Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
News story
Change of British High Commissioner to Malaysia: Ajay Sharma
Mr Ajay Sharma CMG has been appointed British High Commissioner to Malaysia in succession to Ms Ailsa Terry CMG.
Mr Ajay Sharma CMG has been appointed British High Commissioner to Malaysia in succession to Ms Ailsa Terry CMG. Mr Sharma will take up his appointment during April 2025.
Curriculum Vitae
Full name: Ajay Sharma
Year
Role
2024 to present
FCDO, Director and pre-posting training
2023 to 2024
Cabinet Office, National Security Secretariat, Director International
2022 to 2023
Ankara, Head of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires
2021 to 2022
FCDO, Cyprus Settlement Co-ordinator
2020 to 2021
FCDO, Deputy Political Director
2015 to 2020
Doha, Her Majesty’s Ambassador
2013 to 2015
FCO, Iran Co-ordinator and non-resident then resident Chargé d’affaires to Iran
2012 to 2013
FCO, Head of Iran Department
2008 to 2012
Paris, Deputy Head of Mission
2007 to 2008
Tehran, Deputy Head of Mission
2005 to 2007
FCO, Deputy Head of Security Policy Department
2003 to 2005
Ankara, First Secretary and Head of Political Section
2002 to 2003
Moscow, First Secretary and Head of Economic/ Energy Section
Ketan Bulsara, MD, MBA, the inaugural chair of the newly established Department of Neurosurgery at the UConn School of Medicine, has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2025 UConn Health Board of Directors Faculty Recognition Award. He will be formally honored during UConn Health’s 54th Commencement ceremony on May 12.
A world-renowned figure in neurosurgery, Bulsara possesses elite expertise across an extraordinary spectrum of neurological surgical interventions. Having trained under pioneers of neurosurgery, he has contributed to both national and international guidelines and clinical standards. He is one of the initial neurosurgeons worldwide to have completed dual fellowship training in both skull base/cerebrovascular microsurgery and endovascular neurosurgery, a testament to his continued desire to advance his field.
“It is my pleasure to celebrate and congratulate Dr. Ketan Bulsara on being prestigiously selected as the 2025 Board of Directors Faculty Recognition Award recipient,” said Dr. Bruce T. Liang, dean of the UConn School of Medicine. “His strong leadership, innovative clinical care, impactful research, excellence in teaching, and devoted service to the people of Connecticut have taken neurosurgery in our state and at UConn to new heights.”
Dr. Ketan Bulsara in a surgical procedure in UConn Health’s high-tech hybrid operating room. (Kristin Wallace/UConn Health Photo)
Bulsara joined UConn Health in 2017 from Yale as chief of the then Division of Neurosurgery. Since then, he has worked tirelessly to advance neurosurgery’s clinical, research, and educational initiatives.
He conceptualized the newly created Brain and Spine Institute at UConn Health and partnered with the chairs of Neurology, Radiology, and Orthopedic Surgery. Since his arrival to UConn Health in 2017, Neurosurgery has seen unprecedented clinical growth. In addition to that, he led the establishment of a neurosurgery residency program which is among only 2% of these elite training programs nationwide. During his UConn tenure, the medical school has successfully matched more medical students into neurosurgery residencies than in any of the previous decades combined. He also established a successful research collaboration with Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine.
“I am humbled and grateful to receive this award. UConn Health is a very special place where the faculty, staff, and leadership are committed to providing care second to none while also training the next generation of physicians and transforming healthcare for the future. I am grateful to be a part of this exceptional organization,” says Bulsara. “I sincerely thank the UConn Health Board of Directors for this special honor.”
Bulsara has published three books and more than 220 peer-reviewed articles in some of the world’s highest cited journals. His many scientific contributions include identifying the first proteins that lead to successful regeneration in the spinal cord and work on brain and spinal cord arteriovenous malformations establishing that these are not always congenital lesions. He was inducted into Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society; elected the 43rd chair of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons Joint Section of Cerebrovascular Surgery; and elected to the American Academy of Neurological Surgeons (distinction given to top 1% of academic neurosurgeons), and the Society of Neurological Surgeons (top 1% of neurosurgeon educators). He is only one of 100 advisors in the U.S. to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee.
Dr. Ketan Bulsara lecturing in the Academic Rotunda at UConn Health (Tina Encarnacion/UConn Health photo).
Born in India, Bulsara grew up in Central Africa (Zambia) and immigrated to the United States in 1983. He attended Duke Medical School, where at graduation, he was unanimously awarded the “Ideal Physician Award” by his classmates. He completed his Neurosurgery Residency at Duke University Medical Center during which time he also did an enfolded fellowship in complex upper cervical spine disorder management at the University of Iowa. Following graduation from residency, Bulsara did further fellowship training at the University of Arkansas whose faculty included the individual designated by organized neurosurgery as the father of microneurosurgery and Neurosurgery’s Man of the Century. Bulsara subsequently returned to Duke to train in endovascular neurosurgery, making him at the time among just a handful of neurosurgeons in the world with this dual training. In 2017, he completed his MBA at the Yale School of Management prior to joining UConn Health.
In Guatemala, stigma and misinformation can leave women without the proper knowledge or care they need surrounding reproductive health. Cultural taboos surrounding menstruation and menopause create barriers, leading to confusion, shame, and possible health risks.
A woman from the community shared that “we don’t talk about it in the community, we don’t really talk about it much in our family and we don’t really talk about it at school.”
UConn Nursing students and faculty in Guatemala educating community on reproductive rights.
This year, Michelle Cole,DNP, MSN, RN, CPN and Carrie Eaton, Ph.D., RNC-OB, C-EFM, CHSE had the unique opportunity to conduct a quality improvement project in the Greater Panchoy Valley surrounding the colonial city of La Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Cole is an associate clinical professor and director of global initiatives at UConn’s School of Nursing. Her research centers on nursing education, global nursing, pediatric care, and children’s health needs. Eaton is also an associate clinical professor at UConn. Her own scholarship interests lie within maternal mental health, obstetric emergencies, and nursing simulation.
Their complementary interests provided a medium through which health disparities in Guatemala could be effectively addressed. Professor Cole and Eaton’s collaboration focused on breaking down certain barriers and promoting conversation about reproductive health.
The weeklong scholarly project was possible due to UConn’s Dean’s Award for Pilot Research, Innovation, and Scholarship Projects. This seed grant was created to support faculty in developing and implementing innovative research and scholarship initiative, with a focus on projects with potential for significant impact.
As the grant was written, Cole’s intention was to mentor others. As a faculty member, her focus goes beyond just scholarship – she strives to foster continuous improvement and demonstrate the impact such projects can have. Thus, two students were able to join the expedition.
“Dr. Cole has been working with these communities for many years, and it’s truly inspiring to see the strong bonds she has built,” Willettexplains. “Nurses have a unique ability to connect with people in many different circumstances through the mutual understanding and value of human connection and understanding. The dedication she has put into this work is incredibly meaningful and beautiful.”
UConn Nursing student Emily Brochu in Guatemala educating the community on reproductive health.
Senior nursing students Emily Brochu and Junior Madeleine Willet participated to gain valuable experience in quality improvement initiatives. Eaton shared “I cannot fathom more mature, responsive and capable students. They were both so invested in the work and education.”
The group assembled food bags as an incentive for women in the community to participate in the focus groups. Cole led these focus groups to provide education on menstrual health and distributed reusable menstrual products.
“Nurses have a unique ability to connect with people in many different circumstances through the mutual understanding and value of human connection and understanding. The dedication she has put into this work is incredibly meaningful and beautiful.”– Madeleine Willet
The work done in these communities is based upon trust that Cole has built through years of work. Additionally, translators were there to provide important cultural context. The older women who participated were interested in topics that were impacting them, such as menopause. It was important to them to teach the younger women and girls in the community.
“I think it really highlights the power of human connection and how the firsthand stories and experiences people share shape our perspectives, communication, and relationships. It also helps put into perspective how valuable love and compassion is,” Willett adds.
By sharing their experiences in quality improvement, such as educating women in rural Guatemala about menstrual health and distributing reusable menstrual products, nurse faculty help foster students’ professional development and appreciation for the importance of quality improvement. This initiative had numerous positive outcomes, ultimately empowering women in Guatemala with the knowledge and resources to improve their health. Cole and Eaton are currently analyzing the qualitative data collected from focus groups and plan to share their findings with a broader audience.
“It is both an honor and a privilege, as a nurse and as a woman, to work alongside the remarkable women of Guatemala,” shares Cole. “I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from them and share knowledge on our journey toward empowerment and better health. I also want to express my sincere appreciation to the School of Nursing for their support in making this project a reality.”
The £8.1 million Advanced Technology and Automotive Centre (ATAC) at City of Wolverhampton College’s Wellington Road campus in Bilston is in the running for the Building Project of the Year honour.
Winners will be announced at an awards dinner on Thursday 1 May, at Edgbaston Cricket Ground.
ATAC opened to students in September following an 11 month build by contractor Speller Metcalfe.
It will secure hundreds of jobs in the local economy and create learning opportunities for thousands of students – specialising in engineering and automotive, including electric vehicles (EV).
Only last month, luxury car manufacturer, Bentley, enrolled 18 of its manufacturing technicians on electrical apprenticeships at the centre.
Construction of ATAC was funded by £7.7 million from the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), with the remainder from the Black Country LEP.
It has been designed for engineering and automotive studies – with facilities for new electric, hybrid and traditional vehicles, as well fabrication, manufacturing, welding, CAD and robotics.
The centre is delivering a multi skilled flexible workforce addressing skills shortages in the city. Almost 5,500 learners and 954 apprenticeships are forecast over the first 10 years of the centre.
Phase 2 of the City Learning Quarter masterplan is in progress with McLaughlin & Harvey constructing a city centre campus that will pave the way for the college to move from its Paget Road site, while Speller Metcalfe is delivering transformational works on the neighbouring Adult Education Wolverhampton and Central Library facilities.
The courses the purpose built Bilston centre host are not suitable for the city centre location.
City of Wolverhampton Council Cabinet Member for City Development, Jobs and Skills, Councillor Chris Burden, said: “The Advanced Technology and Automotive Centre is a fantastic new facility and to be shortlisted for this award is testament to that.
“It was built on time and on budget and is already delivering positive outcomes in terms of our education and skills offer in Wolverhampton.
“Advanced technology and automotive is a rapidly growing economic sector, creating learning and jobs opportunities for people of all ages in our city and beyond.
“It aligns with Wolverhampton’s strong credentials as a front runner in green industries, which will be further supported by the development of our Green Innovation Corridor as one of the 3 pillars in the West Midlands Investment Zone.”
Peter Merry, Deputy Principal and Chief Executive of the College, said: “The Advanced Technology and Automotive Centre was designed with the requirement of students, apprentices, employers and the wider engineering and automotive sectors at its heart and enabled courses to be transferred from our Paget Road campus for the start of the academic year in September 2024.
“Students are benefitting from learning in purpose built premises with industry standard equipment and facilities and, with so much construction taking place across the region, we are delighted that it has been shortlisted for the Building Project of the Year Award.”
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Donald Norcross (1st District of New Jersey)
CHERRY HILL, NJ — Today, the office of Congressman Donald Norcross released an updated statement on the Congressman’s recent medical event.
“Last night Congressman Donald Norcross was transferred to Cooper University Health Care in Camden City. He is in intensive care and stable. He is tired but glad to be back in South Jersey. His condition is improving, and he is on his way to making a full recovery. Donald wants to thank everyone who has sent well wishes and prayers to him, his staff and family. He also wants to thank again all the medical staff at both UNC Rex and Cooper University Hospital.”
