate, slept and laboured together. Scott, an officer, found the experience revealing, learning much about the working-class men’s experiences in the Royal Navy. Antarctic explorers were more willing to acknowledge the manual labour that made their expeditions possible than Burton, Speke or Bird, partly because this work was done by white men.
Some working-class sailors – such as Edgar Evans, Tom Crean, or William Lashly – did achieve a certain degree of celebrity. But others figures are overlooked. On Scott’s expedition he employed two men from within the Russian empire to help care for and train the expedition’s ponies and huskies: Dmitrii Girev and Anton Omelchenko. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the expedition’s assistant zoologist, noted that they “were brought originally to look after the ponies and dogs on their way from Siberia to New Zealand. But they proved such good fellows and so useful that we were very glad to take them on the strength of the landing party”.
Girev, from the far east of Russia specialised in looking after the expedition’s Siberian huskies, while Omelchenko, born in Ukraine, specialised in caring for the ponies who would haul Scott’s supplies towards the South Pole. They therefore played a vital role in the expedition. In their accounts, Scott and Cherry-Garrard referred to these adult men using the infantilising term “boys” – thereby stripping them of their status as full and equal members of the expeditionary party.
Even among the British expedition members, there were still significant disparities in how labour on polar expeditions was rewarded or reported. Working-class men, mostly sailors drawn from the Royal Navy, did much of the hard, unglamorous work. They were also paid much less than officers and scientists.
On Scott’s two Antarctic expeditions, much of the day-to-day work at base camp – such as cooking, cleaning, and collecting ice to melt into drinking water – was carried out by working-class sailors.
On his final expedition, the explorers spent the winter in a small hut on Ross Island. One man, Thomas Clissold, worked as the expedition’s cook. Frederick Hooper, a steward who joined the shore party, swept the floor in the morning, set the table, washed crockery and generally tidied things. “I think it is a good thing that in these matters the officers need not wait on themselves,” Scott commented in his diary. “It gives long unbroken days of scientific work and must, therefore, be an economy of brain in the long run.”
He had adopted a similar approach on his first expedition, which left some sailors frustrated. “We don’t have any idea of what has been done in the scientific work, as they don’t give us any information,” James Duncan, a Scottish shipwright on the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-1904) complained in his diary. “It’s rather hard on the lower deck hands.”
Even memorials to Antarctic explorers perpetuate many of the heroic myths of exploration. If you walk around London today, you might stumble on the statue of Scott in Waterloo Place or one of Shackleton outside the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington. Such statues embody much of what we often get wrong about exploration, depicting explorers as solitary. Expeditions were collective projects, and many of the people involved haven’t had their contributions fully recognised.
In many parts of the world, expeditions were large, diverse undertakings. Yet many of the people who did most of the work have been forgotten. My research seeks to put them in the spotlight and recover something of their lives and experiences.
Expeditions are extreme situations in which human bodies are pushed to (and sometimes beyond) their limits. Because of this, they vividly illustrate the various ways humans depend on each other – for care, food, shelter, transport and companionship. Today, human societies are more complex and interdependent than ever. Though often in less extreme or dramatic ways, like explorers, we all depend on other people for survival.
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Edward Armston-Sheret has received funding from the Institute of Historical Research (via the Alan Pearsall Fellowship in Naval and Maritime History), the Royal Historical Society, The Royal Geographical Society, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (via the Techne Doctoral Training Partnership).
A viral social media post suggested a large fries and large coke was an effective migraine treatmentKrakenimages.com/Shutterstock
Whether it’s one or two coffees to get us going in the morning or a bar of chocolate after a stressful day, many of us self-medicate when we’re tired, stressed or sad. But when we have a headache, most of us head straight for the painkillers.
Lately, though, a viral hack has been making the rounds: that a large Coca-Cola and fries can stop a migraine in its tracks.
And oddly enough, it’s not total nonsense.
The caffeine in Coca-Cola acts as a vasoconstrictor, meaning it narrows blood vessels. This helps counteract the dilation of blood vessels that occurs during a migraine – a key trigger for pain.
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When vessels widen, they can press on and activate nearby pain-sensitive nerves, especially those of the trigeminal system, which carries sensory information about touch, pain and temperature from the head and face to the brain, leading to that familiar throbbing headache. That’s why caffeine is often included in over-the-counter headache medications.
Meanwhile, the sugar and salt in Coke and fries may help restore balance to blood sugar and electrolytes, both of which can be disrupted during a migraine attack.
But to really understand why this combo might work, we need to unpack what’s actually happening during a migraine.
The four stages of migraine
Migraines can be sparked by a wide range of factors: hormonal shifts, stress, skipped meals, certain foods, even changes in the weather or visual overstimulation. But, once one begins, it follows a specific pathway that makes it distinct from other types of headaches.
A migraine is no ordinary headache. It’s a full-body experience with four distinct stages – two of which occur before the pain even hits. That means there’s a window in which to stop the episode in its tracks, and many migraineurs (people who suffer from migraines) already self-medicate by doing just that.
Prodrome
Prodrome is the first stage, which can begin hours or even days before the headache. You might feel tired, irritable, or unusually low in mood. Most people who get migraines are surprisingly bad at spotting this phase, even though it’s the best time to intervene.
During prodrome, people often crave certain things. Many migraineurs report yawning more, which helps regulate dopamine, or seeking out hugs and affection, which boost serotonin. Others might drink ice water to calm their autonomic nervous system. Others still might reach for the large Coke and fries.
These responses aren’t random. All of these are unconscious attempts to rebalance the neurological systems that go haywire during a migraine. Irregular serotonin, dopamine and nervous system function are all known contributors to migraines.
And that brings us to arguably the ultimate migraine hack: chocolate. While it’s sometimes blamed as a trigger, chocolate is rich in compounds that help raise serotonin levels.
Because low serotonin is a known factor in migraine onset, a craving for chocolate might be your brain’s way of correcting a chemical imbalance. For some people, a bit of chocolate in the early stages may help ward off an attack.
Aura
Aura comes after the prodrome phase, and it’s when some people experience visual disturbances like flashing lights, or odd sensations like pins and needles. About 80% of migraine sufferers don’t experience the aura phase, but the same wave-like changes happen inside their brains.
These symptoms come from a burst of electrical activity in the brain that is subsequently suppressed, which alters blood flow and causes the constriction of blood vessels. Whether a person notices these effects depends on the structure and sensitivity of their cerebral cortex.
The brain relies on a stable supply of blood for nutrients and oxygen — but direct contact with blood is toxic to brain tissue. That’s why we have the blood-brain barrier, a filter that protects brain cells.
The pain comes next. The body takes vascular changes in the brain seriously and headache pain is one way it warns us that something could be wrong. Any disruption to blood flow – too little or too much – is potentially dangerous. A blocked vessel can lead to ischemic stroke, while a ruptured vessel causes hemorrhagic stroke.
The pain phase begins when earlier blood vessel constriction gives way to a rebound dilation. This sudden widening of vessels activates pain receptors — and voilà: the familiar, throbbing pain of migraine – and it can be debilitating.
For many people who suffer from migraines, once the pain hits, food is the last thing on their mind. That’s why many turn to triptan medications instead of fast food, which rebalance serotonin and histamine (another regulator of blood flow) once the migraine is underway.
Postdrome
Postdrome kicks in after the worst of the head pain subsides. This migraine hangover is more than just feeling worn out, though – it’s a distinct phase of a migraine attack. Known medically as the postdrome phase, it follows up to 80% of migraine attacks and can bring symptoms strikingly similar to a traditional hangover: nausea, fatigue, dehydration, body aches and mental fog.
For many people, this lingering phase can be just as disruptive as the migraine itself, making recovery a drawn-out and exhausting process. It can take days or even weeks to transition through all four phases of a migraine.
Still, prevention is better than cure and recognising the early signs of a migraine, then responding in ways that support the brain’s neurobiology, can make a huge difference.
Migraines are complex, personal and frustratingly unpredictable. But knowledge is power. And while no single solution works for everyone, recognising the prodrome phase and supporting your nervous system before pain sets in may be your best shot at heading off an attack.
Whether it’s recognising the craving for chocolate as a biological warning sign, sipping iced water, getting a hug, or yes – even reaching for a Coke and fries – these small interventions have roots in brain science. They reflect our body’s efforts to protect itself. Developing your personal treatments based on how your brain responds can help you stay one step ahead of the pain.
Amanda Ellison 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.
Lichens on stone, those “still explosions” as the great American poet Elizabeth Bishop named them, remain unseen to most, which is remarkable when you consider how commonplace they are. It seems these ecologically and culturally significant whatever-they-ares unfairly fall victim to something akin to plant blindness, a known phenomenon and tendency of people to overlook plants, which many of us – when we first encounter lichens – identify them as, even though that’s not what they are at all.
Part of the problem is that they’re not studied in schools because they’re awkward outsiders and are not perceived to fit in with the objectives of the science curriculum. So I was surprised to see lichens leap into the public imagination following the Just Stop Oil protest at Stonehenge at the summer solstice in June, 2024.
Just Stop Oil protesters spray an orange substance onto Stonehenge stones. Just Stop Oil
Much of the outrage seemed to be in reaction to a quote from one of the protesters about the stones being inert: “It’s time for us to think about what our civilisation will leave behind – what is our legacy? Standing inert for generations works well for stones – not climate policy.” Inert? “Well, what about the rare lichens growing on them?”, was the response from some people, seeing them as separate from the stone, and for others more important even.
English Heritage, the current custodians of Stonehenge, talked about the stones as being “testament to the desire of people – from prehistoric times to today – to connect with nature, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon, as well as crucially, each other”. And this very publication printed a response suggesting we should care more about the effects of climate change on our cultural heritage rather than the inconsequential actions of the Just Stop Oil protesters.
What’s more, a senior druid said he sympathised with the group’s message but was critical of their actions at the sacred site, warning against additional measures to protect the stones, given the summer solstice is the only day in the year that people can “connect with the stones and have a proper relationship”.
Relationship – a word that is often only reserved for connections between people, or people and animals, or animals and other animals, not people and what would otherwise be something seen – in western eyes at least – as abiotic, or non-living, lifeless, inert stones. Or are they?
For a lichenologist specialising in saxicolous (or stone) lichens, what’s particularly interesting to me is what lichens have to say about stone and its inertness, its lifelessness, the sweeping “abiotic” label that western thinking assigns to it.
This is because lichens are transforming our understanding of stone in both ecological and cultural contexts, and this could have major implications not only for the conservation of our cultural heritage, but also the broader field of conservation and how we understand and relate to the natural world.
The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.
What exactly is a lichen?
To start with, how we see lichens themselves is changing. Trying to agree on a definition of lichens that pushes them into one of science’s neat little cubby holes has proved as difficult as trying to distinguish stone from rock. A symbiotic association between a fungus (a mycobiont) and a photosynthetic partner, usually an alga or a cyanobacterium (a photobiont), is where we’d got to. And to accommodate our Linnaean classification system of living things we’ve treated them as we would a single species, naming them after the fungus.
