NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) imaged Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander on the Moon’s surface the afternoon of March 2, not quite 10 hours after the spacecraft landed.
The delivery is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign. This is the first CLPS delivery for Firefly, and their first Moon landing. LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon. NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities. More on this story from Arizona State University’s LRO Camera website Media Contact:Nancy N. JonesNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Headline: West Virginian Renters may be eligible for FEMA assistance
West Virginian Renters may be eligible for FEMA assistance
West Virginian Renters may be eligible for FEMA assistanceCHARLESTON, W
Va
– West Virginia renters in Logan, McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Wayne, and Wyoming counties who experienced losses due to the winter floods from February 15 – 18, 2025 may be eligible for disaster recovery assistance from FEMA and the U
S Small Business Administration (SBA)
Renters may be eligible for Individual Assistance grants from FEMA to help with such disaster-related expenses as:Renting a new place to live when the renter’s previous home was significantly damaged or lost due to the disaster
Disaster-related medical and dental expenses
Replacement or repair of necessary personal property lost or damaged in the disaster, such as appliances and furniture; textbooks and computers used by students; and work equipment or tools used by the self-employed
Repair or replacement of vehicles damaged by the disaster
Accepting FEMA funds will not affect eligibility for Social Security – including Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) – Medicare, Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, or other federal benefit programs
Renters who sustained losses can apply for assistance in several ways:Visiting DisasterAssistance
gov
Downloading the FEMA App
Calling the FEMA Helpline at 800-621-3362
Phone lines are open every day and help is available in most languages
If you use a relay service such as video relay service (VRS) or captioned telephone service, please provide FEMA your number for that service
Speaking with someone in person
Disaster Survivor Assistance (DSA) teams will be on the ground in impacted communities, walking door-to-door to share information and help residents apply for FEMA assistance
In coordination with the West Virginia Emergency Management Division (WVEMD) and officials in impacted counties, FEMA has opened a Disaster Recovery Centers (DRCs) in Logan, Mercer, McDowell, Mingo, and Wyoming Counties
At a Disaster Recovery Center, you can get help applying for federal assistance, update your application, and learn about other resources available
Logan County Disaster Recovery CenterMercer County Disaster Recovery CenterSouthern WV Community & Technical College100 College DriveLogan, WV 25601Hours of operation:Monday to Friday: 9 a
m
– 6 p
m
Saturdays: 9 a
m
– 3 p
m
Closed Sundays Lifeline Princeton Church of God250 Oakvale Road Princeton, WV 24740Hours of operation:Monday to Friday: 9 a
m
– 5 p
m
Saturdays: 10 a
m
– 2 p
m
Closed Sundays Closed April 26 McDowell County (Welch) Disaster Recovery Center McDowell County Disaster (Bradshaw) Recovery Center Board of Education Office900 Mount View High School RoadWelch, WV 24801Hours of operation:Monday through Friday: 8 a
m
to 6 p
m
Saturday March 29: 9 a
m
to 1 p
m
, weather dependentClosed on Sundays Bradshaw Town Hall10002 Marshall HwyBradshaw, WV 24817Hours of operation:Monday to Saturday: 8 a
m
to 6 p
m
Closed SundaysMingo County Disaster Recovery CenterWyoming County Disaster Recovery CenterWilliamson Campus1601 Armory DriveWilliamson, WV 25661 Hours of operation:Monday through Friday: 8 a
m
to 6 p
m
Saturdays: 9 a
m
to 3 p
m
Closed on SundaysWyoming Court House24 Main AvePineville, WV 24874 Hours of operation:Monday through Friday: 8 a
m
to 6 p
m
Saturdays: 9 a
m
to 3 p
m
Closed on Sundays DRCs are open to all, including survivors with mobility issues, impaired vision, and those who are who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
In addition to applying for FEMA assistance, renters can also apply for a U
S
Small Business Administration disaster loan
Residents can apply online at sba
gov/disaster, call SBA’s Customer Service Center at (800) 659-2955, or email disastercustomerservice@sba
gov for more information on SBA disaster assistance
Those who are deaf, hard of hearing or have a speech disability should dial 7-1-1 to access telecommunications relay service
For more information on West Virginia’s disaster recovery, visit emd
wv
gov, West Virginia Emergency Management Division Facebook page, www
fema
gov/disaster/4861 and www
facebook
com/FEMA
###FEMA’s mission is helping people before, during and after disasters
Follow FEMA online, on X @FEMA or @FEMAEspanol, on FEMA’s Facebook page or Espanol page and at FEMA’s YouTube account
Also, follow on X FEMA_Cam
For preparedness information follow the Ready Campaign on X at @Ready
2025-44 ATTORNEY GENERAL LOPEZ LEADS FIGHT TO STOP PRESIDENT TRUMP FROM SHUTTING DOWN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Posted on Mar 24, 2025 in Latest Department News, Newsroom
STATE OF HAWAIʻI
KA MOKU ʻĀINA O HAWAIʻI
DEPARTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
KA ʻOIHANA O KA LOIO KUHINA
JOSH GREEN, M.D. GOVERNOR
KE KIAʻĀINA
ANNE LOPEZ
ATTORNEY GENERAL
LOIO KUHINA
ATTORNEY GENERAL LOPEZ LEADS FIGHT TO STOP PRESIDENT TRUMP FROM SHUTTING DOWN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
AG Lopez Leads Coalition Seeking Preliminary Injunction to Block Mass Layoffs and the Elimination of Core Services at the Department of Education
News Release 2025-44
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 24, 2025
HONOLULU –Attorney General Lopez today led a coalition of 20 other attorneys general in filing amotion for a preliminary injunctionas part of its lawsuit to stop the dismantling of the Department of Education (ED).