Florida State Council of Machinists President Mike Phillips recently addressed members in Tallahassee regarding anti-union and anti-worker legislation being considered during the state’s legislative session. He highlighted specific threats to teachers’ unions, minimum wage, and child labor laws, emphasizing the need for strong opposition. IAM General Secretary-Treasurer Dora Cervantes, IAM Southern Territory General Vice President Craig Martin and IAM Chief of Staff Vinny Addeo also had keynote speeches affirming the power of unions and their positive impact on the middle class and economy.
Watch the video report here.
The 50 members heard reports on organizing successes and the IAM Union securing firm contracts around the country. The Council listened to a detailed report from the IAM Political and Legislative Director Loren Almaroth on the IAM’s bipartisan work with legislators on various issues, including combating China’s trade practices. The council actively lobbied with the Florida AFL-CIO and collaborated with other unions to advocate for labor-friendly laws and the well-being of working families in Florida.
A simulated exercise reveals much about the proliferation and circulation of AI-generated content.(Shutterstock)
On March 8, the Conservative campaign team released a video of Pierre Poilievre on social media that drew unusual questions from some viewers. To many, Poilievre’s French sounded a little too smooth, and his complexion looked a little too perfect. The video had what’s known as an “uncanny valley” effect, causing some to wonder if the Poilievre they were seeing was even real.
Before long, the comments section filled with speculation: was this video AI-generated? Even a Liberal Party video mocking Poilievre’s comments led followers to ask why the Conservatives’ video sounded “so dubbed” and whether it was made with AI.
The ability to discern real from fake is seriously in jeopardy.
Poilievre’s smooth video offers an early answer to an open question: How might generative AI affect our election cycle? Our research team at Concordia University created a simulation to experiment with this question.
From a deepfake Mark Carney to AI-assisted fact-checkers, our preliminary results suggest that generative AI is not quite going to break elections, but it is likely to make them weirder.
Red teaming is a type of exercise that allows organizations to simulate attacks on their critical digital infrastructures and processes. It involves two teams — the attacking red team and the defending blue team. These exercises can help uncover vulnerability points within systems or defences and practice ways of correcting them.
Red-teaming has become a major part of cybersecurity and AI development. Here, developers and organizations stress-test their software and digital systems to understand how hackers or other “bad actors” might try to manipulate or crash them.
Fraudulent Futures
Our simulation, called Fraudulent Futures, attempted to evaluate AI’s impact on Canada’s political information cycle.
Four days into the ongoing federal election campaign, we ran the first test. A group of ex-journalists, cybersecurity experts and graduate students were pitted against each other to see who could leverage free AI tools best to push their agenda in a simulated social media environment based on our past research.
Hosted on a private Mastodon server securely shielded from public eyes, our two-hour long simulation quickly descended into silence as players played out their different roles on our simulated servers. Some played far-right influencers, others monarchists to make noise or journalists to cover events online. Players and organizers alike learned about generative AI’s capacity to create disinformation, and the difficulties faced by stakeholders trying to combat it.
Players connected to the server through their laptops and familiarized themselves with the dozens of free AI tools at their disposal. Shortly after, we shared an incriminating voice clone of Carney, created with an easily accessible online AI tool.
The Red Team was instructed to amplify the disinformation, while the Blue Team was directed to verify its authenticity and, if they determined it to be fake, mitigate the harm.
The Blue Team began testing the audio through AI detection tools and tried to publicize it was a fake. But for the Red Team, this hardly mattered. Fact-checking posts were quickly drowned out by a constant slew of new memes and fake images of angry Canadian voters denouncing Carney.
Whether the Carney clip was a deepfake or not didn’t really matter. The fact that we couldn’t tell for sure was enough to fuel endless online attacks.
Easily available and free AI tools can be used to generate and promote misinformation at an overwhelming rate. (Shutterstock)
Learning from an exercise
Our simulation purposefully exaggerated the information cycle. Yet the experience of trying to disrupt regular electoral processes was highly informative as a research method. Our research team found three major takeaways from the exercise:
1. Generative AI is easy to use for disruption
Many online AI tools claim to safeguard against generating content on elections and public figures. Despite those safeguards, players noted these tools would still generate political content.
The overall quality of the content produced was easy to distinguish as AI-generated. Yet, one of our players noted how simple it was “to generate and spam as much content as possible in order to muddy the waters on the digital landscape.”
2. AI detection tools won’t save us
AI detection tools can only go so far. They are rarely conclusive, and they may even take precedence over common sense. Players noted that even when they knew content was fake, they still felt they “needed to find the tool that would give the answer [they] want” to lend credibility to their interventions.
Most telling was how journalists on the Blue Team turned toward faulty detection tools over their own investigative work, a sign that users may be letting AI detection usurp journalistic skill.
With higher-quality content available in real-world situations, there might be a role for specialized AI detection tools in journalistic and election security processes — despite complex challenges — but these tools should not replace other investigative methods.
However, detection tools will likely only contribute to spreading uncertainty because of the lack of standards and confidence in their assessments.
It is unlikely that the mass availability of generative AI will cause an overwhelming influx of high-quality deceptive content. These types of deepfakes will likely come from more organized, funded and specialized groups engaged in election interference.
Democracy in the age of AI
A major takeaway from our simulation was that the proliferation of AI slop and the stoking of uncertainty and distrust are easy to accomplish at a spam-like scale with freely accessible online tools and little to no prior knowledge or preparation.
Our red-teaming experiment was a first attempt to see how participants might use generative AI in elections. We’ll be working to improve and re-run the simulation to include the broader information cycle, with a particular eye towards better simulating Blue Team co-operation in the hopes of reflecting real-world efforts by journalists, election officials, political parties and others to uphold election integrity.
We anticipate that the Poilievre debate is just the beginning of a long string of incidents to come, where AI distorts our ability to discern the real from the fake. While everyone can play a role in combatting disinformation, hands-on experience and game-based media literacy have proven to be valuable tools. Our simulation proposes a new and engaging way to explore the impacts of AI on our media ecosystem.
Robert Marinov received funding from the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship and Concordia University’s Applied AI Institute for this research.
Colleen McCool received funding from the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship and Concordia University’s Applied AI Institute for this research.
Fenwick McKelvey receives funding from the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. Research has been supported Concordia University’s Applied AI Institute and the Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) centre at the Milieux Institute.
Roxanne Bisson receives funding from the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship and Concordia University’s Applied AI Institute for this research.
No candidate has talked about a tax issue that is essential for life in free and democratic societies: tax literacy. If Canada is to maintain an informed, financially responsible and democratic society, tax literacy must become part of the national conversation.
A longstanding idea with modern relevance
The notion of tax literacy has been gaining traction in recent years, but it’s far from a new idea.
One of the earliest advocates for tax literacy and education was Charles Montesquieu, a French judge and political philosopher of the Enlightenment.
Portrait of Charles Montesquieu by an anonymous artist. (Wikimedia Commons)
First, he was convinced that knowledge about taxation was necessary to defend oneself against the corruption and abuse that characterized private tax collectors, known at the time as tax farmers.
Second, he believed education in democratic societies could enhance people’s sense of responsibility for public affairs and help hold authorities accountable for their actions. In his view, tax literacy and education were instrumental in how societies organized themselves for the common good.
More than 275 years later, Montesquieu’s argument remains just as relevant.
There are important reasons to treat tax literacy as a national priority. It helps people understand and navigate federal, provincial and municipal taxes, recognize the social importance of taxation and responsibly exercise their rights. It also allows people to manage their financial affairs according to the law.
Tax literacy is also instrumental in contesting economic populism, a political approach that claims to represent the interests of “ordinary people” against perceived elites, often by oversimplifying complex issues like taxation.
While Canada has done considerable work to further financial literacy since 2001, tax literacy has received far less attention from both authorities and scholars.
In fact, only two peer-reviewed studies have examined tax literacy in Canada. Published in 2016 and 2020, these studies analyze tax literacy within the context of financial literacy and mostly in relation to the income tax.
Similar to financial literacy, the authors of these studies define tax literacy as “having the knowledge, skills and confidence to make responsible tax decisions.”
Taxes are far more than mandatory payments to government. Recognizing this enables citizens to actively participate in decision-making processes and hold governments accountable.
The fiscal dimension also broadens public understanding beyond the income tax. On one hand, it helps people interact with tax authorities beyond the CRA, including those administered by provinces, municipalities and First Nations.
On the other hand, it helps citizens better understand public budgets and recognize that while income tax is an important source of revenue, it is not the only one.
Tax literacy must become a national priority in Canada, and public institutions must lead this process. To move in this direction, Canada’s public institutions should:
1) Adopt a holistic approach to tax literacy that includes both the fiscal and financial dimensions.
4) Lead the production of education resources to ensure a holistic approach. Education resources produced or sponsored by the private sector tend to focus on individual responsibility and frame financial choices in moral terms without considering broader social contexts.
Now is the time for Canada to write a different chapter. By advancing tax literacy, both authorities and society as a whole can strengthen democracy and build a more informed public.
Esteban Vallejo Toledo receives funding from the Law Commission of Canada Emerging Scholars Program. He has previously received funding from SSHRC, LFBC, and UVic.
Canadians looking for relief from the trade war launched by United States President Donald Trump are bound to be disappointed. The Trump administration has just announced it’s more than doubling Canadian softwood lumber duties, adding to an already punishing flurry of tariff actions.
These tariffs are designed to squeeze Canada, pressuring us into giving up our sovereignty. And while Trump may have cooled his annexation talk lately — likely because of how it was resurrecting the Liberal Party’s fortunes in the ongoing federal election campaign — we cannot simply pretend this threat has gone away.
In response, Canada must use every tool at its disposal. It should leverage retaliatory tariffs and target trade action at vulnerable Republican districts if Trump targets Canada with more tariffs.
Canadian consumers need to continue boycotting American goods and Canada should ban American firms from bidding on public contracts. It also needs to revitalize trade and diplomatic relationships with reliable allies.
But alone, even these measures will be insufficient.
Public diplomacy like no other
To succeed, Canada needs the most ambitious and energetic campaign of public diplomacy in its history. The target of this campaign should not be the Trump administration, but the ultimate voice of authority in U.S. politics — the American public. Canadian diplomacy should aim to convince
American citizens that the idea of annexing Canada, already unpopular, is a toxic betrayal of U.S. values.
Doing so, however, requires using the right language. Public diplomacy fails when it ignores the values of its audience, and especially when the audience has a strong emotional attachment to those values.
Likewise, Canadians are fiercely proud of our identity as “good neighbours,” but most Americans live far from us and do not know us. Nor can we invoke a shared history that the majority of Americans do not remember or have never learned.
The value of freedom
Instead, if Canadians are going to speak to Americans, then they must speak to their culture — and in U.S. culture, no value speaks more loudly than the value of freedom. As American historian Eric Foner writes: “No idea is more fundamental to Americans’ sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation than freedom.”
For American cognitive psychologist George Lakoff, most of contemporary U.S. politics can be read as a struggle over different conceptions of freedom. From the Declaration of Independence launching a newborn United States into a war for its freedom to the bravery of the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement, there is no other American value that has the broad resonance and emotion appeal of freedom.
If America has a civil religion, in fact, it is almost certainly a faith in freedom.
Canadians need to embrace this language and speak it relentlessly at every opportunity. Americans need to know that Canadians want the freedom to choose their leaders and their laws. They want the freedom to trade without the interference of tariffs. They want the freedom to choose who enters our country.
They want the freedom to speak different languages. The want the freedom to choose what is taught in Canadian schools, for women to choose, to criticize our government, to choose who we are and who we love. And if Canadians don’t have the freedom to say “no thank you” to becoming the 51st state, then they don’t really have any freedom at all.
Embracing this language does more than simply signal shared values, it puts advocates of annexation on the defensive. By claiming the mantle of freedom, Canadians can put pro-annexation voices on the back foot by forcing them into defending an unpopular position.