But the reality is, whereas all those other living things are assigned a single species name to sit at the end of a single branch of Darwin’s tree of life, lichens recline over several, perhaps many branches, giving us the side-eye. They simply don’t fit. This has led some researchers to consider alternative ways of seeing them, including recently defining them as complex ecosystems due to the presence of additional microorganisms, including fungi and bacteria. This sea change has been challenged, however, and the debate about “lichenhood” looks like it will go on as it has done since the mid-1860s.
More than their biology
The notion that lichens are ecosystems, or perhaps become ecosystems, really appeals to my geographer sensibilities. It frees the lichen from species-scale thinking yet doesn’t overshadow the symbiosis that also defines certain relationships involved. What we see and define as a lichen, can in fact become more complex over time.
One of the arguments against the idea that they are ecosystems is that it would require us to include the mineral, soil or plant substratum that the lichen grows on. As scientist William Sanders writes, “For most biologists, a lichen removed from its substratum is still a lichen.”
I spend a lot of time looking at stone-dwelling lichens through a lens and under a microscope, and to me the co-habitational interplay between the stone, the lichen’s hyphae (or thread-like anchors) and its thallus (or main body) are intimate and dynamic, and ultimately a relationship that defines the lichen itself.
Lichens become more than their biology, mainly because they are in situ for such an extensive length of time and even often incorporate their substrate into their main body. Depending on the environment, individuals can colonise rock and stone for decades, centuries, thousands of years even; it’s been proposed that some of the oldest found in northern Alaska are in the range of 10-11,500 years old. And so, they blur the boundary between the biotic (living) and the abiotic (non-living), which occur on a continuum when you escape a species-scale view.
Verrucaria baldensis is an endolithic lichen that embeds in stone. At the surface of the stone, it can leave pits where its fruiting bodies detach. I call it the Moon Lichen because that’s exactly what it looks like up close; the surface of the Moon, the pits becoming craters. But when you look at it from above, or even in cross-section to see how it embeds in the stone, you’d be forgiven for thinking it had vanished, or was actually mainly stone. The relationship between the biology and the geology becomes so close that there seems good reason to consider the two together when observing it.
Verrucaria baldensis, a lichen that submerges in stone and is reminiscent of the Moon’s surface. Nicholas Carter, CC BY
The moment stone is quarried or exposed in some other way, colonisation of its surface begins, by cyanobacteria, algae and so on. This means that when that stone finds its way into a wall, a building, a monument or sculpture somewhere it has already started transforming, metamorphosing into something that acts alive. And so, at the surface, the stone is taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and replacing it with oxygen, contributing to our net zero aspirations.
And when a lichen forms on it, in time, that stone becomes part of the lichen, and so contributing to the biodiversity of the site. We don’t see it, or think about it even, but it’s happening. We just need to start seeing stone differently, dynamically, more than the mineral. For a Unesco World Heritage Site like Blenheim Palace, where I’ve been conducting lichen surveys and whose vision is partly to enhance the ecological value of the site, seeing stone in this way is highly beneficial.
Arguably, much of how we define something depends on our relationship with it and how we choose to see it. How we value the living in relation to the non-living plays out in how we define lichens; we need to acknowledge the importance and value of both. In doing so, we are altering our perception of stone and our relationship with it. For there to be effective conservation, we need to value stone and other non-living entities because of the close relationships involved.
The reverse situation also occurs. In the field of heritage conservation, stone, the abiotic, relocated by humans, is often valued over and above the biotic, for example lichens, which can be found colonising and occupying it. We tend to want to preserve rather than conserve stone when it comes to cultural monuments and structures, so huge sums of money are spent on cleaning historic buildings and sculptures, including on the use of biocides, many of which can be dangerous for human health and the environment.
Metaphors for resistance and resilience
It’s when we start to understand the cultural contributions as well as the ecological and conservation benefits of lichens to heritage that we start to lean towards and come up with more effective nature-based solutions in relation to the deterioration of stonework.
After all, lichens occur in our folklore, and have stories to tell, and so bring a flavour of intangible cultural heritage, as well as sometimes protecting stone surfaces from other deteriorative agents. What’s interesting here is that heritage scientists have often talked about stone in human terms, when diagnosing decay for example. So stone forms blisters and has a memory even, storing past traumas related to environmental pollution.
And lichens are also influencing a cultural and artistic re-evaluation of stone, such that contemporary artists and writers are exploring the symbiotic relationships lichens have with stone, viewing them as metaphors for resistance, resilience and interconnection. In this way, lichens highlight stone’s living narrative, bridging biology and geology in relation to the human condition.
There’s an interesting parallel to draw here in terms of life defined by relationships. A developing theme in anthropology focuses on the intra-actions among humans and the mineral world. In her article on this, Nadia Breda’s ethnography discovers a European form of animism that “attributed subjectivity, intentionality, ability and agency to non-humans, revealing an interspecies network of relationships hidden by the western naturalistic worldview”.
In the company of the Piave, an Italian river where water and stones were described by old gatherers as living beings, Breda signposts an anthropology of life where “stones are living in this moving world of humans, stones and water” in a world where “life is not an intrinsic property of objects but a condition of being dependent on the context, and vitality is not a property of isolated individuals, but of the total field or relationships in which they are interacting.”
By observing lichens and listening to voices outside of a western perspective, we see stone as something more than lifeless, a way of reconnecting with the natural world – which we desperately need.
We form relationships and emotional attachments to the biological world with relative ease, but we need to nurture these connections with physical elements too, and not just when they hold cultural or symbolic significance. As such, we need to advocate for soil integrity, for example, as much as for saving endangered species. Ethical debates such as rights and conservation should not just focus on the biological, and what we see as the physical must be spoken about in terms of moral obligations.
Stone is significant to lichens as well as many human cultures, representing more than inert matter, carrying meaning, history and spiritual significance. Focusing too rigidly on a binary distinction obscures the integrated nature of ecosystems and diminishes these broader environmental and human connections, which can offer valuable insights into sustainability and environmental stewardship. This is less about making distinctions, but building more connections.
Nicholas Carter 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.
Source: United States Senator for Arkansas Tom Cotton
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Caroline Tabler or Patrick McCann (202) 224-2353May 15, 2025
Cotton to Rubio and Bessent: Investigate Harvard’s Ties to the Chinese Communist Party
Washington, D.C. — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to encourage an investigation of potential sanctions violations at Harvard University. Recent reports suggest Harvard has engaged in prohibited behavior with Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), which explicitly violates the Trump Administration’s human rights sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
In part, Senator Cotton wrote:
“I write urging the Departments of State and Treasury to investigate reports of potential sanctions violations at Harvard University. A recent report suggests that Harvard is engaging in prohibited behavior with Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a Chinese state-owned organization that implements China’s genocidal and forced labor polices in the Uyghur region.”
Full text of the letter can be found here and below.
The Honorable Marco RubioSecretaryU.S. Department of State2201 C St. NWWashington, D.C. 20451
The Honorable Scott BessentSecretaryDepartment of the Treasury1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington, D.C. 20220
Dear Secretary Rubio and Secretary Bessent:
I write urging the Departments of State and Treasury to investigate reports of potential sanctions violations at Harvard University. A recent report suggests that Harvard is engaging in prohibited behavior with Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a Chinese state-owned organization that implements China’s genocidal and forced labor polices in the Uyghur region.
According to a recent business intelligence firm report, Harvard renamed its Public Health School the “Harvard T. Chan School for Public Health” after receiving a $350 million donation from the Chan family and its Morningside Foundation in 2014, which has significant ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Harvard engages in activities that glorify China’s Cultural Revolution and is linked to the China’s Thousand Talents Program. Most troublingly is the report that Harvard trained XPCC personnel and other senior Chinese officials on healthcare financing.
In 2020, the Trump Administration imposed human rights sanctions on XPCC under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for XPCC’s involvement in severe human rights abuses. The Act prohibits any contribution of funds, goods, and services, to XPCC. Harvard University’s actions appear to violate these sanctions.
As the Trump Administration rightfully acknowledges, American universities’ unique ability to foster intellectual creativity and scholarly rigor are driving factors in our nation’s success. However, these values are contrary to the ideological capture sought by the CCP. I respectfully ask that your departments investigate these reports of potential sanctions violations by the Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health in order to thwart the CCP’s on Harvard’s campus.
We appreciate your attention to this matter and the Trump Administration’s commitment to combat CCP influence at our institutions of higher education.
Sincerely,
Tom CottonUnited States Senator
The pressure of decarbonising industrial sectors is weighing on workers.
The UK’s Labour government seeks a low-carbon and homegrown energy supply by 2030. The scale and pace of this transformation is unprecedented in the country’s power sector, and will involve building twice as much transmission infrastructure (pylons, cables, substations) in the next five years as was built over the last decade.
Much of the workforce will be drawn from the construction sector, which employs 2.3 million people. Construction forms the dominant supply chain to the 17 major infrastructure projects involved in an overhaul of the electricity grid that will connect new wind farms in the North Sea and northern Scotland to homes and businesses across Great Britain.
The workers “on the tools” who will carry out much of this transformation are struggling. The latest analysis from the Office for National Statistics suggests that the suicide risk of construction workers is three times higher than the male national average. Scholars of construction project management have identified a toxic workplace culture in the industry, citing aggressive market competition and demanding performance metrics.
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This is a problem that is largely being ignored. When planners at the National Energy System Operator assessed the UK’s capacity to build a clean power sector by 2030, they considered the absolute number of workers needed, the skills required and how employment is changing in the sector.
Their assessment failed to consider the broader implications for workforce mental health and wellbeing of such a quick and comprehensive upgrade – but it is people who are going through a rapid transition, not just infrastructure.
Construction workers already endure long hours and stress due to tight deadlines. A rapid transition to green power will substantially increase their workload, unless managed carefully.
Our report, published July 2024, looked into wellbeing and suicide in the construction industry. We concluded that the UK government, major infrastructure owners such as National Grid and their supply chain partners who provide specialist design and construction services, must work together to solve this problem.
Major infrastructure owners offer mental health services, such as confidential counselling, legal advice and financial guidance, to help their own employees manage personal or work-related issues. But most workers on the tools are not directly employed by these owners. Most are self-employed, or hired by construction firms, of which 99% are small- and medium-sized enterprises.
More than 96% of construction firms have fewer than 15 employees. Smaller suppliers of specialist trade skills, like electrical and mechanical installation, have fewer employment protections and more compressed schedules, and are even less likely to have the capacity to provide these services.
Some infrastructure owners and big construction companies extend their health and wellbeing services to these smaller suppliers. However, in an industry that is dominated by competitive tendering, which favours suppliers that keep costs low, it is no surprise that uptake has been low.
Owners of infrastructure assets like electricity pylons and substations can drive workplace improvements by adopting procurement models that prioritise suppliers that are offering measures to improve worker wellbeing.
Research from one of us (Jing Xu) and fellow project management expert Yanga Wu, has shown that the top-down prescriptive approach traditionally applied to health and safety in construction does not work for wellbeing. This requires a bottom-up approach, that makes it easy for workers to tell managers what they are struggling with and what they think would help.
The construction sector also faces a shortage of workers and skills required for the green transition. The industry training board forecasts that the industry must attract the equivalent of 50,300 extra workers a year to meet expected levels of work over the next five years.
In the power sector, however, there is the additional complication of an ageing workforce, as well as differences in employment conditions between permanent and contract staff. Key expertise is at risk of being lost with retirements. Older workers often face additional pressure, not only to meet performance targets but also to compensate for gaps in expertise, and all within a fast-paced environment.