Why should Canadians lose their freedom to elect their own leaders or make their own laws, lose their independence or bend the knee to an American president? Americans would never accept a similar choice.
Advocates of annexation, including members of the Trump administration, need to be relentlessly challenged over why they think Canadians should be deprived of their freedoms and forced to become American subjects.
The Trump administration has spent weeks suggesting Canadians have a stark choice: endure economic pain or submit to annexation. Fortunately, the American public knows that the choice between pain and submission is never a free choice, and that the denial of freedom is profoundly un-American.
Canada needs to tell American citizens that is exactly what their government is doing.
Eric Van Rythoven 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.
ALBUQUERQUE – A federal jury convicted a former University of New Mexico football player on charges of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine while incarcerated at Cibola County Correctional Center. The verdict came after a five-day trial and approximately three-and-a-half hours of deliberation.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, while in custody awaiting trial for the 2022-armed robbery of a U.S. Postal Service employee, Rayshawn Boyce, 29, was implicated in a separate case involving drug trafficking within the Cibola County Correctional Center (CCCC). On May 17, 2022, CCCC personnel conducted a search of a unit and discovered a bag containing approximately one pound of methamphetamine in the shower area.
Photo of drugs in shower area
Review of surveillance footage revealed that on the evening of May 16, 2022, Correctional Officer Gabriella Torres smuggled a bundle of methamphetamine into the facility under her hoodie and dropped it in cell in an area that was not covered by a camera for Boyce to retrieve. A short time later, Boyce retrieved the bundle, concealed it in a blanket, and walked back to his cell. When he learned that the jail was being searched the next day, Boyce moved the bundle from his cell in the middle of the night, submerged it in water, and left it near the showers, where it was found that morning by CCCC personnel.
Federal investigators determined that Boyce and Torres were in a romantic relationship, during which Boyce persuaded Torres to smuggle drugs into the CCCC. On two separate occasions, Torres successfully smuggled marijuana into the facility for Boyce to distribute. Boyce instructed buyers to send payments through a CashApp account he had Torres established specifically for these transactions. On May 16, 2022, Boyce coordinated the delivery of a methamphetamine shipment to Torres for smuggling into CCCC.
Torres pled guilty to one count of conspiracy and remains on conditions of release pending sentencing, which is not currently scheduled. At sentencing, Torres could face 10 years to life in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Following the verdict, the Court ordered that Boyce remain in custody pending sentencing, which has not been scheduled. At sentencing, Boyce faces a mandatory minimum term of ten years of imprisonment and up to life.
In April 2024, a federal jury convicted Boyce of robbing a postal carrier, stealing an arrow key belonging to the United States Postal Service, and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm. At sentencing for this prior conviction, Boyce faces up to ten years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
There is no parole in the federal system.
Acting U.S. Attorney Holland S. Kastrin and Raul Bujanda, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Albuquerque Field Office, made the announcement today.
The FBI Albuquerque Field Office investigated this case with assistance from Cibola County Correctional Center and CoreCivic. Assistant United States Attorneys Letitia Carroll Simms and Joseph M. Spindle are prosecuting the case.
Canadians are voting in a federal election on April 28, and questions about how to deal with the United States and make Canada’s economy more resilient are dominating public discourse.
The housing crisis, immigration policy and health-care system deficiencies are other top-of-mind concerns. But one issue we likely won’t hear much about from politicians is a trend that’s quietly shaping all of these issues: an aging population.
That means policymakers need to think more proactively about how they can transform Canada’s existing policies to address the needs of an aging population.
A new report we’ve published at the CSA Public Policy Centre outlines policy pathways for federal and provincial governments to consider as 2040 approaches.
It’s time for Canadians to reimagine where we live as we grow older, transform our understanding of health and health-care services and take a whole-of-society approach to advance cultural change around the experience of aging.
At the same time, significant investments will be needed for our already strained health-care system to meet the needs of older adults living with more chronic conditions. The average cost of delivering health care is about $12,000 per person per year for those over 65, compared to only $2,700 for those under 65.
Similarly, in the face of a years-long decline in the quality of Canada’s long-term care system and the preference of Canadians to age at home, a policy shift towards aging-in-place has become a priority.
However, this raises important questions about social isolation, accessibility of Canada’s built environment, suitability of housing options on the market as well as the availability and affordability of necessary services.
Recent polling shows that 95 per cent of Canadians over 45 believe that aging-in-place would maintain their independence, comfort and dignity. Yet only 12 per cent report having the funds available to receive adequate home care.
In the absence of thoughtful policy reform, there is potential for significant disparities in health outcomes, financial security and social inclusion among older adults in the years to come.
There is a perception that baby boomers are heading into a comfortable retirement with robust pensions and opportunities for leisure. While this may be the case for those who have accumulated or inherited wealth, others are facing the risk of poverty and homelessness.
Data indicates that around 30 per cent of people using shelters across Canada are aged 50 or older, with many others unsheltered, living outdoors or experiencing hidden homelessness.
With limited resources, governments will be challenged to meet the needs of older Canadians while ensuring younger Canadians can also thrive. Young Canadians are facing a housing market that feels out of reach and many are delaying the decision to start a family due to high costs of living.
Unlike the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which is targeted to low-income Canadians over the age of 65, households with an annual income more than $300,000 may still be eligible for OAS payments.
Similarly, vouchers could be made available to help Canadians pay for costs such as long-term care or home care services. Eligibility for programs like this should be tested against both income and wealth — access to home equity can be a significant factor in one’s ability to maintain their standard of living in retirement.
To ensure equitable outcomes, these decisions should also be guided by meaningful engagement with diverse voices around the table, including those from older and younger generations and different lived experiences. Intergenerational dialogue can help different age groups understand each other’s challenges, collaborate on solutions and ultimately work towards solidarity and a much-needed reimagination of what it means to grow older.
As Canadians prepare to head to the polls, we should all consider the future we want to see for ourselves and our communities as we age. Making strategic investments to improve the quality of life for older Canadians today will also lay the foundation for future generations.
Sunil Johal is the Vice-President, Public Policy with the CSA Group and leads the CSA Public Policy Centre.
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
On April 12, 48 capital colleges will hold a single open day. Schoolchildren will be introduced to promising areas of study, and teachers, students, and graduates who work at the city’s leading enterprises will answer questions from future applicants. This was reported by Anastasia Rakova, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Social Development.
“Moscow creates all the conditions for obtaining high-quality secondary vocational education. Our colleges are modern workshops, relevant training programs and close cooperation with the city’s leading employers. On April 12, 48 educational organizations are waiting for future applicants. The guys will get acquainted with promising professions, see the latest equipment, talk to successful graduates and try themselves in the role of specialists in master classes,” the deputy mayor noted.
Anyone can attend the single open day at colleges. You will need pre-registration.
So, in First Moscow educational complex Guests will be able to try themselves in the role of an IT specialist, marketer and artist. The children will be offered to create a name badge using a neural network, master the basics of make-up and paint a watercolor still life under the guidance of experienced teachers.
Schoolchildren will be told how to build a career in the subway at the corporate university of the transport complex. This is a partner site Moscow Transport College, so thematic master classes are organized here. The children will learn how a train is built, try to operate a train on a simulator, and then visit the college’s workshops, where they will see how specialists are trained.
Those who are interested in construction and design are welcome in Moscow College of Architecture and Urban PlanningHere, guests will be able to design a building in a special program, study lighting schemes and create a graffiti sketch. And in Polytechnic College No. 8 named after twice Hero of the Soviet Union I.F. Pavlov Participants will assemble and configure a drone, and then independently launch it on a training ground. In addition, they will be shown how an industrial robotic manipulator works and how 3D stickers are created.
Moscow educational complex “West” has prepared master classes on cooking and hospitality. Schoolchildren will be taught how to make muffins, tartlets with jam and Italian meringue, as well as how to paint gingerbread. In the classes on make-up and style, they will talk about trends in the beauty industry, and share the secrets of stylish make-up and hair.
IN Medical College No. 2 Ninth-graders will try themselves in the role of medical workers. They will learn to measure blood pressure, apply bandages and even perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation. And the interactive anatomy table “Pirogov” will help to understand the structure of the human body.
The Unified Open Day in Moscow colleges will be held within the framework of the federal project “Professionality”. It is being implemented by decision of the President of Russia. The goal of the project is to create a new model for training qualified personnel taking into account the current needs of the regional economies.
The capital’s colleges hold open days all year round. Find out more and register here on the website.
More information about the in-demand professions and specialties taught in the capital’s colleges can be found in the section “Colleges» on the portal“School. Moscow”, in the telegram channel“Colleges of Moscow” and the same name community on the social network VKontakte.
Practical classes for students of Moscow colleges are held in modern workshops and laboratories. This contributes to the formation and development of professional skills in students and corresponds to the objectives of the national project “Youth and Children”.
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.
Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect
NEW YORK, April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Solomon Partners, a leading financial advisory firm and independent affiliate of Natixis, today announced the appointment of Tannon Krumpelman as a new Partner in its Financial Institutions Group (FIG). FIG is the newest extension to the Solomon platform and the addition of Mr. Krumpelman further demonstrates Solomon’s commitment to this strategically important sector.
“Tannon will be a tremendous asset to our firm,” said Solomon Partners CEO Marc Cooper. “His proven success advising clients across the financial services sector will be an excellent addition to our growing FIG team.”
During his more than 25-year career, Mr. Krumpelman has advised on over $250 billion of mergers & acquisitions, strategic financing transactions and other corporate finance assignments for financial services companies and adjacent businesses.
Before joining Solomon Partners, Mr. Krumpelman was a Senior Managing Director at Evercore, where he helped lead the firm’s financial services advisory practice. Previously, he was a Managing Director at UBS and Goldman Sachs. Mr. Krumpelman earned his ScB in Chemical Engineering from Brown University.
“We are thrilled to welcome a banker of Tannon’s caliber and expertise to our team,” said Arik Rashkes, Partner and Head of the Financial Institutions Group. “Widely recognized as a preeminent advisor to the financial services sector, Tannon enhances our team’s capabilities and strengthens our commitment to delivering outstanding service to our clients.”
Mr. Krumpelman commented, “Solomon has developed an incredibly attractive platform to serve clients founded upon straightforward cultural values that mirror my own. I am excited and highly motivated to further contribute to Solomon’s growth by helping to build a world-class financial services advisory franchise with my esteemed FIG partners.”
About Solomon Partners
Founded in 1989, Solomon Partners is a leading financial advisory firm with a legacy as one of the oldest independent investment banks. Our difference is unmatched industry knowledge in the sectors we cover, creating superior value with unrivaled wisdom for our clients. We advise clients on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings, recapitalizations, capital markets solutions and activism defense across a range of verticals. These include Business Services; Consumer Retail; Distribution; Financial Institutions; Financial Sponsors; FinTech; Grocery, Pharmacy & Restaurants; Healthcare; Industrials; Infrastructure, Power & Renewables; Media; and Technology. Solomon Partners is an independently operated affiliate of Natixis, part of Groupe BPCE. For further information, visit solomonpartners.com.
More than 100 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, new interpretations of the burial are still emerging. A recent article published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology proposes that a set of seemingly plain, functional objects are in fact a key part of the complex rituals which would ensure the transformation and regeneration of the young king in the afterlife.
Tutankhamun inherited a throne tainted by the shifts in religious and political practices implemented by his father, Akhenaten. His reign had been hallmarked by the move from the capital city of Thebes to a new city, Akhetaten (“the horizon of the Aten”).
Under Akhenaten, the solar deity Aten was elevated above all others, including the principal state god Amun. This resulted in the king being the sole high priest and beneficiary (along with his family) of the Aten. The resulting disconnection between state and religion severely reduced the power and influence of priests and members of the royal court. But on Akhenaten’s death, these were restored by his son.
Tutankhamun was named Tutankh-aten (“the living image of Aten”) at birth, but took the name of Amun back when Thebes was restored as the capital city of Egypt after his accession. This time (known as the Amarna period after the modern name of Akhenaten’s city) and its changes mean that it is more challenging to understand matters such as burial practices, religious rites and so on because it was not necessarily a “typical” time.
Therefore, while we have learned much about funerary practices from Tutankhamun’s tomb, there are objects which are still being reinterpreted.
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The artefacts in focus are a set of four clay trays, approximately 7.5 x 4.0 x 1.2cm, plain in design and apparently quite utilitarian.
This type of artefact is known from other funerary contexts including elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings. They have been described in various ways as mud trays, earthen dishes or troughs. The lack of consistency in terminology and suggestions on function illustrate the difficulty in understanding their precise role in the tomb.
Along with the clay trays are a set of wooden staves, just over a metre long, with a slight angle, and covered with gesso (a white pigment and binder mixture) and gold. In spite of the difference in materials, they were assumed by the man who uncovered the tomb, Howard Carter, to be directly associated with the trays. He believed they were probably intended as bases for the staffs to stand upright.
However, it is clear that they have an even greater function to fulfil as, contextually, everything in the tomb has symbolism and meaning, even down to the wooden boxes for preserved meats, which were intended to sustain Tutankhamun in the afterlife.
The care with which the trays and staff were laid out on matting indicates that they were important for the king’s burial. We might expect a royal burial to be filled with only the finest objects, made of the most valuable materials by elite craftsmen, with the association of materials such as gold with royalty and divinity. The richness of the rest of Tutankhamun’s burial for the most part fulfils this expectation. But, nevertheless, the ordinariness of the clay trays in the light of such riches confirms rather than refutes their significance.
The restoration of order
Following the royal court’s move back to Thebes in the wake of Akhenaten’s death, the restoration of Amun and the other gods was set in motion. The cult centre of Amun at the Temple of Karnak regained its status. The name of Akhenaten and his imagery, along with that of the sun disk, were subjected to a campaign of removal.
Tutankhamun erected the so-called Restoration Stela with titles and epithets invoking the traditional gods, and statements on “having repaired what was ruined … having repelled disorder”. The upheaval of the Amarna Period was reversed.
Discussions in academia on the dismantling of Akhenaten’s regime have tended to focus on issues such as name changes and the destruction of his upstart city. But ancient Egyptian religion had countless centuries of recorded tradition and observance, so profound demonstrations of loyalty to the traditional gods were needed.
The mud trays are now thought to be part of a wider funerary ritual, which both invoked the god Osiris and permitted the transfiguration of Tutankhamun. As king, he was thought to be the embodiment of the god Horus in life, and to become Osiris in death – rejuvenated and resurrected.
Osiris is usually shown as a mummified king, with green or black skin to represent the fertility of the land and the new life which comes from it. It is not a coincidence that the trays are made of mud.
Other aspects of the placement of the trays within the tomb such as specific placement and orientation (including particular symbols in the decoration of the tomb) indicate that the trays had a specific role to play. This may have been as an offering tray for Nile water, once more underlining the role of the river in creating life.
Tutankhamun and his treasures are so familiar today that it is possible to overlook, or even forget, the fact that once the doors were sealed after his funeral they were meant to never be seen again. Some of his grave goods – particularly those made from gold – have outshone others. However, the ordinariness of the trays among all the riches suggests that they are crucial components of his burial. They confirm Tutankhamun as both renewed in death through Osiris, and the king who restored order to Egypt.
Claire Isabella Gilmour 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.
The Pineapple Awards 2025. From left: Murdoch Cameron, Director of MCW architects; Jacqueline Moffat, Head of Projects at ARU Peterborough; Professor Ross Renton, Principal of ARU Peterborough; Lien Geens, Associate Director of MCW architects; and Christine Murray, Co-founder of The Pineapples Awards
ARU Peterborough’s new £32 million building, The Lab, has won a prestigious national award for its impact on the city.
The Lab triumphed in the Best Building category at the Pineapples Awards 2025, which celebrate buildings that have a positive effect on places and people.
ARU Peterborough outshone five other contenders in the category, including 8 Bishopgate, a 50-storey tower block in the City of London, and UCL East Marshgate, University College London’s new development at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London.
Pineapples have historically symbolised welcome in UK architecture, and ARU Peterborough received a golden pineapple trophy at the awards ceremony in London.
The judges praised The Lab, stating: “This building should be highlighted for the palpable impact that a facility can have in Peterborough. It is inspiring to see a regional team building something from scratch which inspires its local community.
“It is a real beacon for its placemaking and wider social impact. What really lifted it above the other projects was this impact which highlights the civic role that a university can have.
“The public spaces created are really versatile and adaptable for different uses. As the university campus develops this building will sit at its heart.”
The Lab is home to the Living Lab, designed to host exhibitions, talks, and public engagement events. It also contains teaching spaces, tissue culture and microbiology labs, and engineering workshops, allowing ARU Peterborough to offer a wider range of courses.
“We’ve received some impressive accolades in the last 18 months, including winning the Times Higher Education University of the Year award and being named Social Mobility University of the Year, but this award is very special indeed.
“From day one, we’ve been clear that ARU Peterborough is designed to serve the needs of this great city, and so to receive this award is fantastic recognition that we’re on the right track.
“As the university continues to grow, this building will be at its heart, and we encourage everyone to come and explore ARU Peterborough’s open campus for themselves.”
Professor Ross Renton, Principal of ARU Peterborough
Completed last summer and officially opened in the autumn, The Lab was built by Morgan Sindall Construction and designed by Cambridge-based MCW architects.
“Our vision was to create more than just a building; we aimed to thoughtfully integrate The Lab with the first phases of the University while establishing it as an inspiring hub for the city.
“A key part of this was designing for transparency – offering inviting views into the dynamic activities within, encouraging the wider community to feel connected and enticed to be part of the university’s vibrant campus.
“Seeing The Lab come to life and now receive this prestigious award is a testament to the vision of the client and the dedication of the entire project team.”
The next undergraduate Open Day at ARU Peterborough is on Saturday, 7 June. The event provides the chance to explore the campus and find out more about the different employment-focused courses on offer.
ARU Peterborough is a partnership between Anglia Ruskin University, Peterborough City Council and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.
A district council in England has passed a motion to grant its local river the rights to flow freely, to be free from pollution and to enjoy its native biodiversity. The move by Lewes District Council in East Sussex to recognise the fundamental rights of the River Ouse is the first of its kind in the UK.
The Ouse (not to be confused with larger rivers of the same name in Yorkshire and East Anglia) flows southwards for 35 miles into the English Channel and suffers from the usual problems afflicting many rivers in the UK: chemical pollution, sewage dumping and so on.
As a legal academic who researches exactly these sorts of rights, I was excited to see the news from Lewes (even if the council’s motions ultimately can’t overrule national laws). But simply granting a river some rights isn’t enough. We now need to think about who will actually defend these rights.
This may mean appointing someone to represent the rights of the river. Who these representatives are, and how they think about nature and conservation, can be as important as the granting of these rights in the first place.
Appointing representatives who care about their own personal and property interests would be a grave mistake, as would appointing anyone who prioritises the rights of humans to a healthy environment over a more intrinsic right of nature (remember: the idea is that the River Ouse has rights in itself and shouldn’t need to demonstrate its worth to humans).
As further rivers, lakes, forests and more are granted rights like the Ouse, we’ll need to train up an army of people willing to represent the rights of nature.
Natural entities should have legal rights
The law professor Christopher Stone pioneered the rights of nature concept back in the 1970s. He argued that natural entities, like rivers or forests, should have legal rights and that a “guardian” or representative should be appointed to defend those rights in court when they are threatened.
Some legal systems have adopted this model. For example, in New Zealand, the Whanganui River was granted legal personhood, and two “human faces” were appointed to act and speak on its behalf. Their duties are outlined in a 2017 act, which specifies that these representatives must have the skills, knowledge and experience needed to effectively advocate for the river’s rights.
But even as rights of nature are being considered in many countries, there is still little consideration of who will represent these rights effectively. For instance, back in 2008 Ecuador became the first country to grant the rights of nature in its constitution. However the constitution states that “all persons” are representatives of the rights of nature. This is simply impractical: we can’t expect every citizen to truly care about the rights of nature.
Efforts to apply the rights of nature in Ecuador have often failed. Legal challenges can become highly politicised and there is little legal infrastructure beyond general constitutional principles.
For example, in a case brought after road builders had dumped material into the Vilcabamba River, plaintiffs claimed to represent nature in court. However, they were not genuinely advocating for the river’s rights – their main concern was protecting their downstream property.
An ecocentric perspective
Ultimately, defending the rights of nature in court will be a struggle if the nature in question – the river, forest or lake – is not represented by someone with an ecocentric perspective. That means prioritising the intrinsic value of nature itself, rather than focusing on how it can serve human interests.
Ecocentric advocates have proved to be the most effective defenders of the rights of nature in many court cases. For example, in lawsuits involving Ecuador’s Los Cedros cloud forest and its marine ecosystems, ecocentric arguments helped secure stronger legal protections and even inspired the courts to grant further rights of nature.
One of the most common legal frameworks involves appointing “all persons”, “a person”, or “a resident” as representatives or protectors. For instance, Uganda’s National Environment Act 2019 states that anyone has the right to bring an action before a court “for any infringement of rights of nature”.
Similarly, the city of Toledo, Ohio, tried to introduce the Lake Erie bill of rights which stated that the city or any resident could act on behalf of the lake’s ecosystem. (The bill was declared unconstitutional by a federal court in 2020 and did not become the law).
Having such broad representation can make these legal protections less effective. This is what Stone, the law professor, envisioned back in the 70s: representatives should be trained to view nature as having intrinsic value – the very reason it is granted rights – and to protect it on that basis.
There are some promising examples. Guardians were appointed to protect the Magpie River in Canada, for instance, after it was granted legal personhood in 2022. Their responsibilities include participating – on behalf of the river itself – in any consultations on projects that might affect the river.
When the River Atrato in Colombia was also granted legal rights, the court required the formation of a commission (with representatives from the state and local communities) to train and oversee the work of the guardians.
Moves to give rights to nature are promising. But from Colombia to Canada to Sussex, we’ll need a whole army of nature protectors to actually enforce those rights.
Source: {United States House of Representatives – Congressman Bobby Scott (3rd District of Virginia)
Headline: Scott and Kaine to Introduce Bill to Protect Miners’ Safety
This bill coincides with the 15th anniversary of the Upper Big Branch (UBB) Mine Disaster, reflecting lessons learned from the deadly explosion on April 5, 2010, that killed 29 miners. Weakening the Labor Department’s ability to inspect mines at a time when the White House seeks to ramp up mining is a recipe for more mine disasters.
As originally released by the Committee on Education and Workforce,Democrats
WASHINGTON – Ranking Member Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA-03), House Committee on Education and Workforce, and Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) will introduce theRobert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act of 2025.
This bill coincides with the 15th anniversary of the Upper Big Branch (UBB) Mine Disaster, reflecting lessons learned from the deadly explosion on April 5, 2010, that killed 29 miners. The bill improves mine safety and closes glaring loopholes in our nation’s mine safety laws that could help save miners’ lives. The bill would further prioritize the safety of miners by holding rogue mine operators accountable.
“The Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act of 2025 is a critical step toward protecting the health and safety of mine workers across the country. Coal miners, mine safety regulators and the UBB families have asked Congress to address long, overdue reforms to the nations’ mine safety laws. The reforms in this bill would ensure that all miners are able to return home safely to their families at the end of their shift,”said Ranking Member Scott. “The tragedy of the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster will be in vain if Congress does not close the loopholes that have allowed a small minority of mine operators to put profit ahead of their miners’ safety.”