To improve mental health and wellbeing among a diverse workforce requires engaging with workers directly and ensuring their voices are heard. This involves more than upgrading technical skills. Research to better understand how organisations can care for their workforce in the context of increasing pressures due to achieving net zero is also vital.
Further research and collaboration with infrastructure owners and major construction contractors could help manage the risks and provide valuable insights for other sectors that will need to follow suit, such as heating, transport and agriculture.
It is imperative to consider what a transition means: the technical transition of replacing outmoded technology, as well as the social transition, which prioritises not only skills but workplace mental health. Without a focus on both policy and people, clean power will not be delivered.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Oestrogen and progesterone are the primary sex hormones in females, playing powerful roles throughout life – from puberty and periods to pregnancy and eventually menopause.
During adolescence, these hormones surge, kick-starting the menstrual cycle. In adulthood, they fluctuate month to month, driving ovulation and menstruation. But between the ages of 45 and 55, their levels start to decline.
This signals the beginning of perimenopause – the transitional phase leading to menopause, which is officially marked when a woman has gone 12 consecutive months without a period. After that, hormone levels settle at a lower, steady baseline, ushering in the postmenopausal stage.
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Oestrogen and progesterone don’t just affect the reproductive system, they also act directly on the brain. Both hormones can cross the blood-brain barrier and influence neural function. Oestrogen tends to excite brain activity, enhancing alertness and mood, while progesterone is more calming and balancing.
When these hormone levels begin to fluctuate during perimenopause, they can disrupt many of the systems they regulate, especially in the brain. Common symptoms like hot flushes, night sweats, memory problems, mood swings, poor sleep and even depression are not just nuisances. They’re signs that the central nervous system is being affected.
These neurological symptoms can have a domino effect on physical and mental health. In fact, research shows thatwomen are more likely than men to experience frailty and cognitive decline in later life – a trend that may be linked to the hormonal shifts around menopause.
That’s why it’s so important to approach menopause as a whole-body, whole-brain experience and not just a reproductive event.
Experiences of menopause
Along with colleagues from Nottingham Trent and Northumbria universities, I conducted research that explored how women describe their personal experiences of menopause. The findings were eye opening.
When asked to sum up menopause in one word, participants offered responses like:
“Anxiety.” “Horrific.” “Bizarre.” “Depression.” Many expressed frustration at the lack of clear, trustworthy information and a feeling of isolation. One woman said: “I don’t know what my body is capable of doing from one minute to the next … the pain, it’s just horrible.”
Another described overwhelming fatigue: “I haven’t got the energy I had when I was young.” While others reported profound mental health struggles: “I had this thing where I hated myself”, “I would have a rage within me, which wasn’t me normally”, “I had depressive episodes and was very poorly.” One participant reported that she was “feeling overwhelmed and panicked about doing anything, even leaving the house”.
These stories reveal the reality behind the statistics – menopause can be deeply destabilising, and for some women, life altering.
The more symptoms women experience, the more their quality of life can be affected. But there is hope. Research shows that higher levels of physical activity are linked to fewer and less severe menopausal symptoms.
That’s why our research team has taken our findings beyond the lab. Through public events and workshops, we’re helping women learn about how nutrition, brain health, and exercise can support them through the menopausal transition. And the impact goes beyond biology: gaining knowledge has been shown to boost self-confidence and help women feel more in control and less alone.
There’s still much to learn about the full impact of menopause on the brain and body, but one thing is clear: supporting women through this major life stage is not optional – it’s essential.
By continuing to share knowledge, break taboos and support one another, we can change the story of menopause from one of confusion and isolation to one of empowerment, understanding and resilience.
Jessica Piasecki receives funding from The Royal Society and MyAge. She is affiliated with Power Group — National Institute of Women’s Health and Performance and Relative Energy .Deficiency-Sport (RED-S) interest group
The line between entertainment and advertising is increasingly blurred thanks to social media. People no longer just consume content, they experience it – laughing, sharing and commenting. And brands have caught on.
The days when people sat through a 30-second TV ad because they had no choice are long gone. Now they can quickly swipe past anything that feels too much like selling.
Instead of posting directly to consumers, brands increasingly engage with each other. They crack jokes, offer praise and even poke fun at competitors. Brands are becoming more human in their interactions – especially with each other.
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Brand “banter” doesn’t feel like an ad (even though it has a commercial purpose). It can feel unscripted, human and weirdly fun, cutting through in a way traditional advertising can’t.
Our research shows that consumers are more likely to notice and engage with these interactions. The content feels less like marketing and more like shared digital culture. It can feel unexpected and entertaining, and invites audiences into a “moment”.
Humour, especially online, is a powerful emotional hook. It invites people to share the content – great news if you have a product to sell. In a noisy digital world where brands compete for eyeballs, humour helps to get people’s attention.
But it also fosters emotional connection, and can make brands feel human-like to consumers. When we see brands behaving playfully or being especially complimentary towards each other, our research shows they are more like to engage and remember them. It turns passive scrolling into active participation.
A good example is the Duolingo Death meme. The brand’s chaotic cartoon owl faked its death on Instagram and the result was viral engagement.
The post was liked by more than 2.1 million people. Other brands such as Walmart, FedEx, Kellogg’s and Five Guys joined in. Even pop star Dua Lipa paid tribute on X. What felt like spontaneous chaos was actually a smart, strategic move that tapped into meme culture, humour and community trends.
The same can be said for the caterpillar cake battle between supermarket Aldi and Marks & Spencer. This public brand-to-brand feud over their respective cakes exploded into a public spectacle and legal action from M&S. Despite being locked in a trademark row, Aldi and M&S ribbed each other with witty social media posts.
But rather than harming either brand, the playful roasting humanised them, drawing attention and affection from consumers.
In on the joke
Our research also found that when brands talk to each other, (rather than just talking at consumers), it can be an effective marketing device. These exchanges are more engaging than traditional brand-to-consumer posts because they feel unexpected and unscripted.
We found that people don’t just enjoy the interactions. They walk away with more positive feelings towards the brand and are more likely to buy from them. These interactions break the “fourth wall” of advertising and let consumers feel like they’ve been let in on a joke.
Humour often works by violating expectations. But whether consumers find something funny or awkward depends on how we interpret that violation. And there’s a catch: it needs to feel benign rather than malign.
American fast food chain Wendy’s is renowned for its sharp-witted social media presence, often engaging in playful jabs at competitors like McDonald’s. But one post, in response to McDonald’s promise to use fresh beef in all of its quarter pounders, apparently went too far.
Wendy’s posted: “So you’ll still use frozen beef in MOST of your burgers in ALL of your restaurants? Asking for a friend.” While many customers found the remark humorous, others viewed it as mean-spirited and unprofessional.
So banter – when it verges on being aggressive – can risk alienating consumers who prefer respectful brand interactions.
Of course, the line between clever and cringe-worthy is thin. When brands try too hard to be funny or provocative, they risk being perceived as inauthentic, self-serving or out-of-touch. Worse, they can alienate audiences or trivialise serious issues. The performative nature of online branding means that missteps are both public and memorable.
And brands must be self-aware. It’s crucial that they understand their brand purpose and identity, their “cool” factor, and who their real customers are.
As brands seek their place in a saturated landscape, characterised by constant content overload and fleeting consumer attention, these moments of humour and light-hearted engagement can serve as relief valves. But they’re also strategic tools. Brands are using playfulness to build emotional connection, cultural relevance and visibility in an overcrowded digital space.
So the next time a brand makes you laugh, pause and consider: Was it just a joke, or was it also a very clever move?
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.
A 115-year-old Surrey woman named Ethel Caterham has officially been handed the title of the oldest living human alive.
Many people reading this news may wonder what Caterham’s secret is.
While it isn’t usually a good idea to take health and longevity advice from supercentenarians (as they’re often the exception rather than the rule), there are some lifestyle pointers that we can take from research on groups of long-lived people that might help us increase our chances of living a longer life.
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1. Physical activity
Physical activity is good for you – who knew? Research shows that people who are more physically active each day tend to live longer, healthier lives. One study found that going from no physical activity to about 75 minutes per week of brisk walking increased life expectancy by about two years.
But perhaps less well known is just how bad inactivity is for your health and longevity. It’s a tad difficult to explain, but the positive effects of exercise are actually different from the negative effects of inactivity. That means that you can have a positive influence on your health by being both more active and avoiding being inactive.
Yet as good as structured exercise is for you, it can’t by itself offset the harms of inactivity and sitting all day. Research even shows that being sedentary is associated with higher risk of premature death from any cause.
If you want to live longer, you should try to avoid sitting for long periods of time if possible. Practical tips for this include standing up every 30 minutes, going to see someone in the office instead of calling or emailing them and standing on public transport during commuting. This, plus the aim to do about 30 minutes moderate exercise most days will help maximise your odds of a long, healthy life.
2. Eat your veggies
The advice many kids dread: eat your vegetables if you want to live a long time.
A recent study that followed around 100,000 people over a 30 year period found that people who made it to 70 years of age in good health (meaning they had no chronic diseases) typically ate more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes, and fewer trans-fats, red or processed meats, fried foods and sugary foods. Importantly, this study doesn’t say that you must be a vegan, or never eat red meats – it only identifies trends within diets associated with healthy ageing.
When and how much you eat may also play a role when it comes to ageing. Research on caloric restriction and intermittent fasting in animals has shown both can increase lifespan. Our preliminary work in humans has also shown that following a fasting diet for three weeks can cause similar, positive metabolic shifts that match what we’ve seen in animals that will live longer. However, larger studies over longer time-frames are needed to establish effects on healthspan and lifespan in humans.
In a study of about 500,000 British people, irregular sleep patterns were associated with a 50% higher risk of early death compared to those with regular sleep patterns. Shift workers showed higher risk for strokes, and nurses who worked rotating shifts for decades were less healthy and had earlier deaths at retirement compared to nurses who didn’t work shifts.
While this data suggests that good quality, regular sleep is important for good health, how much sleep you need and when you should go to bed appears to be highly individualistic. This makes giving population-wide recommendations difficult – which is why the NHS recommends adults get between 7-9 hours sleep.
Possibly linked is the effect of social connections. Those that live more socially active lives also tend to live longer. In fact, people over 65 who are socially active daily are three times more likely to live for five more years compared to those that almost never engage in social activities.
It’s a common finding that strong social networks appear to enhance longevity. This may be due to the way social connections help us alleviate stressors in our lives.
The role of genetics
While there are many lifestyle habits we can change, one thing we can’t control when it comes to our lifespans is genetics. Some research suggests that naturally-occurring mutations in genes associated with longevity are more common in long-lived people.
Although it’s hard to tease out the role of genetics versus lifestyle when it comes to lifespan, current predictions suggest that longevity is between 20-40% related to genetics.
But good genetics aren’t everything. Although Ethel Caterham has made it to the remarkable age of 115 – and one of her sisters lived to be 104 – Caterham’s two daughters pre-deceased her at 71 and 83 years of age.
And even if you do win the genetic jackpot and follow a good lifestyle, you would still be very lucky to make it to Caterham’s grand old age of 115. Cells mutate, clots form, biological luck runs out. Still, if you want to maximise your odds of living longer and staying as healthy as possible, aim to be more physically active each day, eat a good diet, get a good night’s sleep and keep stress levels low.