“Miners take incredible risks to power our nation. While we’ve made progress to support them—like extending the Black Lung Disability Trust excise tax at a higher rate and strengthening silica standards—the recent actions of the Trump Administration have undermined decades of work to enhance protections for coal miners,”said Senator Kaine. “This legislation is critical to strengthening safety standards and holding mine operators accountable for unsafe working conditions.”
The comes at a time when the Trump Administration is abandoning the nation’s commitment to protect miners. The Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has fired inspectors and appears to be closing offices across the country. That agency has yet to answercongressional queries. Meanwhile, in a secretive and apparently arbitrary process, the Trump Administration terminated thousands of Health and Human Services (HHS) employees—including many scientists and researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) who focus on black lung and innovative technologies to keep mines safe.
Eliminating so much of the government’s mine safety capacity, especially as we near the fifteenth anniversary of the UBB Mine Disaster, is reckless and nonsensical. Congress permanently established NIOSH’s Office of Mine Safety and Health in the aftermath of the deadly Sago Mine Disaster.
Weakening the Labor Department’s ability to inspect mines at a time when the White Houseseeksto ramp up mining is a recipe for more mine disasters. The Trump Administration’s actions will waste decades of life-saving innovations and put miners’ lives at risk.
TheRobert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Actprotects miners’ health and safety by:
Expanding the authority of the MSHA to strengthen safety regulations and enforce penalties against mines with repeat violations.
Increasing penalties for mines violating health and safety standards.
Providing the MSHA with better enforcement tools to allow proper inspection and investigation.
Protecting whistleblowers from retaliation and loss of income.
Updating mine safety standards to prevent explosions.
Increasing accountability for the MSHA to ensure that inspectors are independent and qualified to provide quality oversight.
TheRobert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act of 2025is endorsed by Appalachian Citizens Law Center, Appalachian Voices, United Mine Workers of America, and United Steel Workers.
Read the full text of the billhere.
Read a section-by-section summary of the billhere.
For the second year in a row, multiple graduate programs within UConn’s Neag School of Education have been ranked among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, which released its 2025 Best Education Schools rankings earlier today.
In addition, the Neag School appears for the 10th consecutive year as one of the top 30 public graduate schools of education in the United States, tied at No. 28. Among all graduate schools of education across the nation, both public and private, the Neag School stands tied at No. 37.
“For more than a decade, the Neag School has been recognized as one of the preeminent schools of education in the nation,” Dean Jason G. Irizarry says. “The longevity of our impressive national rankings are a direct result of the unwavering dedication of faculty, staff, and students, and I’m proud that several of our individual programs are once again featured in the specialty rankings. This achievement reflects the pride we all share in our collective commitment to excellence and further solidifies our position as a leader in higher education.”
All of the Neag School’s three departments are represented in the 2025 specialty education program rankings:
In fall 2024 and early 2025, U.S. News collected statistical and reputation data from education schools nationwide that grant doctoral degrees in education; of 476 schools surveyed, 267 responded and 258 met the requirements for inclusion in the rankings.
Nine different indicators, including total research expenditures, faculty resources, student selectivity, and assessment scores by peers, are used in the rankings calculations. Specialty rankings are based solely on nominations by deans of education schools and deans of graduate studies at education schools from the list of schools surveyed, according to U.S. News.
Check out the full 2025 U.S. News Best Education Schools rankings at usnews.com.
UConn School of Law is once again on the rise in the U.S. News & World Report Best Law Schools rankings, moving up five points to a rank of 50. The School’s part-time Evening Division program is ranked seventh in the country, up from tenth in last year’s edition.
“At UConn Law, our dedication to excellence is unwavering, and we work diligently to ensure the success of our students and institution,” says Dean Eboni S. Nelson. “We have extraordinary faculty, staff, students, and alumni whose collective achievements drive our progress. I am proud and greatly appreciative of their many contributions to UConn Law and beyond.” UConn Law’s employment outcomes and bar passage rates are strengths recognized by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 96 percent of the Class of 2023 was employed 10 months after graduation or enrolled in graduate studies. Among graduates who took the Connecticut bar exam for the first time in July 2023, 84 percent passed, which was 17 points above the state average.
The Class of 2024 enjoyed similar achievements, with an 85 percent first-time Connecticut bar exam passage rate. Approximately 93 percent of the Class of 2024 was employed 10 months after graduation or pursuing graduate studies.
“These metrics reflect many of UConn Law’s qualities, such as academic rigor; career preparation; and a supportive, inclusive campus,” says Nelson. “Through our scholarship, teaching, and programs, we are addressing some of the greatest legal challenges facing our country and world. We take great pride in our commitment to serving our community through our experiential and pro bono programs while advancing the rule of law. As funding for non-profits and legal services providers is increasingly scarce, our mission to help close the access to justice gap is more crucial than ever.”
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cecilia Manosa Nyblon, Director – We Are the Possible Programme, University of Exeter
Imagine heading into space, landing on the moon and walking in the dust. As you adjust to the weightlessness, you see something unexpected on the horizon. You’re looking back at the Earth, experiencing the “overview effect”. How would you feel? What would you see, hear, touch, taste and smell?
We asked these questions when we launched a creative writing workshop to harness the beauty and power of storytelling, education, theatre, and music to inspire a greener, healthier and fairer world for future generations.
One of us, Cecilia Mañosa Nyblon, brought together a team from the University of Exeter, the Met Office and international experts including marine scientists, poets, soundscape artists, musicians, playwrights and children’s authors who recognise the power of the arts to bridge the gap between science and society.
In 2021, our team launched We Are the Possible. This international award-winning programme brings together artists, scientists, educators and health professionals to connect hearts and minds. Together, we develop creative content and performances that are presented to policymakers and the public at annual UN climate summits and other public events.
As Kathleen Jamie, Scotland’s makar (national poet), said during the 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow: “We can’t have that massive event around nature and environment without a poetry presence there.”
Since 2021, this programme has engaged more than 16,000 people in the UK, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan. Our projects have reached more than 33 million people worldwide through mainstream media, social media and online platforms. By inspiring global and local audiences, we hope to mobilise communities to care for and protect our planet.
“We Are the Possible” collaborated with artists, scientists, educators, musicians and schoolchildren to perform at Cop28, the UN climate summit, in Dubai in 2023.
The project’s creative lead, Sally Flint, weaves the words of climate scientists, health professionals, storytellers, artists, youth, educators and translators into an anthology of 12 poems or stories for the 12 days of each UN climate summit, showing what people value most and what’s at stake in our changing planet.
In our anthology for Cop28 (the 2023 climate summit in Dubai), Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who spent years negotiating for climate action at the UN summits, shared that “while this remains vital, I have also realised that connecting with people from the heart and with love is the most powerful place to start.”
Scientists have the data. We have the technological solutions. But governments and leaders are failing to act with urgency. The climate crisis is our biggest communication failure.
Culture has the power to help people imagine and inspire action through dialogue, images, storytelling and shared experiences. But for far too long, the arts, cultural heritage and creative industries have been absent in climate policy frameworks. In 2024, ministers of culture and education gathered in Abu Dhabi to establish a framework which recognises the transformative power and impact of culture and arts education [for sustainable development]https://www.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2024/02/WCCAE_UNESCO%20Framework_EN_0.pdf).
Since Cop28, our team has been working with our partner, a not-for-profit called the Emirates Literature Foundation, to involve Indigenous poets through visual artforms. This involvement shines a light on the importance of Indigenous knowledge in our climate conversations to heal and restore our planet.
We have also collaborated with a sustainable theatre company called The Theatre of Others to deliver The Earth Turns and Bright Light Burning. These immersive theatre performances (inspired by We Are the Possible anthologies) and panel discussions involve both policymakers and the public. After one of the performances, Jonathan Dewsbury, director of capital operations and net zero at the UK government’s Department for Education, told us: “If we don’t grab the arts, the poems, the music and embed them into our top policy thinkers, our top decision-makers, we are not going to make the right choices, the right solutions.”
Carpet weaving is an important part of Azerbaijan’s cultural identity. At Cop29 (the 2024 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan), one group of academics and students at Khazar University in Baku wove a traditional “Chelebi” carpet. This conveyed a message of unity and environmental stewardship through symbolic patterns inspired by We Are the Possible’s anthology.
Ocean-literate cultures
Around 50% of countries have no mention of climate change in their school curriculum, according to Unesco. Most teachers (95%) feel that teaching about climate climate change is important but less than 30% say are ready to teach it. Meanwhile, 75% young people around the world say they are frightened about their future.
Schools Across the Ocean, the education strand of We Are the Possible, is addressing this climate education gap. Led by our colleague, senior lecturer in education Anita Wood, this initiative has already connected more than 2,000 schoolchildren (aged 8-13) and more than 100 teachers in the UK, United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and other countries.
Inspiring children to put their words and artwork of hope about the ocean.
This six-week programme involves providing a toolkit for teachers plus activities and online workshops that engage children in science, art, storytelling and action for the ocean. The goal is for more children to understand why we all need a healthy ocean, develop their sense of agency and inspire others in their local communities to take action too.
Wendy Wilson, headteacher St Anne’s School in Alderney on the Channel Islands, found that Schools Across the Ocean meant that her students were not just learning about climate change. She said they were also “becoming active, global citizens who are climate literate, empowered and full of hope.”
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
We Are the Possible programme has been funded by the University of Exeter, Met Office, British Council, British Embassy Gulf Strategy Fund, British Embassy Azerbaijan, UKRI, AHRC, Knowledge E Foundation,Arts Council England and supported by Emirates Literature Foundation, American University in Cairo, Khorfakkan University, Khazar University, BIMM University, Extreme Hangout, Banlastic, Ocean Generation, Tahrir Cultural Centre, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, Cygnet Theatre, among others.
We Are the Possible programme has been funded by the University of Exeter, Met Office, British Council, British Embassy Gulf Strategy Fund, British Embassy Azerbaijan, UKRI, AHRC, Knowledge E Foundation, Arts Council England and supported by Emirates Literature Foundation, American University in Cairo, Khorfakkan University, Khazar University, BIMM University, Extreme Hangout, Banlastic, Ocean Generation, Tahrir Cultural Centre, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, Cygnet Theatre, among others.
A pre-Hispanic canal funnels water from mountains to farm fields.Ari Caramanica
Seeing the north coast of Peru for the first time, you would be hard-pressed to believe it’s one of the driest deserts in the world.
Parts of the region receive less than an inch of rain in an entire year. Yet, water and greenery are everywhere. This is the nation’s agro-industrial heartland, and, thanks to irrigation canals, almost every inch of the floodplain is blanketed in lucrative export crops, such as sugarcane, asparagus and blueberries.
However, the apparent success of this system masks an underlying fragility.
Water shortages have plagued the region for centuries, and now modern climate change combined with agro-industrial practices have further intensified droughts. In response, the Peruvian government has invested billions of dollars in irrigation infrastructure in recent years designed to deliver more water from a resource more than 100 miles away: glaciers in the Andes.
Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru lost over half its glacier surface area in the past half-century. mmphoto/DigitalVision via Getty Images
Most of the modern canal network originally dates to pre-Hispanic times, more than 1400 years ago. However, evidence suggests that while the canal systems of the past may have looked similar to those of the present, they functioned in more efficient, flexible ways. The key to adapting to our present and future climate may lie in comprehending the knowledge systems of the past – not just the equipment, technology or infrastructure, but how people used it.
An environment of extremes
The north coast of Peru is an environment of extremes.
In this desert, thousands of years ago, societies encountered many of the same challenges posed by the modern climate crisis: expanding drylands, water scarcity, vulnerable food production systems, and frequent, intense natural disasters.