Bradley Elliott receives funding from the Physiological Society, the British Society for Research on Ageing, the Altitude Centre, and private philanthropic individuals, and has consulted for industry and government on longevity research. He is on the Board of Trustees of the British Society for Research on Ageing.
When we think about the future of food, it’s unlikely that crickets, meal worms or grasshoppers come to mind. But believe it or not, insects might just be one of the most promising answers to two big global problems: feeding a growing (and ageing) population and fighting climate change.
As the world’s population heads towards 10 billion by 2050, we’re going to need a lot more food – and especially more protein.
In Ireland, where our research was based, this matters even more because our population is ageing. Older adults need more protein to stay healthy and independent as they age, but often they don’t eat enough of it.
At the same time, we also have to take care of the planet. Producing traditional protein sources like beef, pork and chicken uses up a lot of land, water and energy – and creates a lot of greenhouse gases.
So, where do insects fit in?
Insects are packed with high-quality protein. They also contain good fats, vitamins and minerals like iron and zinc. Some species are just as nutritious, if not more so, than chicken or beef.
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Even better, they’re much more sustainable. Insects need very little space, water, or food to grow, and they produce far fewer greenhouse gas emissions. For example, crickets need 12 times less feed than cattle to produce the same amount of protein.
This makes them a great option for countries like Ireland which wants to cut down on its environmental impact while still providing healthy food for everyone, including older adults who need extra protein to prevent muscle loss and frailty.
Despite all the good things about insect protein, most people in Ireland aren’t exactly rushing out to eat a cricket sandwich. I led a research project, conducted by Sarah Mae Crosse, Aoife Finlay and Sarah Dooley, which looked at what Irish adults think about eating insects. We found that while some people are open to the idea, many still say “no thanks”.
The main reasons? Disgust, fear of the unknown and not knowing how to cook or prepare them. People also worry about taste and texture. One participant said: “It’s just weird – it makes my stomach turn,” while another admitted they’d be okay with it “as long as I don’t see any legs sticking out”.
Increasing appeal
The way insects are served also makes a big difference. People are much more willing to try insect protein when it’s ground up into a powder and added to foods they already like, like protein bars, pasta, bread, or burgers. In this form, it’s just another ingredient and it doesn’t look like a bug anymore.
Another big factor is education. When people learn about how insect protein can help the environment and support healthy ageing, they’re more likely to give it a go. In our student-led focus groups, some participants changed their minds after hearing about the benefits. “I didn’t realise it was so high in protein or that it’s good for the planet,” one said. “I’d try it now, especially if it tasted okay.”
Getting more people on board with insect protein isn’t just about making it tasty – it’s also about trust. Clear rules and food safety standards from the government can help people feel more confident about trying something new. Plus, supermarkets and food producers need to make these products easy to find and affordable.
Schools, colleges and community groups can play a big role too. Cooking demos, taste tests and education campaigns can make insect protein seem less weird and more like a smart, forward thinking choice. As more people try these foods and share their experiences, the idea of eating insects could go from gross to normal.
It might take time, but insects could become an important part of the Irish diet. They’re good for our health, especially as we get older, and they’re good for the planet too. The key is helping people understand the benefits, get over the “ick” factor and find ways to enjoy them in everyday meals.
With the right mix of science, education and smart marketing, we might all be munching on insect powered protein foods before long.
Catherine Norton receives funding from government funding, research council grants and industry.
With thanks to Sarah Mae Crosse, Aoife Finlay and Sarah Dooley, undergraduate students at the University of Limerick, who conducted this research.
A former professor of theology and librarian at the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for possession of child pornography, announced Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
Charles Kilby Bellinger, 63, was arrested in October 2024 by the Fort Worth Police Department after TCU’s IT staff reported they had detected pornographic images with concerning file names, including “infant” and “toddler,” on Bellinger’s work computer. He was charged by federal complaint, which stated that investigators found multiple sexually explicit images of pre-pubescent minors on a hard drive and an SD card removed from Bellinger’s office.
In early January 2025, Bellinger pled guilty to federal charges of possessing child pornography. Today, he was sentenced to 121 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman, who also ordered that Bellinger pay restitution of $6,000 to certain victims and that Bellinger be taken into custody immediately following the hearing.
Acting U.S. Attorney Meacham praised the work of the law enforcement agencies that conducted the investigation, including the U.S. Secret Service, the Fort Worth Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit, and the Texas Christian University Campus Police. Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Saleem prosecuted the case.
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative that was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”
SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Joshua Taylor, age 46, of Wernersville, Pennsylvania, pled guilty on May 15, 2025, before Chief United States District Judge Matthew W. Brann to interstate transport of stolen human remains.
According to Acting United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, Taylor admitted that, from 2018 through 2022, he bought human remains that he knew to have been stolen from Harvard Medical School and transported them from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania. Taylor also sold stolen human remains to others, including Jeremy Pauley, who previously entered a guilty plea to a felony information.
The indictment alleged that from 2018 through 2022, Cedric Lodge, who managed the morgue for the Anatomical Gifts Program at Harvard Medical School, located in Boston, Massachusetts, stole organs and other parts of cadavers donated for medical research and education before their scheduled cremations. It is also alleged that Lodge at times transported stolen remains from Boston to his residence in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife, Denise Lodge, sold the remains to Joshua Taylor, and others, making arrangements via cellular telephone and social media websites. On some occasions, Taylor transported stolen remains back to Pennsylvania.
Several other defendants have pleaded guilty, including Denise Lodge, Andrew Ensanian, Matthew Lampi, and Angelo Pereyra. Lampi was sentenced to 15 months in prison and Pereyra was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Denise Lodge is awaiting sentencing. Additionally, Candace Chapman-Scott, who stole remains from an Arkansas crematorium where she was employed and sold them to Pauley in Pennsylvania, entered a plea of guilty in Arkansas federal court and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the East Pennsboro Township Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alisan Martin is prosecuting the case.
The maximum penalty under federal law for this offense is 10 years of imprisonment, a term of supervised release following imprisonment, and a fine. A sentence following a finding of guilt is imposed by the Judge after consideration of the applicable federal sentencing statutes and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. All persons charged are presumed to be innocent unless and until found guilty in court.
In 1954, the Finnish artist Tove Jansson was commissioned by the Evening News in London to draw comic strips about the Moomintrolls. The strip was syndicated by hundreds of newspapers, introducing the Moomins to an international audience and marking a dramatic turning point in her career.
Between 1954 and 1959, Tove Jansson drew 21 comics, some in collaboration with her brother Lars Jansson, who continued to draw the comic strip until 1975.
The success of the Moomin in the Evening News brought Tove Jansson economic security and helped her with the mortgage of her studio in Helsinki. However, over time, the assignment also became a burden on her creative work – a time-consuming and demanding obligation.
Perhaps because of this personal conflict, the comics often explore themes such as the struggle of artistic creation, the role of the artist and the value of art. Jansson had previously created humorous and satirical commentaries on the art world in various artists’ magazines in Finland, but here she places the Moomin at the heart of the creative process.
Unlike the novels and picture books, the Moomin comic strips were created for adults and can be described as satire. Jansson uses the compact format to comment on society, including the art world. The growing conflict in her own life, between the Moomintrolls and her artwork, is brought into focus in the comic strips.
This is part of a series of articles celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Moomins. Want to celebrate their birthday with us? Join The Conversation and a group of experts on May 23 in Bradford for a screening of Moomins on the Riviera and a discussion of the refugee experience in Tove Jansson’s work. Click here for more information and tickets.
The theme of the purpose of art and artistic creation is playfully introduced in one of the first comic strips, Moomin and the Brigands. Here Moomin and his friend Sniff embark on a quest for fortune. They engage in several schemes, including capturing rare creatures and selling them to the zoo, marketing magic rejuvenation potions and creating modern art.
While visiting a Hemulen (a really uptight counterpart to the Moomintrolls who love rules), Moomin and Sniff accidentally break several precious items in her home. Among the broken objects is a large statue of Rebecca at the Well, which falls from its pedestal and shatters. Rebecca at the Well is a classic biblical motif, which often portrays a model of feminine virtue, symbolising divine guidance and exemplifying ideals of hospitality and moral character.
The friends awkwardly attempt to reassemble the statue by gluing it together. The result is a strangely angular and expressive piece of art, referencing fragmented cubist portraits. Cubism, which emerged around 1907 to 1908, aimed to represent reality in a radically new way by bringing together subjects and figures, resulting in objects that appear fragmented and abstracted.
Sniff immediately sees the potential of the new Rebecca. “She’s more modern now,” he exclaims joyfully. The friends carry the statue to an enthusiastic art dealer who sells it for £500 in his gallery.
The episode with the deconstructed Rebecca is, of course, a funny caricature of the trend-sensitive art market. But the shattered statue with its intricate shapes was also a commentary on the debates about the “incomprehensible” and “obscure” nature of modernist art in Nordic countries during the time.
The destruction of the Rebecca can also be seen as an act of iconoclasm – the breaking of icons or monuments – or rather, a parody of it. While usually associated with vandalism, here, the iconoclastic act leads to the creation of something new. This expresses a desire for renewal and a liberation from restrictive conventions. It is, however, worth noting that Rebecca retains her symbol of virtue – the water jug – even after this pivotal encounter.
Drawing on the work of French philosopher and anthropologist Bruno Latour, iconoclasm can be understood as both destructive and constructive – an ambiguity that also applies to Jansson’s interpretation of the motif.
Later in the story, the money offered by the modernist Rebecca lures Moomin to the field of the arts. For a brief moment, he assumes the role of a painter and wholeheartedly embodies the romanticised ideal of the poor, misunderstood artist.
Moomin dons a Rembrandtian black velvet beret, but despite this, appears lost and bewildered in his new role, muttering: “I only want to live in peace and plant potatoes and dream!”
In a scene of self-parodying metafiction, he is blinded by his oversized beret and ends up tumbling down a cliff, abruptly ending his artistic career.
Tove Jansson’s Moomin comic strips for the Evening News use satire to explore artistic creation, the role of the artist, and the art world.
Through Moomintroll’s and Sniff’s pursuit of fame and fortune via the accidental modernist deconstruction of Rebecca, Jansson satirises romantic notions of the artist, the commercialisation of art and the professions surrounding artistic production. These themes are deeply connected to Jansson’s own experiences as an artist and author, constantly balancing between various professional and artistic demands, between children’s books, public obligations and painting.
Elina Druker is employed as a professor and researcher at Stockholm University, Sweden.
The UK government has unveiled plans to reform the migration system, making it more restrictive with the aim of reducing the level of net migration into Britain.
Immigration provides economic opportunities for a country – for example, migration enables employers to recruit the workers they need. This is particularly true in essential but low-paid sectors such as social care and agriculture. Reducing net migration may mean trading off some of these economic benefits.
The UK government’s official economic forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, tends to assume that higher net migration has a positive impact on economic growth and tax receipts.
We have just published new research that partly explains this decision. We conducted a survey of 103 MPs and 1,757 local councillors, and compared the attitudes of British politicians with those of members of the public.