Yet, people not only occupied this area for millennia, they thrived in it. Moche and Chimu societies created sophisticated, complex political and religious institutions, art and technology, and one of the largest pyramidal structures in the Americas.
Relief of fish adorn an adobe wall in the historic Tschudi Complex archaeological site at Chan Chan, the former capital of the Chimu empire in Peru. FabulousFabs/Flickr, CC BY-NC
When the Spanish arrived on the desert north coast of Peru shortly after 1532 C.E., early chroniclers remarked on the verdant, green valleys across the region.
The Spanish immediately recognized the importance of the canal network. They had used similar canal technology in Spain for centuries. So, they set about conscripting Indigenous labor and adapting the irrigation system to their goals.
Just a few decades later, however, historic records describe sand dunes and scrublands invading the green valleys, water shortages, and in 1578 a massive El Niño flood that nearly ended the young colony.
So how did the Indigenous operation of this landscape succeed, where the Spanish and the modern-day agro-industrial complex have repeatedly failed?
Culture was crucial for ancient canal systems
Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in ancient times. Isolating and removing the tools from that knowledge made them less effective.
Scientists, policymakers and stakeholders searching for models of sustainable agriculture and climate adaptations can look to the archaeological record. Successfully applying past practices to today’s challenges requires learning about the cultures that put those tools to work effectively for so long, so long ago.
The pre-Hispanic societies of Peru developed agricultural principles around the realities of the desert, which included both dry seasons and flash floods.
Large-scale irrigation infrastructure was combined with low-cost, easily modified canals. Aqueducts doubled as sediment traps to capture nutrients. Canal branches channeled both river water and floodwater. Even check-dams – small dams used to control high-energy floods – worked in multiple ways. Usually made of mounded cobble and gravel, they reduced the energy of flash floods, captured rich sediments and recharged the water table.
A drone’s view of sugarcane fields shows a pre-Hispanic adobe aqueduct on the right and small feeder canals in the modern fields. Ari Caramanica
The initial failures of the Spanish on the north coast exemplify the problem of trying to adopt technology without understanding the cultural insights behind it: While they may be identical in form, a Spanish canal isn’t a Moche canal.
Spanish canals operated in a temperate climate and were managed by individual farmers who could maintain or increase their water flow. The Moche and Chimu canal was tied to a complex labor system that synchronized cleaning and maintenance and prioritized the efficient use of water. What’s more, Moche canals functioned in tandem with floodwater diversion canals, which activated during El Niño events to create niches of agricultural productivity amid disasters.
A handmade gate on a modern canal in northern Peru doesn’t seem that different from ancient canals, but the pre-Hispanic canal systems were generally more conceptually complex and interconnected. Ari Caramanica
Desert farming required flexibility and multifunctionality from its infrastructure. Achieving that often meant forgoing impermeable materials and permanent designs, which stands in stark contrast to the way modern-day water management works are constructed.
Copying ancient practices without the culture
Today, the Peruvian government is pushing forward with a decades-old, multibillion-dollar project to deliver water to the north coast from a glacier-fed river.
The Chavimochic project promises a grand transformation, turning desert into productive farmland. But it may be sacrificing long-term resilience for short-term prosperity.
Meanwhile, sustainable land management practices of past Indigenous inhabitants continue to support ecosystems hundreds and even thousands of years later. Studies show higher levels of biodiversity, crucial to ecosystem health, near archaeological sites.
On the Peruvian north coast, pre-Hispanic infrastructure continues to capture floodwater during El Niño events. When their modern-day fields are flooded or destroyed by these events, farmers will sometimes move their crops to areas surrounding archaeological remains where their corn, squash and bean plants can tap into the trapped water and sediments and safely grow without the need for further irrigation.
But this framing misses the bigger point: What made these technologies effective was the cultural stuff. Not just the tools but how they were used by the societies operating them. As long as modern engineering solutions try to update ancient technologies without considering the cultures that made them function, these projects will struggle.
Understanding the past matters
Archaeologists have an important role to play in building a climate-resilient future, but any meaningful progress would benefit from a historical approach that considers multiple ways of understanding the environment, of operating an irrigation canal and of organizing an agriculture-based economy.
That approach, in my view, begins with saving indigenous languages, where cultural logic is deeply embedded, as well as preserving archaeological and sacred sites, and creating partnerships built on trust with the people who have worked with the land and whose cultures have adapted their practices to the changing climate for thousands of years.
Ari Caramanica receives funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Press release
School children in Stockton-on-Tees inspire nature recovery
The activity, centred around Tilery Park, encouraged engagement from residents and schools to understand how the local community view and use green spaces.
Children at Tilery Primary School unleash their inner plants and animals to help boost long-term, local nature recovery.
Children at Tilery Primary School have unleashed their inner plants and animals by putting on a wildlife parade to help boost long-term nature recovery in Teesside.
Delivered through the Tees Nature Recovery Partnership (NRP), the project, aims to encourage engagement from residents to understand how they use or don’t use Tilery Park and to explore barriers to access, plus community-led future aspirations for local green spaces.
The children in Year Five and Six designed animal costumes based on their interpretation of Tilery Park and worked with Teesside University and local artists to design what they would like their green space to look like in 100 years, to remind them about the importance of protecting habitats for local wildlife now.
They worked with photography, textiles and art materials, design and imagination to see, listen and explore Tilery Rec next door to the school. Local community groups also shared their memories and joined in with activities such as bingo and sculpture-making.
Pupils had the chance to show off their work as part of a green space parade which also formed part of their geography curriculum and highlights the school’s dedication to environmental issues.
The parade was filmed by Teesside University’s Sarah Perks and Paul Stewart (working together as Forms of Circulation). They were joined by local artists including Annie O’Donnell, Wil Jackson, Christo Wallers and Lizzie Mckeone for this project.
Children in Year Five and Six designed animal costumes based on their interpretation of Tilery Park
Emma Carter, a teacher at Tilery Primary School, said:
Our Year Five and Six children had a wonderful time learning about Tilery Rec and how it was used in the past, how it is used now and how they would like to see it being used in the future.
It has been great for our children to be out and about in our community. They are incredibly excited about the parade and are looking forward to seeing the photos taken for Natural England. Tilery Primary pupils have really benefitted from this project and are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to take part.
Vicky Ward, Natural England Senior Project Manager for the Tees Estuary Nature Recovery Partnership said:
It is fantastic to see young people’s creativity, passion and enthusiasm in helping to protect our natural habitats here in Teesside.
Good quality green and blue spaces have an important role to play in our urban and rural environments for improving health and wellbeing, nature recovery and climate resilience. Along with addressing issues of economic growth, social inequality and environmental decline.
This project has utilised imaginative approaches to explore how local children, and other residents, perceive and use Tilery Park and the surrounding green spaces. Being able to co-create meaning through the arts, enables residents to participate by sharing their hopes and aspirations on how their local green spaces can be used and valued.
Professor Sarah Perks and Dr Paul Stewart, from Teesside University’s Institute for Collective Place Leadership led the creative project and communities’ engagement for this project as part of their research in curatorial and artistic practice.
Professor Perks, Professor of Curating in the University’s School of Arts & Creative Industries said:
We are dedicated to engaging communities with local nature and connecting with living ecosystems, as part of our work as curators and academics.
Dr Paul Stewart, Principal Lecturer in Research and Innovation in the University’s School of Arts and Creative Industries, added:
We felt inspired by the multiple ways the schoolchildren involved in the project worked collaboratively.
The Tees NRP started in January 2023 and covers an area of 17,200 hectares where Natural England and the Environment Agency, Hartlepool Borough Council, Groundwork NE&C, National Trust, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, RSPB Saltholme, Stockton Borough Council, Teesmouth Field Centre, Tees Rivers Trust, Tees Valley Nature Partnership and Tees Valley Wildlife Trust are developing projects that will deliver nature recovery on the ground as well as improve people’s access and connection to local spaces.
The aim is to create a place which is greener, cleaner and climate resilient, where nature growth is prioritised, cultural heritage is celebrated, and everyone has easy and accessible ways to connect to nature for now and always.
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
Sergei Sobyanin approved improvement plans for 2025, which include comprehensive work on more than 700 streets.
“A city for life — a street improvement plan for 2025 has been approved. More than 700 streets will be transformed. The focus is on upgrading three outbound highways at once: Profsoyuznaya Street, Volgogradsky Prospekt and Shchyolkovskoye Highway. Also in the plans are Novorizhanskoye and Ostashkovskoye Highways, Butyrskaya and Dubninskaya Streets. In the Presnensky District, it is planned to improve Mantulinskaya Street. On Akademika Sakharova Prospekt — the construction of a tram line. And a third tram line will appear next to the Main Entrance of VDNKh. Most of the work will take place outside the city center,” the Moscow Mayor said.
Source: Sergei Sobyanin’s Telegram channel @Mos_Sobyanin
The largest project of 2025 will be the renovation of three outbound highways at once: Profsoyuznaya Street with 60th Anniversary of October Avenue (length – 12.5 kilometers), Volgogradsky Avenue with Marxist Street (length – 12.5 kilometers) and Shchyolkovskoye Highway with Krasnoprudnaya and Bolshaya Cherkizovskaya Streets (length – about nine kilometers). In previous years, such work was not carried out on them or was carried out partially.
The main objective of the improvement is to make the urban environment more comfortable and functional for local residents, while maintaining the transit function of the highways. During the work, overhead cable lines will be moved underground, an additional drainage system will be installed, the pavement of sidewalks and roads will be replaced, modern energy-saving lamps will be installed, and contrast lighting supports will be installed on unregulated pedestrian crossings.
Modern bus stops will be installed for public transport passengers. Ventilation shafts and other engineering structures will receive decorative cladding and will become one of the attractive details of the renovated streets. In addition, small architectural forms will be placed along the roadway, lawns will be laid out, and green spaces will be planted.
To add color to the autumn-winter landscape, green islands with decorative compositions of conifers will be set up on Profsoyuznaya Street and Volgogradsky Prospekt.
As part of the improvement of Profsoyuznaya Street, two children’s playgrounds will be renovated, and on Volgogradsky Prospekt, the dog walking area will be put in order and decorative fencing with an individual design will be installed along industrial enterprises and garage complexes.
In addition, there are plans to put Novorizhanskoe and Ostashkovskoe highways, Butyrskaya and Dubninskaya streets in order.
It is planned to put Mantulinskaya Street in order in the Presnensky district, to make a tram line on Academician Sakharov Avenue and an additional (third) tram line near the main entrance to VDNKh.
The main works will be carried out outside the city center, where it is planned to improve about 700 small district streets. There, the roadway and sidewalks will be resurfaced, convenient approaches and driveways to residential areas, additional pedestrian crossings and rest areas will be created, modern bus stops, traffic lights and road signs, navigation steles and other elements of a comfortable urban environment will be installed. As part of the landscaping, lawns will be tidied up and green spaces will be planted.
The 2025 improvement program became the second stage of implementing the provisions of the Moscow development strategy for the period up to 2040. It is planned to carry out comprehensive work on more than three thousand city streets located outside the historical center.
The first stage of improvement took place in 2024, when 667 streets received a new look, as well as 10 large objects in the city center – Kadashevskaya Embankment with Staromonetny and Pyzhevsky Lanes, lanes near Tsvetnoy Boulevard (2nd Kolobovsky, Likhov, Bolshoy, Sredny and Maly Karetnye). A new tram line was laid on Sergiya Radonezhskogo Street and Rogozhskaya Zastava Square, and comprehensive improvements were carried out.
In addition, within the first stage, more than 20 kilometers of the Yauza River embankments, Komsomolsky Prospekt, the areas adjacent to the main building of the Lomonosov Moscow State University on Vorobyovy Gory, as well as a number of other significant city objects were put in order.