We polled Westminster MPs on what they think about the level of migration into the UK. The timing of this polling matched up exactly with a public poll YouGov had conducted. This enabled us to draw a direct comparison between the two groups.
We found that broadly, MPs and the public are in agreement on this issue. Both clearly tend to think immigration has been too high in recent years. However, the public (70% support) are even more inclined towards this view than MPs (just under 60% support), and less likely than MPs to think that immigration levels have been “about right” in recent years.
Despite these results, the long-term trend on public attitudes to migration has moved in a more liberal direction. Over decades, the British public has generally become more positive about the benefits of migration.
However, this is complicated by the fact that anti-immigration voters are often more exercised about the issue than pro-immigration voters. Anti-immigration voters are also more efficiently distributed across a large number of constituencies, whereas more liberal pro-immigration voters are often more concentrated in seats in larger cities.
Reform UK’s performance in the recent local elections demonstrates the electoral potency of anti-immigration sentiment among some voters.
Ipsos also recently published some interesting polling of MPs and the public. This showed that when it comes to issues such as increased housebuilding and immigration, MPs tended to be more willing than the public to prioritise boosting economic growth over other objectives (such as limiting immigration). Although, MPs were more willing than the public to prioritise protecting the environment over economic growth.
When Labour was elected into government in 2024, Keir Starmer emphasised the party’s focus on boosting growth. A whole tranche of new Labour MPs were elected with an apparent commitment to this, and many subsequently joined the Labour Growth Group caucus.
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Such a shift in the composition of who is in the Westminster parliament has enabled substantial policy shifts in a pro-growth direction. For example, some recent Conservative prime ministers would arguably have liked to implement the type of reforms in the current government’s planning and infrastructure bill, but were unable to principally because of resistance among their backbench MPs.
However, as we’ve explained, polling shows that the public is not always as willing as the current crop of MPs to sign up to things just because they might boost economic growth. There is also a substantial section of the population who would like to see immigration reduced.
The government’s new white paper setting out its proposed immigration reforms eschews a simple relationship between higher immigration and greater economic prosperity. It emphasises the difference between boosting overall GDP and the size of the labour market versus productivity and per capita GDP, and criticises an economic model reliant on record levels of net migration into the UK.
Nonetheless, it appears that Labour has diluted its attempt to govern in a purely pro-growth manner in order to respond to public opinion.
Mitya Pearson the University of Warwick. He has received funding from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.
David Jeffery 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.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – During National Police Week, U.S. Representative Gabe Vasquez (NM-02)delivered remarks on the House floor honoring three New Mexico law enforcement officers who are being added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial wall and recognizing the leadership of Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story.
WATCH: VASQUEZ FLOOR REMARKS
“Every day, across our country and in my home state, law enforcement officers wake up, put on the badge, and commit themselves to protecting our neighbors,” said Vasquez. “It is a calling that demands bravery, sacrifice, and unwavering dedication. This week, we remember those who answered that call and never returned home.”
This year, three fallen New Mexico officers are being recognized on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington:
Corrections Officer Roberto Rodriguez, Doña Ana County
Patrol Officer Jonah Hernandez, Las Cruces Police Department
Patrolman Justin C. Hare, New Mexico State Police
Vasquez also recognized the following fallen officers:
Police officer J.R. Stewart, Las Cruces Police Department
Police Officer Bianca Quintana, Albuquerque Police Department
Police officer Anthony “Tony” Ferguson, Alamogordo Police Department
Patrolman James M Sides, Alamogordo Police Department
State Police Officer Darian Jarrott, New Mexico State Police Department
Sheriff Michael Reeves, Curry County
Rep. Vasquez also called for stronger federal support for active law enforcement officers, emphasizing the need to invest in officer safety, mental health, and family well-being.
In addition, Vasquez recognized Chief Jeremy Story of the Las Cruces Police Department for his exemplary leadership in times of crisis and ongoing dedication to public service.
“Earlier this year, our community faced a horrific mass shooting—an act of senseless violence that shook Las Cruces to its core,” said Vasquez. “Chief Story responded swiftly and with compassion. His leadership was grounded in facts and empathy. He showed up—not just to lead, but to help us begin to heal.”
Chief Story, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and New Mexico State University graduate, was named Citizen of the Year by the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce this May.
“On behalf of all New Mexicans, I thank Chief Jeremy Story for his continued leadership and unwavering commitment to the people of Las Cruces,” said Vasquez.
National Police Week honors law enforcement officers nationwide who have died in the line of duty and recognizes those who continue to serve their communities with bravery and professionalism.
Source: United States Senator for North Dakota John Hoeven
05.16.25
Senator Invites Secretary Duffy to North Dakota to See Grand Sky, Learn about Counter-Drone Efforts Firsthand
WASHINGTON – Senator John Hoeven this week discussed with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, North Dakota’s role in meeting key priorities to ensure safe and efficient air travel in the U.S. airspace. Hoeven outlined the work of the University of North Dakota (UND) and his efforts to leverage the school’s expertise in order to:
Help meet the nation’s need for air traffic controllers (ATC).
Hoeven worked with UND and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to secure the school’s role in the Enhanced Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) program.
Under this initiative, UND graduates are immediately eligible for hire and to begin localized training at an air traffic facility, bypassing the FAA Academy in Oklahoma.
Now, Hoeven is sponsoring the ATC Workforce Development Act to strengthen the Enhanced AT-CTI program and further improve controller recruitment and retention.
Secretary Duffy agreed to work with Hoeven on expanding capacity for ATC training and expressed support for the bill.
Ensure the U.S. has enough qualified pilots to meet future demand.
Hoeven highlighted UND’s Vets2Wings program, which expands flight training for veterans and helps cover costs not included under the GI Bill or the Department of Defense’s Federal Tuition Assistance Program.
Hoeven initially secured $2.5 million to establish the program and then passed his American Aviator Act to authorize the program at the FAA through Fiscal Year (FY) 2028.
The senator stated that initiatives like this help address the need for commercial airline pilots and requested that the secretary work with him on making the program permanent.
In addition, Hoeven invited Secretary Duffy to visit North Dakota and learn firsthand about the state’s counter-drone efforts at Grand Sky and the Northern Plains Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Test Site. Hoeven stressed the need to finish linking the FAA’s unfiltered radar data feed with the test site to empower this work, which is needed to protect against the malicious use of UAS.
“North Dakota is home to the largest flight school in the country and plays a growing role in ATC training with the Enhanced AT-CTI Program at UND. Considering the challenges faced by our aviation industry, it is critical that we work to remove bottlenecks in training for air traffic controllers. That’s exactly what we’ve worked to do at UND, and our ATC Workforce Development Act will take these efforts even further,” said Hoeven. “Our state is also leading the way in developing counter-drone technologies, an increasingly important national security priority. The FAA’s radar data feed will enhance our test site’s ability to identify potentially threatening systems, a critical part of keeping the national airspace secure from dangerous UAS. I appreciate Secretary Duffy’s willingness to help complete the process of sharing the unfiltered radar data, as well as his agreement to visit North Dakota and learn more about the important work we’re doing at UND, Grand Sky and the test site.”
Advancing Counter-Drone Technologies
Hoeven is working to realize new opportunities in the Grand Forks region for developing counter-drone technologies to protect against emerging threats resulting from the misuse of UAS. To this end, Hoeven continues his efforts to:
Increase the size and scope of Project ULTRA to support counter-UAS technology development.
By increasing the project’s contract ceiling, it can serve as a bridge between an existing DoD contracting vehicle and new counter-UAS capabilities being developed in the private sector.
Secure access for the Northern Plains UAS Test Site to the FAA unfiltered radar data feed, which is currently in process.
Once completed, it will use the feed to enhance efforts to detect, identify and track malicious UAS.
Between Project ULTRA and the FAA radar data, Grand Forks will be uniquely positioned to develop methods for protecting domestic U.S. military bases against potential UAS threats.
Source: US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation FDIC
WASHINGTON – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) today announced the retirement of Arthur J. (Art) Murton, Deputy to the Chairman for Financial Stability and Director of the Division of Complex Institution Supervision and Resolution (CISR) on May 31, 2025, following a distinguished 39-year career at the agency.
The FDIC Board of Directors appointed Mr. Murton as Deputy to the Chairman for Financial Stability in October 2019. In that role, he advised FDIC Chairmen and Board members on key policy issues affecting the FDIC and the banking system. Mr. Murton was also named Director of CISR in October 2023, where he oversaw the FDIC’s responsibilities related to systemically important financial institutions and insured depository institutions with assets above $100 billion. Mr. Murton held several other leadership roles at the agency over his career, including as Director of the Division of Insurance, the Division of Insurance and Research, and the Office of Complex Financial Institutions.
“Art’s experience and depth of knowledge have helped navigate the FDIC through critical times in our agency’s history,” said Travis Hill, FDIC Acting Chairman. “He is also a valued colleague who has mentored and helped further the careers of those who have worked with him. We are grateful for his dedication and exemplary service to the FDIC.”
Mr. Murton joined the FDIC in January 1986 as a financial economist in the former Division of Research and Statistics. His time at the agency spanned the banking crises of the 1980s, the 2008 global financial crisis, and the regional bank failures in the spring of 2023. In each of these, Mr. Murton played a significant role in handling bank failures and in maintaining the liquidity and solvency of the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF). Additionally, during the global financial crisis, he led the design and implementation of the Temporary Liquidity Guaranty Program.
Mr. Murton also helped shape the reforms that followed these crises. For example, following the 1980s, the FDIC established a risk-based premium system to maintain the adequacy of the DIF. Following the 2008 crisis, the FDIC began requiring the largest banks to develop resolution plans and establishing tools to resolve the largest financial firms in an orderly way without taxpayer funds. Mr. Murton was instrumental in the implementation of these and other reforms.
Mr. Murton also helped to establish the International Association of Deposit Insurers and was the FDIC’s first representative to that group. He has also worked extensively with the Financial Stability Board and has helped the FDIC develop strong bilateral relationships with key resolution authorities around the world.
Mr. Murton holds a Bachelor of Economics degree from Duke University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Virginia.
ew York Governor Kathy Hochul and Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca announced today plans for Governor Hochul to visit Seneca Nation Territory to apologize on behalf of New York State’s role in the Thomas Indian School atrocities. The Seneca Nation is set to welcome Governor Hochul to its Cattaraugus Territory on Tuesday, May 20, when Governor Hochul will issue a long-awaited official apology to the Seneca people, as well as all former students and their descendants from various Indigenous Nations, for the State of New York’s role in the operation of the Thomas Indian School. Governor Hochul’s visit is believed to be the first time a sitting Governor has officially visited Seneca Nation Territory.
“No words or actions will ever be able to undo the pain and suffering of the Seneca people and other Indigenous peoples across the State, but by visiting the Seneca Nation and the site of the Thomas Indian School we will mark a new day in our relations,” Governor Hochul said. “As we prepare to officially recognize the horrifying shortcomings of our past, I thank President Seneca for his advocacy on behalf of the Seneca people and his invitation to the Cattaraugus Territory, and I look forward to further strengthening the relationship between the Seneca people and the State of New York.”
Seneca Nation President J.C. Seneca said, “The severity of the wounds inflicted on our children warrants the historical significance of our Nation welcoming Governor Hochul to the Cattaraugus Territory. The atrocities that our children suffered at the Thomas Indian School have remained hidden in the shadows for far too long. At long last, our people will hear, directly from the Governor, the words we have waited lifetimes for the State of New York to say — ‘We’re sorry.’”
Originally established by Presbyterian missionaries on the Cattaraugus Territory in 1855, Thomas Indian School was owned and operated by the State of New York from 1875 until it closed in 1957. Thomas Indian School, and other residential boarding schools across the United States and Canada, operated under the government’s policy of forced assimilation of Native children. Thousands of children from various Indigenous Nations were separated from their families and forced to attend the school. They were stripped of the traditional language and culture, and suffered abuse, violence, hatred, and sometimes death, at the hands of school officials. Thousands of children are known to have died at the residential boarding schools. It is believed that the deaths of hundreds — if not thousands — more were never documented.
The devastating impacts the boarding schools had on Native American families and communities, including the decimation of family structures and traditional language, are still keenly felt today.
“I know the pain and the trauma because I have seen it and felt it in my own family, just as countless families have borne that pain and carried it every day for generations,” Seneca Nation President J.C. Seneca — whose father attended Thomas Indian School, and whose grandmother was removed from her family at age 11 and forced to attend Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania — said. “The Governor’s visit will be an important moment on our road to healing. In coming to our territory and apologizing to our people, the Governor can give voice to the children whose youth and innocence were stolen from them.”
Governor Hochul’s planned visit will fulfill a pledge she made to President Seneca during a visit Nation leaders made to Albany earlier this year. It is also another example of Governor Hochul’s commitment to supporting and strengthening relationships with Indigenous peoples across the state. As part of this commitment, Governor Hochul has:
Convened leaders from the Indigenous Nations across New York State for a historic summit at the New York State Capitol in Albany.
Appointed Elizabeth Rule as the State’s First Deputy Secretary for Indigenous Nations.
Proposed to strengthen the stability of Indigenous Families by directing Deputy Secretary Rule to advance, in consultation with Nation leadership and stakeholders, strategies to strengthen the objectives of the Indian Child Welfare Act, underscoring New York’s commitment to redressing injustices inflicted upon Indigenous communities.
Ensured dental care access for Indigenous Nations including $2.5 million in funding for Indigenous Nations dental health care, with the aim of addressing gaps in access.
Responded to offensive representations by commencing a comprehensive review of artistic representation of Indigenous peoples in the Capitol, with invited participation from representatives from each of the nine Indigenous Nations to ensure that all New Yorkers are welcomed in the State Capitol.
The announced visit and apology comes as the New York State Senate unanimously approved a resolution earlier this week acknowledging the State’s role in the operation of Thomas Indian School and the horrors that occurred there. President Seneca and other Nation officials and citizens were present when the resolution was read on the Senate floor and approved.
This visit will be open to invited guests of the Seneca Nation.
Headline: Governor Stein Announces Director of Charlotte Office
Governor Stein Announces Director of Charlotte Office lsaito
Raleigh, NC
Today Governor Stein announced that Walter L. Bowers, Jr., will join his team as Director of the Governor’s Charlotte Office.
“Pastor Bowers has a broad and rich understanding of our state’s largest city, and I look forward to his service connecting people with the support they need from their state government and making the region safer and stronger,” said Governor Josh Stein.
Walter L. Bowers, Jr., is the Senior Pastor of Chosen City Church in Charlotte. Bowers is a former United States Army officer and a partner at Wooden Bowers Law PLLC. Prior to practicing law, Bowers served with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department as a patrol officer and an attorney within its legal division. Pastor Bowers holds a B.S. in Computer Information Systems from Miles College, a M.A. in Biblical Studies from New Life Theological Seminary, and a J.D. from Charlotte School of Law. Pastor Bowers will serve in the Governor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Source: United States Senator for Washington State Patty Murray
Top Democratic appropriators call out delays in notification of federal education funding
Washington, D.C. — Today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, and Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, sent a letter to Secretary Linda McMahon calling out the Department’s failure to provide public K-12 schools across the nation the timely notice they usually receive about federal funding they count on—and urging McMahon to put an end to the harmful delays.
“We write to express our concern about the delay in providing states and school districts with information about expected formula funding required to be provided to them under the fiscal year 2025 appropriations law and request you re-focus the Department of Education on fulfilling its statutory obligations in a clear, certain and timely manner,” write the lawmakers. “We believe you need to immediately change course and work in partnership with states and school districts to help them effectively use federal funds to implement the purposes and requirements of federal law to improve educational opportunities for all students.”
The lawmakers note that, under enacted appropriations laws, “the Department must allocate formula-grant funding for multiple programs authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The largest of these, the Title I-A grant program, will provide $18.4 billion by formula to more than 80 percent of the nation’s school districts, and is already factored into budgets for the coming school year that is only a few months away.”
But despite this requirement to get federal K-12 funding out the door, it has taken the Department more than three times as long as the last administration to provide preliminary allocations to states and school districts after passage of fiscal year 2025 appropriations: “Yet, it took until May 13, 2025—more than 50 days after enactment of the 2025 appropriations law—for the Department to provide preliminary allocations of the amounts states and their school districts should expect to receive under the Title I-A formula grant programs for the 2025-2026 school year. This inexcusable delay is in sharp contrast with actions by the Biden administration. After President Biden signed the 2024 appropriations law on March 23, 2024, the Department provided preliminary allocations under the Title I-A program on April 8, 2024, just over two weeks after the appropriations law was signed. The Trump-McMahon Department took more than three times as much time to accomplish this basic task. We were told your Department’s work would be efficient, particularly after the reduction in force in which you reduced half of the Department’s workforce, but that does not appear to be the case here.”
“The delayed allocation,” the lawmakers write, “gives states less time to identify these [school support and improvement] amounts and make decisions about how best to allocate funds as allowed by federal law, which are required to be used for evidence-based interventions designed to help improve student outcomes in the lowest performing public schools in the state and lowest performing subgroups in public schools in the state.”
The lawmakers conclude by calling on Secretary McMahon to put an end to these delays and ensure K-12 schools have the certainty and support they need in the coming school year: “We implore the Department to reverse course, stop creating chaos, provide states and school districts with information about the resources Congress provided in the 2025 appropriations law and begin to support states and their school districts in the effective implementation of federal law. The Department’s actions to date have only imposed legally dubious policy reversals, funding cancellations, terminations and reductions, and funding directives that do nothing to support students and educators in improving student learning and outcomes.”
Full text of the letter is available HERE and below:
The Honorable Linda McMahon Secretary U.S. Department of Education 400 Maryland Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20202
Dear Secretary McMahon:
We write to express our concern about the delay in providing states and school districts with information about expected formula funding required to be provided to them under the fiscal year 2025 appropriations law and request you re-focus the Department of Education (“Department”) on fulfilling its statutory obligations in a clear, certain and timely manner. States and school districts are best able to plan to most effectively use federal funds with advance knowledge of expected funding, as Congress intends by providing funds on a forward-funded basis. We have seen and heard numerous remarks from you and President Trump about returning education to the states. However, actions to date tell a very different story about the Department’s intentions. We believe you need to immediately change course and work in partnership with states and school districts to help them effectively use federal funds to implement the purposes and requirements of federal law to improve educational opportunities for all students, particularly students from low-income families, students with disabilities, English learners, students experiencing homelessness and other historically underserved students our federal laws specifically require states to support.
Congress passed the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, which President Trump signed on March 15, 2025. This law includes appropriations to the Department under the terms and conditions of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024. Under those terms, the Department must allocate formula-grant funding for multiple programs authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The largest of these, the Title I-A grant program, will provide $18.4 billion by formula to more than 80 percent of the nation’s school districts, and is already factored into budgets for the coming school year that is only a few months away. Public school budgets also already factor in billions in funding for longstanding federal formula grants, including English Language Acquisition Grants, Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants, and more. Yet, it took until May 13, 2025–more than 50 days after enactment of the 2025 appropriations law–for the Department to provide preliminary allocations of the amounts states and their school districts should expect to receive under the Title I-A formula grant programs for the 2025-2026 school year.
This inexcusable delay is in sharp contrast with actions by the Biden administration. After President Biden signed the 2024 appropriations law on March 23, 2024, the Department provided preliminary allocations under the Title I-A program on April 8, 2024, just over two weeks after the appropriations law was signed. The Trump-McMahon Department took more than three times as much time to accomplish this basic task.. We were told your Department’s work would be efficient, particularly after the reduction in force in which you reduced half of the Department’s workforce,[1] but that does not appear to be the case here.
As you know, Title I-A is the largest federal program that provides supplemental funds to more than 80 percent of the nation’s school districts for more than half of all public schools. It also contains critical funding to identify and support the lowest performing public schools in each state and consistently underperforming subgroups of students in public schools in each state, and support students experiencing homelessness. States are required to set-aside a portion of a state’s allocation of Title I-A funds for its school support and improvement work without reducing any school district’s allocation. The delayed allocation gives states less time to identify these amounts and make decisions about how best to allocate funds as allowed by federal law, which are required to be used for evidence-based interventions designed to help improve student outcomes in the lowest performing public schools in the state and lowest performing subgroups in public schools in the state. In addition, school districts are required to reserve sufficient funds to provide services to students experiencing homelessness in Title I and non-Title I schools. The Department’s delayed notification could also make it more difficult for school districts to best serve students experiencing homelessness as required by law.
Unfortunately, the Department’s delays also extend to the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) and other programs. REAP supports more than 6,000 rural school districts and was created to address the unique challenges faced by rural schools, including a lower tax base and capacity challenges in seeking competitive funding. Unfortunately, the Department made the application for the Small, Rural Schools Assistance (SRSA) program—one of two REAP grant programs—available on May 14th, with applications due 30 days later on June 13, 2025. By contrast, last year under the Biden administration, the Department released the FY 2024 application for SRSA on March 19, 2024 and provided a 60-day application window. The delayed application and shortened application window under your leadership demonstrate a lack of concern for the challenges rural schools face; or perhaps the Department’s workforce reductions have limited its ability to fulfill its statutory obligations in a timely way.
Unfortunately, we must also note the Department has been busy discontinuing funds for hundreds of grantees of school-based mental health programs we have supported through appropriations directives to the Department and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.[2] The Department abruptly decided to discontinue expected federal support for more than 200 grants for mental health services in schools after what it claimed, without evidence, was an individualized review of the grants.[3] This alleged review led the Department to the conclusion that continuing the grants was not in the “best interest of the Federal Government” and that some of the grants “undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help”.[4] There’s bitter irony in the Department’s decision only days later to issue updated guidance encouraging states to undertake more work under the unsafe school option provision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act [5] after discontinuing funds supported on a bipartisan basis for the important federal support it provides for mental health services that can help students feel safe in school and protect them from acts of school violence.[6]
We implore the Department to reverse course, stop creating chaos, provide states and school districts with information about the resources Congress provided in the 2025 appropriations law and begin to support states and their school districts in the effective implementation of federal law. The Department’s actions to date have only imposed legally dubious policy reversals,[7][8][9] funding cancellations, terminations and reductions,[10][11][12] and funding directives[13][14] that do nothing to support students and educators in improving student learning and outcomes.