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Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Grace Meng (6th District of New York)
QUEENS, NY – U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens) announced today that she helped to celebrate the 100th birthday of a woman from Queens who miraculously escaped the horrors of the Holocaust in Europe.
Meng visited the Flushing home of Hanna Slome yesterday where the Congresswoman honored her with an official congressional proclamation and proclaimed this Friday, April 11 – the actual date of her birthday – as Hanna Slome Day throughout New York’s Sixth Congressional District.
Slome was born on April 11, 1925 in Czechoslovakia. She was one of 669 children rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton’sKindertransport in 1939, escaping Nazi persecution and beginning a new life in England before immigrating to the United States at the age of 19 aboard a wartime freighter. She was unaware of who was responsible for her escape but learned decades later that it was organized by Winton, a British stockbroker.
After settling in New York City, Slome married and moved to Flushing, raising two children and ultimately welcoming seven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.
Slome was actively involved in local religious institutions including Temple Gates of Prayer in Flushing as well as serving on the PTA of Junior High School 185 where she also served a term as its president. In addition, she has spoken to school groups about her experience during and after the Holocaust.
“I am proud to commend and recognize Hanna for a century of courage, service and inspiration,” said Meng. “Her message of resilience and hope continues to inspire generations and will do so for many years to come. It is an honor and privilege to wish her a very happy 100tth birthday and I send her my warmest congratulations.”
This past January, Meng introduced a bipartisan resolution on International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorating 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz and recommitting to combatting all forms of antisemitism. She also helped to reintroduce the Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Lessons (HEAL) Act in January that seeks to increase Holocaust education efforts in public schools.
More than 100 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, new interpretations of the burial are still emerging. A recent article published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology proposes that a set of seemingly plain, functional objects are in fact a key part of the complex rituals which would ensure the transformation and regeneration of the young king in the afterlife.
Tutankhamun inherited a throne tainted by the shifts in religious and political practices implemented by his father, Akhenaten. His reign had been hallmarked by the move from the capital city of Thebes to a new city, Akhetaten (“the horizon of the Aten”).
Under Akhenaten, the solar deity Aten was elevated above all others, including the principal state god Amun. This resulted in the king being the sole high priest and beneficiary (along with his family) of the Aten. The resulting disconnection between state and religion severely reduced the power and influence of priests and members of the royal court. But on Akhenaten’s death, these were restored by his son.
Tutankhamun was named Tutankh-aten (“the living image of Aten”) at birth, but took the name of Amun back when Thebes was restored as the capital city of Egypt after his accession. This time (known as the Amarna period after the modern name of Akhenaten’s city) and its changes mean that it is more challenging to understand matters such as burial practices, religious rites and so on because it was not necessarily a “typical” time.
Therefore, while we have learned much about funerary practices from Tutankhamun’s tomb, there are objects which are still being reinterpreted.
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The artefacts in focus are a set of four clay trays, approximately 7.5 x 4.0 x 1.2cm, plain in design and apparently quite utilitarian.
This type of artefact is known from other funerary contexts including elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings. They have been described in various ways as mud trays, earthen dishes or troughs. The lack of consistency in terminology and suggestions on function illustrate the difficulty in understanding their precise role in the tomb.
Along with the clay trays are a set of wooden staves, just over a metre long, with a slight angle, and covered with gesso (a white pigment and binder mixture) and gold. In spite of the difference in materials, they were assumed by the man who uncovered the tomb, Howard Carter, to be directly associated with the trays. He believed they were probably intended as bases for the staffs to stand upright.
However, it is clear that they have an even greater function to fulfil as, contextually, everything in the tomb has symbolism and meaning, even down to the wooden boxes for preserved meats, which were intended to sustain Tutankhamun in the afterlife.
The care with which the trays and staff were laid out on matting indicates that they were important for the king’s burial. We might expect a royal burial to be filled with only the finest objects, made of the most valuable materials by elite craftsmen, with the association of materials such as gold with royalty and divinity. The richness of the rest of Tutankhamun’s burial for the most part fulfils this expectation. But, nevertheless, the ordinariness of the clay trays in the light of such riches confirms rather than refutes their significance.
The restoration of order
Following the royal court’s move back to Thebes in the wake of Akhenaten’s death, the restoration of Amun and the other gods was set in motion. The cult centre of Amun at the Temple of Karnak regained its status. The name of Akhenaten and his imagery, along with that of the sun disk, were subjected to a campaign of removal.
Tutankhamun erected the so-called Restoration Stela with titles and epithets invoking the traditional gods, and statements on “having repaired what was ruined … having repelled disorder”. The upheaval of the Amarna Period was reversed.
Discussions in academia on the dismantling of Akhenaten’s regime have tended to focus on issues such as name changes and the destruction of his upstart city. But ancient Egyptian religion had countless centuries of recorded tradition and observance, so profound demonstrations of loyalty to the traditional gods were needed.
The mud trays are now thought to be part of a wider funerary ritual, which both invoked the god Osiris and permitted the transfiguration of Tutankhamun. As king, he was thought to be the embodiment of the god Horus in life, and to become Osiris in death – rejuvenated and resurrected.
Osiris is usually shown as a mummified king, with green or black skin to represent the fertility of the land and the new life which comes from it. It is not a coincidence that the trays are made of mud.
Other aspects of the placement of the trays within the tomb such as specific placement and orientation (including particular symbols in the decoration of the tomb) indicate that the trays had a specific role to play. This may have been as an offering tray for Nile water, once more underlining the role of the river in creating life.
Tutankhamun and his treasures are so familiar today that it is possible to overlook, or even forget, the fact that once the doors were sealed after his funeral they were meant to never be seen again. Some of his grave goods – particularly those made from gold – have outshone others. However, the ordinariness of the trays among all the riches suggests that they are crucial components of his burial. They confirm Tutankhamun as both renewed in death through Osiris, and the king who restored order to Egypt.
Claire Isabella Gilmour 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.
As a specialty registrar in paediatric dentistry, I’ve seen first-hand the pain children experience because of poor oral health. Tooth decay happens when teeth are damaged by acids produced by oral bacteria breaking down sugar from foods and drinks – and although it’s largely preventable – it’s the most common reason for hospital admission in children aged between five and nine in England.
Tooth decay in children is also linked to obesity. Childhood obesity increases the risk of developing other diseases throughout childhood and into adulthood, including diabetes, high blood pressure and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
My research, conducted with colleagues at Loughborough University, explores how acceptable and feasible it is for dental teams to offer weight checks and support, such as referral to weight loss programmes, to patients during routine appointments. In my job as a paediatric dentist, I discuss weight and health with families and offer referral to local healthy lifestyle services.
The World Health Organization estimates that 43% of children have decay worldwide and 20% of children aged 5-19 years are overweight or living with obesity.
In England, 29.3% of five-year-olds have tooth decay and 21.3% of four and five year olds are overweight or living with obesity. A diet high in sugary foods and drinks increases the risk of developing both conditions. and evidence suggests that children who are overweight or living with obesity are more likely to have tooth decay.
Mouth disease is also linked with disease in other parts of the body. Gum disease, for example, is an infection of the tissues that support teeth, which has links with type 2 diabetes. When one disease is poorly controlled, it can make the other worse. The number of children with type 2 diabetes is increasing, with excess weight increasing the risk of developing this condition.
Given the links between diet, tooth decay, obesity, type 2 diabetes, as well as other diseases that can develop when living with obesity, dental teams may be ideal professionals to tackle both tooth decay and obesity. It can be difficult to see an NHS dentist in the UK but NHS dental teams do see millions of children every year and already advise families on reducing sugary foods and drinks in the diet to reduce the risk of tooth decay.
Dental teams taking body measurements is not new. Height and weight measurements to calculate body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat, are already collected by some dental teams. These measurements are helpful when prescribing medication and for planning dental treatment for children who need a general anaesthetic or sedation.
Some hospital dental teams, such as in Edinburgh and Dundee in Scotland, also offer weight and height checks for children and young people as part of routine appointments. The child’s weight is discussed with the child’s parent or carer in a sensitive way and families are offered referral to a local service to support healthy lifestyle changes.
This opportunity to support a child with their oral health as well as weight aligns with the NHS initiative, Making Every Contact Count. Making Every Contact Count calls on all health care professionals to take every opportunity within their appointments with patients to help improve patient health.
Children living in more deprived areas of the UK are at least twice as likely to be living with overweight and obesity. They’re also three times as likely to have tooth decay. The NHS aims to reduce these inequalities among children and has chosen oral health and diabetes as two key areas to improve care for children and young people.
The public have shown support for dental teams to talk about weight at dental visits and offer guidance to lose weight and improve health when done in a supportive way. Research published in 2024, found that over 80% of the public supported weight measurements being taken by dental teams and a discussion of weight at dental appointments. Most of the studies in this review came from the USA.
A UK based survey asked parents and carers if they would feel comfortable with their child(ren)’s weight and height being taken at a dental appointment in a dental practice. The survey found 58% of parents and carers would feel comfortable and a further 12% might feel comfortable with this approach.
This was very similar to how adults completing the survey felt about having their own height and weight measured at a dental appointment with 60% reporting they would feel comfortable and a further 10% saying they may feel comfortable.
Discussing weight can feel uneasy and dental teams say they worry they will upset patients if they talk about weight. Some studies have found dental teams are also concerned they do not have enough time to talk about weight and that they have not had training on how to do this.
However, studies have found when weight checks and support are offered to families by trained dental teams, help is well received and lack of time rarely a problem.
Dental decay and obesity are preventable in many cases. Both conditions can continue into adulthood with the risk of developing other health problems.
Research shows that dental teams are willing to provide support and that children and their families are open to receiving help for obesity. Dental teams do have an important role to play, as well as GPs and allied healthcare professionals, in tackling obesity in children as well as tooth decay.
Jessica Large 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.
In the years after Nato was formed in 1949, its US and European members had a collective approach to defence with clear goals in common, largely built around the protection of western Europe against the Soviet Union. Throughout this era, the US and Europe both relied on the stability of the international system by creating international cooperation on shared dilemmas.
Fast forward more than 70 years, and there is now a ticking clock on reinventing the transatlantic alliance.
European security and US-led Nato security are no longer one and the same. Certainly, recent statements from US leaders that the US will prioritise empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security has made for tough listening in Europe.
For some, this may be an overdue opportunity to fundamentally rework the transatlantic security relationship. For others, such statements are worryingly set against the backdrop of Trump’s pro-Russia stance, with Trump’s demands sounding sinister at best.
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte recently outlined a need to “build a stronger, a fairer and more lethal NATO”. Global threats were creating a more dangerous world, he argued.
Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, speaks at a 2025 meeting in Brussels,
From its establishment by 12 states on April 4, 1949, until the end of the cold war era, Nato was focused on one big thing: deterring Soviet aggression. Ultimately, Nato had one job, one enemy, one threat, one theatre and one instrument of power.
It was a partnership that enabled the US to build and maintain a more permanent role in European security. This collective security plan prevented the US from falling back into isolationist foreign policies that it had held before the second world war
Arguably, US attitudes fluctuated throughout this era. Initially the country sought a temporary role in Nato, with limited military commitment. It also encouraged western European Nato members to take early and primary responsibility for defence.
However, the huge Soviet nuclear threat hardened US attitudes. And Nato came to be seen as key to the US’s overall ability to prevent a Soviet invasion of western Europe. Equally important was the role of the Marshall Plan, a massive post-war reconstruction plan for Europe, which (in conjunction with Nato) represented the US’s desire to work with European partners to both stabilise the region, and ensure democracy.
Through the decades that followed, the US saw Nato as a cornerstone of its foreign policy. It is important to remember that transactionality has always been an integral part of the transatlantic relationship, but it was never at the expense of the values that underpinned it, and indeed reinforced both US national and European regional interests in doing so.