In addition, Congress and American taxpayers continue to see an utter lack of transparency from you and this administration. We’ve written numerous letters[15][16][17][18] that have yet to receive adequate or any response. You also failed to meet legal requirements to provide an operating plan at the level of detail required by section 1113 and in adherence to section 1101 of the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, despite having more than 45 days to do so. This must change immediately.
Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. We look forward to seeing actions from the Department that align to the timely and effective implementation of the requirements of federal law. We also look forward to responses to our letters and your testimony before committees later this year.
Two new Community Alcohol Partnerships (CAPs) highlighting the risks of underage drinking to children and young people have launched in Paulsgrove and Portsea.
CAPs are partnerships between organisations and the community who work together to highlight the risks of underage drinking and improve the health and wellbeing of local children and young people.
Partners in the new CAPs include: Portsmouth City Council, United Learning Portsmouth Cluster, ARK Charter Academy and Community Alcohol Partnership (CIC).
The CAPs in Paulsgrove and Portsea will work to educate young people about underage drinking and help them to make better decisions about issues such as alcohol, drugs and anti-social behaviour.
Working with local retailers, the CAP also aims to prevent underage sales and ‘proxy’ sales, where adults buy alcohol for under-18s.
Cllr Matthew Winnington, Cabinet Member for Community Wellbeing, Health and Care at Portsmouth City Council, said: “We’re delighted to be working with our communities to understand and address the impact underage drinking can have on children and young people. The two CAPs in Paulsgrove and Portsea are testament to the relationships between the council, local schools and our residents, who are committed to working together and making a real difference to the people of Portsmouth.”
Kate Winstanley, Director of CAP, said: “We know from extensive research that underage drinking can lead to lots of challenges for young people in their education, relationships, health and also in later life. We also know that the work CAPs do in local communities can help reduce things like the supply of alcohol to children, alcohol-related anti-social behaviour and underage street drinking. That’s why it’s great to see local partners coming together in this new CAP to highlight the risks of underage drinking and reduce alcohol harm among our young people.”
She continued: “We are looking forward to seeing the initiatives that the CAP is working on and to making an impact in the local community.”
As part of the CAP, the council will work with schools in Paulsgrove and Portsea to hear from children and young people about the ideas they have to address underage drinking, and support communities in implementing ideas.
David Oakes, Executive Principal at Castle View Academy, part of the United Learning Portsmouth Cluster, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with the CAP, supporting our young people in Castle View Academy, developing awareness of heathy life choices, and offering them opportunities beyond the classroom.”
Derby is once again celebrating its success on the international stage as it proudly retains its Purple Flag accreditation, a prestigious award that recognises excellence in managing the evening and night-time economy. This will be the twelfth year in a row that Derby has held the Purple Flag accreditation.
Awarded by an independent panel from the Association of Town and City Management (ATCM), the Purple Flag status acknowledges cities and towns that meet or surpass standards of excellence in providing a vibrant, diverse, and enjoyable experience between 5pm and 5am.
A range of local organisations have come together through Derby’s Purple Flag working group to improve the city’s evening and night-time economy. This group includes representatives from Derby City Council, Derbyshire Constabulary, Marketing Derby, Pubwatch, St Peters Quarter and Cathedral Quarter BIDs, Derby Homes, the University of Derby, and Visit Derby alongside many more. Their collaborative efforts have been key to helping Derby retain its Purple Flag status.
ATCM noted that recent additions such as Vaillant Live, which has significantly boosted the city’s cultural and event offerings, and the Condor residential development, showcasing urban regeneration at its best, heavily contributed to Derby being awarded the Purple Flag. They also commended the achievements and active participation of the working group in improving Derby’s night life.
Councillor Sarah Chambers, Cabinet Member for Cost of Living, Equalities and Communities, said:
This latest Purple Flag award is fantastic recognition of the continuous hard work across Derby to create a welcoming, inclusive, and positive experience in the city centre. We know perception matters and this award helps reinforce Derby as a place where people feel excited to spend their evenings. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved and even more excited for what’s to come.”
Brad Worley, BID Manager for both Cathedral Quarter and St Peters Quarter, said:
The Purple Flag award represents a celebration of the safety, liveliness, and variety found within the evening and night-time attractions of our city. It’s a proud achievement for Derby and a reflection of the dedication and cooperation shown by so many groups working together to make our city centre thrive after dark.”
There are 90 Purple Flag destinations around the globe across the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Malta, New Zealand and Australia. Derby is proud to be amongst them. You can learn more about the Purple Flag award on the ATCM website.
There is plenty going on in Derby, learn more about what’s on by visiting the Derby LIVE webpage. You can learn more about Derby Nightlife on the Visit Derby webpage.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Marina Malyutina opens the “Challenge Fair”
Students of SPbGASU responded to the challenges of the construction industry in an unusual event. On May 13, the Center for Student Entrepreneurship and Career held the “Challenge Fair” at our university for the first time.
Experts from five partner companies set real-life tasks for the students. Over the course of an hour, five teams, under the guidance of their mentors, generated solutions and then presented them to the experts and spectators. In addition, the Challenge Fair featured a Contact Wall, where any student, teacher or company representative could leave information about themselves: contact details, description of an idea or project (if any), who or what they were looking for.
SPbGASU – a growth point for technological entrepreneurship
Vice-Rector for Youth Policy Marina Malyutina spoke about how SPbGASU students are taught innovative entrepreneurial thinking. According to Marina Viktorovna, technological entrepreneurship is a certain challenge for students who want more than just to master the curriculum, they want to develop in the professional sphere.
Experience has shown that our students are capable of technological entrepreneurship: SPbGASU took third place in the TechnoPiter accelerator, and for the second year the university has been developing the Startup as a Diploma project, within the framework of which final qualification theses are defended.
Marina Viktorovna emphasized: “The Challenge Fair” is a “bridge” to the fact that next year some of the participants want to defend their final qualification work in the startup format. This is necessary for the university, which is focused on practice, and this is necessary for the industry. Graduates who think boldly and innovatively are extremely in demand.
Challenges from partner companies
Chief designer of the company “Project Institute No. 2” Andrey Poklad suggested that students think about the idea of a foundation for heavy production on soft soil. The expert told about a real construction project – a one-story industrial building, which is being designed in the Krasnodar region, for which an alternative design solution for the foundation should be developed.
How to create a roofing structure that will tell you when cracks, leaks or moisture appear in it? This question was asked by Rockwool employees: Flat Roofing Development Specialist Anna Lyubimtseva and Leading Design Engineer Andrey Petrov. The speakers proposed developing a concept of “smart” thermal insulation for roofs.
General Director of the Gensey company Artur Roshchupkin invited students to develop a project for a multifunctional public transport stop for the historical center of St. Petersburg, which should be in harmony with the architecture of the city’s historical buildings. The speaker drew attention to the current problem of the lack of public toilets in the center, especially at night. Tourists are left without amenities. In addition, the existing glass stops do not fit well into the architecture.
Ilya Voilokov, a specialist in technical support at INSOLAR and associate professor of the construction organization department, called for assessing the possibility of using heat pumps as the main or backup heating source in a residential complex. Although heat pumps are already used in private homes, they are rarely used in low-rise buildings, especially complex ones.
Dmitry Gladkovsky, Director of the Project Management Unit at GloraX, set a challenge for students: to create an automated documentation verification system. Developers face the problem of checking large volumes of working documentation for compliance with design standards. Manual verification requires a staff of experts, time-consuming work, and is subject to the human factor, which leads to errors and losses. An automated verification system based on a neural network could solve this problem, but its creation is difficult due to the lack of a training documentation base. Existing projects are not yet effective enough for widespread use.
Innovative solutions from students
The Blue Team’s response to the challenge from Design Institute No. 2 was a dynamic borehole filled with crushed stone or concrete mixture.
The Purple Team responded to Rockwool’s challenge by proposing to use sensors that consist of a capsule with a piston filled with a silica gel-type material that expands when in contact with water.
The “red” team responded to the challenge of the “Gensei” company and presented the idea of a multifunctional public transport stop, which consists of a restroom and a waiting area. It includes a baby changing room, containers for separate waste collection, vending machines, an SOS panic button and much more.
The Green Team responded to the challenge from INSOLAR and presented a plan for a residential complex of twenty houses, each with a thermal circuit for the recovery of human heat.
The “orange” team responded to the task from the GloraX company and offered to check the already created digital models of buildings that the developer has.
New challenges lie ahead
When asked if they liked this format of the event, the students answered with a unanimous “yes!” Many expressed a desire to participate again.
Marina Malyutina summed up the results, expressing confidence that in collaboration with partners the university will develop a practice-oriented approach and move forward.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Thank you, Pedro, for your kind introduction and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us today as we dive into an essential aspect of our regulatory framework – economic analysis.
In order to keep the compliance folks here at the SEC happy, I must first note that the views I express here today are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the full Commission or of my fellow Commissioners.
Considering the ongoing changes in financial landscapes, the need for thorough economic analysis of the Commission’s actions becomes increasingly important. High-quality economic analysis is an essential part of any SEC rulemaking. It is critical that a rule’s potential benefits and costs be considered in ensuring that it is in the public’s interest. It also helps that it happens to be the law.
From Pedro’s introduction, you can see that this is my third tour of duty at the SEC – having previously served from 1990-1994 on the staff of former Chairmen Richard Breeden and Arthur Levitt, as a Commissioner from 2002-2008, and now as Chairman.
This is a unique moment to come back here to lead the agency, as opportunities abound to facilitate capital formation when the investment environment and the capital markets are undergoing significant change.
During my tenure as Commissioner, I often emphasized the need for rigorous economic analysis. As Chairman, I aim to ensure that those principles are the bedrock upon which our sound regulatory policies are built. It is important for us as an agency to ensure that thorough and unbiased economic analysis is not being overshadowed by any driving desire to implement regulatory measures that impose unnecessary burdens on our markets.
Before we act, we first must identify a problem to be solved and propose a resolution that is tailored to solve it – rather than create a solution in search of an unidentified problem.
The SEC, in its regulatory capacity, is tasked to balance investor protection with promoting capital formation and market efficiency. In years past, the Commission has unfortunately demonstrated a tendency to prioritize regulatory expansion over meticulous economic analysis, potentially jeopardizing this delicate balance.
For example, in some of the Commission’s recent economic analysis, the adopting releases have stated, “Where possible, we have attempted to quantify these economic effects . . . however, we are unable to reliably quantify the potential benefits and costs of the final rul[e].”[1]
Going forward, we must show our work so that the public understands what we are proposing and why. We must show that we have considered the potential effects of our rules, including the negative ones.
Robust economic analysis of our regulatory initiatives helps us to do just that. It provides us with a framework to assess the potential unintended consequences of new regulations.
In choosing when and how to regulate our markets we should be cognizant to measure twice and cut once. Otherwise, we risk damaging our markets and unnecessarily adding costs to issuers and investors.
Like it or not, we operate in a global environment. There are alternatives, and investors can vote with their feet and pocketbooks. Our job at the SEC is to ensure that we maintain a market that is the best in the world for investors and for issuers. You cannot have one without the other.
As I have said before, regulation is a bit like golf.[2] It requires careful, precise strokes, and meticulous analysis of shot selection to achieve the intended result. For instance, if you choose the wrong club, or swing too hard, you risk overshooting the green.[3] In the end, your short game of precision is most often the crucial factor to sink the ball in the hole.
As we navigate the complexities of modern financial markets, we must continually refine our methodologies while adapting to new challenges.
I am thankful that you all are here to help us to enrich our understanding of markets and market dynamics. By incorporating diverse perspectives and a wide range of research, we enhance the robustness of our analyses and ensure that our regulatory measures are well-informed.
We value the research that you do.
It is a new day at the SEC, and I look forward to engaging with you all as we promote policies that foster economic growth and strengthen confidence in our markets.
Before I turn it over to our first panel, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of this event, especially the organizers, Amy Edwards and Vlad Ivanov from the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, Kathleen Hanley from Lehigh University, and Pedro Matos from the University of Virginia.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Pavel Doroshenko, Marina Malyutina, Victoria Motorenko, Victoria Boginskaya and Marina Grigorenko
SPbGASU became a stop on the route of the international patriotic expedition “Unconquered”. The expedition’s partner is the All-Russian student project “Your Move”, which is part of the presidential platform “Russia – the Land of Opportunities” and is implemented by the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh) with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
Expedition of friendship and creation
As explained by Pavel Doroshenko, a representative of the directorate of the all-Russian student project “Your Move”, the patriotic expedition “Unconquered” was launched in Russia as part of the Year of the Defender of the Fatherland in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. The selection of participants took place through the platform of the project “Your Move”. More than 2.5 thousand applications were received, each was studied in detail, after which 60 participants were admitted to the expedition during a personal interview.
“During the two-week expedition, students will travel more than five thousand kilometers, visit 14 cities in Russia and Belarus. Travel, communication, and the educational program are filled with meetings with interesting speakers and various events. The time spent together will allow students to become friends, learn about opportunities for self-development, outline plans for joint work and the creation of public projects,” Pavel Doroshenko specified.
Vice-Rector for Youth Policy at SPbGASU Marina Malyutina reported that our university is pleased to join the project “Your Move” and the patriotic expedition “Unconquered”, as it considers them important in the comprehensive education of young people, their advancement in professional and social activities, and the formation of a civic position.
“It is significant that the program began at our university, and this is not surprising, because the results of our graduates’ work are visible throughout Russia: starting from the 19th century, our engineers, architects, and builders created the cities where we live, which educate us, which we preserve and protect, and which we are proud of. It is important to emphasize that our university combines academic tradition with modern trends in Russian science, so it can be said about us that we preserve our traditions, our history, and create the future,” Marina Malyutina noted.
Irina Peretokin, a second-year student at the construction faculty and a representative of the SPbGASU volunteer club, said that volunteers participate in various events at both the university and federal levels and not only complete assigned tasks, but also help organize events.
“The Unconquered Project is a socially significant project aimed at developing patriotism. We consider it our duty to promote such events and participate in them, because they are necessary to strengthen the correct civic position and realize the potential of modern youth,” Irina explained.
Great opportunities for young people
Opening the plenary session, Marina Malyutina emphasized that the activities of our university are aimed at forming a full-fledged student personality, which has both professional and project competencies, as well as soft skills.
“The ecosystem of youth policy of SPbGASU includes various initiatives at all levels: the world, the country, the university, the faculty, the student environment. The Center for Student Entrepreneurship and Career of our university closely cooperates with the industry, organizes joint events and competitions, develops entrepreneurial competencies and creates conditions for further employment of students and graduates. Through the platform “Russia – the Country of Opportunities”, students successfully participate in the international engineering championship CASE-IN. We support the project “Startup as a Diploma” and the TIM movement. The youth policy of SPbGASU takes into account the needs of the region: students participate in the improvement of small towns, designing spaces and objects for them. Thus, we create conditions in which students can try themselves in various directions and choose their own,” the vice-rector noted.
At the plenary session
Director of the St. Petersburg State Budgetary Institution “Youth Spaces “PROSTO”” Victoria Motorenko agreed that today students have huge opportunities, and now is the best time to try to find the right direction for themselves.
“All industries offer enormous opportunities for self-realization of a specialist. There are many options for development in public life. “PROSTO” is the flagship project in the field of work with youth of the Government of St. Petersburg. We work in two directions. The infrastructure one involves a network of free modern and fully equipped youth spaces. Now there are seven of them, this year we plan to open 15 more and cover all districts of St. Petersburg. The spaces have areas from one hundred to one thousand square meters. Each has comfortable workplaces, high-speed Internet, all the necessary office equipment, so, for example, you can print, laminate, order a meeting room for free. In the intellectual direction, we focus on the development of youth entrepreneurship, competencies in the field of information technology, creative industries, fine arts, design. We are constantly expanding cooperation. Today we have already discussed common ground with SPbGASU,” said Victoria Motorenko.
Find something you enjoy doing
The founder of the YARUS design center, member of the Union of Architects of Russia Victoria Boginskaya called student time ideal for finding an occupation to your liking and, using her own example, told how, having professional competencies and a desire to develop, you can turn an idea into your own company.
“Today, the state provides great opportunities not only for students, but also for young people. In 2018, I completed my Master’s degree at the University of Yaroslavl and realized that I didn’t want to just draw projects, but also build, including something useful for the city. I asked myself: what do I need to do for this? While searching for an answer, I saw grant competitions. I applied and won 100 thousand rubles to implement my idea. Cool! Thanks to the grants, I got the opportunity to implement my idea and subsequently expand the level and geography of implementation. With the grant, I also published a book on the methodology for designing improvements in the Arctic zone and, as I found out today, I consulted students of St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering on this topic. This is how grants can introduce you to successful professional activity,” noted Victoria Boginskaya.
Deputy Director of the Competence Center for Urban Environment Development and Smart City, graduate of SPbGASU Marina Grigorenko reminded that many students are worried about their professional future, their income, and industrial practices and internships help them avoid uncertainty, after which employment is possible. The organization builds such cooperation with students and graduates.
“Our team is young, the architects are young professionals. We are engaged in a variety of activities, one of the important aspects of which is working with young people. There are 36 small towns in the Leningrad Region; unfortunately, there is a large outflow of young people to St. Petersburg. Among the reasons for this is the lack of leisure and places for recreation. Taking into account the comments, we not only improve parks, embankments, public spaces, but also support educational activities, within the framework of which we organize competitions and implement the best submitted projects. We have already held three architectural competitions, 350 people took part in them, seven were invited to the bureau as part of the expert council, 18 projects have been implemented. There are also competitions, the winners of which receive grants,” said Marina Grigorenko.
Master classes from a teacher, architect and welding queen
Lecture by Marina Khramova
The expedition participants’ further stay at SPbGASU was equally interesting. Senior lecturer of the Department of Architectural Environment Design Marina Khramova gave a lecture on the architecture of St. Petersburg.
The master classes were conducted by Victoria Boginskaya and the artist, sculptor, and curator of the creation of art objects for public spaces, Alexandra Weld Queen.
Alexandra Weld Queen has gained recognition as a professional, highly skilled welder and has elevated her work to the level of art. Her objects are unique: even a park bench turns into an amazing, but functional creation. “Working with metal, I convey to people certain meanings that help them live, develop, and feel stronger. A durable material, steel allows me to create works for urban spaces that serve people for many years,” she said.
Master class by Alexandra Weld Queen (center) and Victoria Boginskaya
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For more than 80 years, colleges and universities across the country have collaborated with the federal government on research and innovation that has changed the world. UConn is proud of its longstanding relationships with agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, the departments of Energy and Defense, and multitudes of other funders who have enabled the discoveries that define our society.
Connecticut’s workforce and economy, public health, and technological ingenuity are intertwined with the research that takes place in Storrs, at UConn Health in Farmington, and campuses across the state. UConn, like other universities across the nation, carries out critical research in facilities and with the expertise required to move America forward.
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An attempt to make assisted dying legal in England in Wales continues to make its way through parliament, with MPs currently scheduled to have a final vote on the bill in June.
The bill has sparked both passionate support and strong opposition, raising vital questions: how would such a law work in practice? Who would deliver it? And what would it cost?
While much attention has focused mostly on the ethics of assisted dying, the government’s recently published impact assessment looks at the practical side and it deserves closer attention.
Of course, we shouldn’t base a decision about life and death solely on financial or logistical grounds. But if assisted dying is to become part of the law in England and Wales, we need to understand how it would work in reality. The report highlights a number of key challenges:
1. The medication question
The assessment draws mainly on data from 11 other jurisdictions, especially Oregon, where assisted dying has been legal for years. It found that the drugs used can lead to prolonged and unpredictable deaths, in part due to inconsistent drug availability.
However, the report doesn’t compare this to Switzerland, where assisted dying must be self-administered and is tightly regulated. There, a single barbiturate is typically used, leading to death within two to ten minutes depending on whether it’s taken orally or via injection. This raises questions about what kind of medications would be used in the UK and how reliably they would work.
2. Opt-outs: who will deliver the service?
Experience from countries like Canada shows that most doctors opt out of providing assisted dying. In Canada, over 5,000 assisted deaths were carried out by just 80 people. Similarly, in the US and New Zealand, entire institutions – especially palliative care services – have opted out.
Kim Leadbeater, the MP sponsoring the bill, has confirmed that it would not oblige hospices to participate. While this protects individual conscience, it may leave patients struggling to find willing clinicians or being discharged home to die.
3. Can the NHS cope with a new service?
The bill assumes the NHS would be responsible for delivering assisted dying. But is the system ready?
Switzerland uses volunteer doctors outside the healthcare system, which may be more sustainable. In the UK, oversight is expected to come from a panel including a senior judge or lawyer, a psychiatrist and a social worker.
However, the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) has raised serious concerns, both about the role psychiatrists would play and whether there are enough professionals to fulfil that role. The RCP currently opposes the bill.
4. Funding: a two-tier system?
The impact assessment suggests assisted dying would be free at the point of delivery. Yet palliative care – the alternative end-of-life support – often receives less than 40% government funding, relying heavily on charity.
Could this create a two-tier system, where assisted dying is fully funded while palliative care remains under resourced?
5. Legal costs and challenges
If passed, the bill could trigger human rights challenges, particularly around mental capacity and access. Legal experts suggest several grounds on which it might be contested and these cases would need to be defended, incurring additional costs.
Families might also seek judicial review of a panel’s decision to permit a request for assisted dying. And public protests outside clinics or hospitals offering the service could require increased policing and security – all of which have financial and social implications.
This bill tackles one of the most morally sensitive issues in society. But if it is to succeed, and be implemented safely, it must be built on more than good intentions.
The government’s impact assessment lays out the many practical hurdles: medication protocols, workforce readiness, conscientious objection, legal protections, and funding disparities. These aren’t technicalities. They’re the framework that would determine whether assisted dying is accessible, safe and ethically delivered.
As the bill progresses, the debate must move beyond principle alone. The future of this legislation – and its real world impact – will depend on how well we address these deeply human, and deeply complex, practicalities.
Suzanne Ost has previously received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy for research that she has conducted.
Nancy Preston receives funding from Horizon Europe but not for her work on assisted dying. She is affiliated with European Association of Palliative Care where she Co-Chairs the Task Force on the role of palliative care professionals in supporting patients and families considering assisted dying.
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