Throughout the 1990s, and well into the 2000s, Nato clearly represented the US’s preferred method of maintaining its military presence in Europe (including US bases, weapons and troops stationed in member countries). The US drove the redefinition of post-cold war Nato, to include former Warsaw Pact countries including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The question now is whether US leadership in Nato was focused so extensively on security of Europe and pushing back against the Soviets that for a long time the dilemma of who paid for what was essentially set aside.
Long overdue problems?
But two wake-up calls were to come. The first was the increasingly clear indications from US administrations from Barack Obama’s presidency onwards that the US was ill at ease with Nato as a whole, and it was unhappy with the lower financial commitment, than the US, coming from European members.
The second was in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. Unfortunately, the first warning sign by Obama was largely ignored; and when Russia invaded Crimea, Nato did not step up to push back against Putin’s expansionism.
Now, Nato finds itself once again in the crosshairs of US anger about funding, and with Trump furious at European defence spending levels, and determined to massively revise the transatlantic bargain.
Trump’s first administration put spending from European Nato members firmly on the table. His recent position is merely a continuation of that theme.
From the European perspective, the US was, and is, a key part of the collective security structure that has empowered European defence and deterrence, but possibly with an out-of-date funding model.
Trump, meanwhile, appears to see the US’s involvement as politically naïve. He seems to view Nato as strategically futile and defence spending imbalances as an indication that Nato is nothing more than a giant security racket.
What is stark is the reversal between the US having helped found Nato and as the leading nation backing of a rule-bound global system under international law and Trump’s preference to reject any responsibilities for global leadership and stability.
What has come as a shock to European members is not perhaps the demands regarding improving defence funding, but the abdication of US leadership and the threat to leave Nato completely, with no ongoing US responsibility to defend the world order.
The onus is now on European Nato members to make both serious and swift changes. Indications of far more serious financial commitments, including from Germany, are emerging. European defence spending overall increased by 11.7% over the last year to roughly €423.3 billion (£371 billion), representing ten years of consecutive regional growth.
Next steps include focusing on AI-led technologies, cheap drones, digital tech and improved commitments to joint projects.
But the hardest task is also the most urgent. Namely, to avoid the chaos of a unilateral US withdrawal from Nato.
There’s a need to move the financial and military burden to Europe in a way agreeable to the US before the Nato summit in June. Discussions on how to achieve this need to cover everything from nuclear deterrence to challenges arising from the conflict in Ukraine.
Whether Rutte and European states can indeed preserve and maintain the collective security foundations on which Nato was first built remains to be seen. But, certainly, the current world situation is no less dangerous that the world in which Nato itself was first built.
Amelia Hadfield 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.
The education of autistic children and young people in western societies has been heavily influenced by a medicalised understanding of autism. This means considering autism as a disorder, with a focus on correcting autistic people’s perceived lacks, rather than building on their strengths.
Autistic learners’ strengths, interests, preferences, goals and values were typically sidelined. Making the learner appear less autistic was the main focus.
This included increasing eye contact and building neurotypical social skills. It involved attempting to reduce stimming: self-stimulatory behaviour, which can include chewing on objects, fidgeting, watching moving objects, and making repetitive sounds.
However, the neurodiversity movement – a social advocacy movement that promotes the idea that neurological differences are an expected and normal part of human variation – has challenged these assumptions. Instead of the autistic learner being viewed as disabled, it suggests the educational environment can be disabling for the autistic learner.
This contrasts with the past when school norms typically did not support the strengths and needs of autistic learners. These children were expected to fit in.
What autistic people want
The autistic voice has been largely missing from educational research and policymaking. My research study with colleagues, co-produced with autistic researchers, set out to change this. We wanted to identify the educational priorities of adult members of the autistic community, as well as teachers supporting autistic learners, in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
We did this by carrying out a survey comprising 34 autistic adults with no role in education (non-educators), ten autistic educators, and 65 non-autistic educators who supported autistic learners. We asked them about priority goals to be included in individual education plans for autistic learners.
The individual education plan is the foundation of inclusive and special education in many countries. It serves as an educational map that charts the learner’s current level of performance and their annual goals. It lays out the steps and resources needed to reach these goals.
In countries such as Finland, the US and UK, an individual learning plan is legally mandated for all learners who make use of special education services. However, this is not the case in the Republic of Ireland. Provisions were made in the 2004 Education for Persons with Special Education Needs Act. Over 20 years later, though, individual education plans are still not compulsory, regulated or assessed in the Republic of Ireland.
This lack of oversight has occurred against the backdrop of a 600% increase in special classes in the Republic of Ireland from 2013 to 2023. Autism classes accounted for 89% of these – 2,466 classes out of a total of 2,754.
Before carrying out the survey, we expected very little overlap in the goal priorities of autistic respondents and non-autistic respondents. We were wrong. Our findings clearly showed significant overlap in the priorities across the groups.
Our survey respondents prioritised goals that promote autonomy, social inclusion and communication. They saw these goals as contributing positively to autistic wellbeing.
On the other hand, academic goals did not feature as a priority for the vast majority of respondents. Academic goals include reading comprehension, writing skills, critical thinking, time management, problem solving and maths skills.
It could be argued that this does a disservice to the educational potential of autistic learners. However, while academic goals are important, wellbeing must come first. Without a strong foundation of physical and mental health, meaningful academic success is difficult to achieve.
Finally, all groups actively discouraged educational goals that focused on improving eye contact and reducing stimming. The overriding consensus was that a focus on changing these aspects of behaviour is detrimental to a learner’s ability to work towards meaningful and functional educational goals including independence, wellbeing and social inclusion.
Prioritising wellbeing
There is growing support for prioritising wellbeing, communication, socialisation and daily living skills over more academic goals. However, teachers may not be equipped to design, teach and monitor goals that align with these priorities of the autistic community.
Teachers in a UK study cited several barriers to supporting autistic learners in their classrooms. Their greatest frustration came from having limited access to autism-specific knowledge and expertise during their initial teacher training.
Similar frustrations were also reported among Irish teachers. Many teachers in the study thought a specialised qualification should be compulsory for those teaching in autism classes.
However, autism prevalence rates are on the rise, and there is an international trend towards inclusive education – educating children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. This means there is a growing likelihood that teachers will find themselves supporting autistic learners.
Research shows that teachers’ attitudes, knowledge and skills towards inclusion are improved if they can go on placements during their training to schools that emphasise a culture of inclusion.
Partnerships between universities and schools could be an important way to make this happen. This could help empower student teachers to go on to design and support effective individual education plans for their autistic learners.
However, without a legal mandate for individual education plans in the Republic of Ireland, initial teacher education and teacher professional development programmes will continue to struggle to effectively prepare teachers for this part of their role.
Laura Gormley works as an assistant professor in Dublin City university and received seed funding from SCoTENS (The Standing Conference on Teacher Education, North and South) to carry out this study.
To attract business investment, American cities and states offer companies billions of dollars in incentives, such as tax credits. As the theory goes, when governments create a business-friendly environment, it encourages investment, leading to job creation and economic growth.
While this theory may seem logical on its face, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Business investment follows employees, not just the other way around. In fact, our research suggests workers care less about whether a city has business-friendly policies and more about how safe they feel living in it. And interestingly, we found that politics influence people’s risk perceptions more than hard data such as crime statistics.
Our findings have major implications for cities and businesses. If people choose where to live and work based on perceived safety rather than economic incentives, then entrepreneurs and city leaders may need to rethink how they approach growth and investment.
The many faces of risk
We are managementprofessors who surveyed more than 500 employees and entrepreneurs from across the country to better understand how they rate 25 large U.S. cities on various dimensions of risk.
We asked about three different types of risk: risk related to crime, government function and social issues. Risk related to government function includes corruption and instability, while risk related to social issues includes potential infringements on individual rights.
We found that people’s views of risk weren’t driven primarily by objective statistics, such as FBI crime data. Instead, they were shaped by factors such as media representations, word of mouth and geographic stereotypes.
For example, studies suggest that crime in Denver has been rising, and U.S. News and World Report recently ranked it as the 10th most dangerous city based on FBI crime reports. However, the employees and entrepreneurs we surveyed ranked Denver as the safest city in the country.
It’s all politics
We found that political perspectives were the main factor biasing the rankings. For example, conservative-leaning employees and entrepreneurs believed that Portland, Oregon, is dangerous, ranking it as America’s ninth-riskiest city. In contrast, those who are liberal-leaning ranked it as the second-safest city in the country.
Both of these beliefs can’t be accurate. Instead, when basing the ranking on objective crime data from the FBI, U.S. News ranked Portland the 15th most dangerous city in the country.
When assessing risk related to how the government functions, conservatives praised politicians in Nashville, Charlotte and Dallas, while the liberals praised those in Denver, Minneapolis and Portland. Similarly, when considering risk related to social issues, conservatives said New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco were “risky,” while the liberals said Tampa, Miami and Houston should be avoided.
Our findings also suggest that political perspectives influence the types of risk that employers and employees care about. For example, conservatives tend to care more about crime-related risk than liberals, and liberals care more about risk related to social issues.
Now what?
We’re not advocating that city leaders drop financial incentives altogether, or that employers ignore them. Evidence suggests that financialincentives and other business-friendly policiesmay be effective at attracting businesses and strengthening local economies.
However, our research suggests that when individuals are making important life decisions about where to live, work and invest, a city’s level of risk matters. Importantly, beliefs about risk are subjective and are biased by political perspectives.
In our view, city leaders must recognize and address concerns about crime, governance and social issues while actively working to improve public perceptions of their cities. Likewise, businesses may want to consider investing in cities that are less politically polarized when making investment decisions.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
On April 7, 2025, Doctor of Economics, Professor Alexey Mikhailovich Lyalin (04.07.1947–07.04.2025) passed away at the age of 78.
The farewell to Alexei Mikhailovich will take place on Thursday, April 10, at 12:00 in the Church of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple (Moscow, Okskaya St., 17).
Alexey Mikhailovich’s entire career is connected with our native university. In 1970, he graduated from the Moscow Engineering and Economics Institute named after S. Ordzhonikidze, where he subsequently worked his way up from a department assistant to the university rector, defending his candidate and doctoral dissertations.
He worked as a senior lecturer, associate professor of the Department of Economics, Organization and Management in Urban Economy until December 1987. At the same time, the staff elected him chairman of the trade union committee of the university. In 1981, he was appointed dean of the preparatory faculty. From 1990 to 2006, he worked as vice-rector for academic work at the State University of Management.
From April 25, 2006 to February 7, 2011, he was the rector of the State University of Management. After that, until 2022, he held the position of head of the project management department. Recently, Aleksey Mikhailovich worked as a professor of the project management department, under his scientific supervision, postgraduate students worked, and a number of scientific studies were conducted. Since 2018, he has been the chairman of the Council of Elders of the State University of Management.
Alexey Mikhailovich was awarded a number of state and departmental awards: the medal “In Memory of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow”, the jubilee certificate of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Construction, Architecture and Housing Policy, the title of “Honorary Worker of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation”, the Certificate of Honor of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland” of the 2nd degree.
Alexey Mikhailovich was distinguished by his great diligence, exactingness towards himself and others, and a very friendly attitude towards them. He had well-deserved authority and respect not only among students and the department staff, but also among all university employees.
Alexey Mikhailovich put his whole soul and heart into teaching students, and showed truly paternal care both in terms of their acquiring professional knowledge and in terms of their understanding of their civic responsibility.
The staff of the State University of Management mourns the irreparable loss and offers sincere condolences to his family and friends.
The memory of the talented scientist and outstanding leader Alexei Mikhailovich Lyalin will forever remain in our hearts.
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 04/08/2025
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