On March 13, Attorney General Lopez and the coalition filed the lawsuit after the Trump administration announced plans to eliminate 50 percent of ED’s workforce. Following a March 20 Executive Order directing the closure of ED and President Trump’s March 21 announcement that, in addition to implementing layoffs, the ED must “immediately” transfer student loan management and special education services outside of ED, Attorney General Lopez and the coalition are seeking a court order to immediately stop the mass layoffs and transfer of services.
“The Department of Education is essential, and it cannot be eliminated or incapacitated by the Trump administration without violating federal law,” said Attorney General Lopez. “The 50% cut to the department’s workforce and transfer of department functions to other agencies causes grave harm to our state and our students. We are asking the court to step in to halt the department’s destruction.”
“Closing the U.S. Department of Education is a potentially catastrophic blow to students, especially those who rely on federal aid and support services to access higher education. At the University of Hawaiʻi, this decision threatens over 100 critical programs and hundreds of jobs across our campuses. We strongly support this legal challenge to defend the future of public education and the communities we serve,” said University of Hawaiʻi President Wendy Hensel.
“The move to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education threatens critical programs that directly support our students, including those with disabilities, English learners, students experiencing unstable housing, and those in our highest-need schools,” said Hawai‘i Department of Education Superintendent Keith T. Hayashi. “In addition to funding, we rely on the department’s guidance to ensure compliance, plan for the school year, and sustain essential services across the state. Even with assurances that core programs will continue, a shift of this magnitude risks serious disruptions. We appreciate Attorney General Lopez’s leadership in standing up for the stability our schools depend on, and we remain committed to working with our partners to protect educational opportunities for all students.”
As Attorney General Lopez and the coalition assert, the Trump administration’s attacks on ED have already had serious consequences for families and students throughout the country. Mass layoffs of ED staff have led to the closure of ED’s Office for Civil Rights locations throughout the country. Critical funding for state school systems has also been delayed. As the attorneys general argue, states rely on billions of dollars every year in funding for elementary and secondary education, services for children with disabilities, vocational education, adult education, and other crucial services. All of these programs will be severely disrupted if the administration’s incapacitation of ED is not stopped.
Attorney General Lopez and the coalition argue in their lawsuit and motion for a preliminary injunction that the Trump administration’s attacks on ED are illegal and unconstitutional. ED is an executive agency authorized by Congress, with numerous laws creating its various programs and funding streams. The coalition’s lawsuit asserts that the executive branch does not have the legal authority to unilaterally dismantle it without an act of Congress. In addition, the attorneys general argue that ED’s mass layoffs violate the Administrative Procedures Act.
The state of Hawaiʻi is represented in this litigation by Solicitor General Kalikoʻonālani Fernandes, Deputy Solicitors General Ewan Rayner and Caitlyn Carpenter, and Special Assistant to the Attorney General Dave Day.
Joining Attorney General Lopez in filing the lawsuit and today’s motion are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
# # #
Media contacts:
Dave Day
Special Assistant to the Attorney General
Office: 808-586-1284
Email:[email protected]
Web:http://ag.hawaii.gov
Toni Schwartz Public Information Officer Hawai‘i Department of the Attorney General Office: 808-586-1252 Cell: 808-379-9249 Email:[email protected]
Headline: Governor Stein Signs Executive Order to Strengthen Workforce and Apprenticeships
Governor Stein Signs Executive Order to Strengthen Workforce and Apprenticeships lsaito
Raleigh, NC
Today, Governor Josh Stein announced an executive order to create a Council on Workforce and Apprenticeships, chaired by Secretary of Commerce Lee Lilley, State Senator Eddie Settle, and NC Community Colleges President Dr. Jeffrey Cox. He also met with students at Forsyth Tech Community College and toured the Transportation Technology Center.
“Our state’s greatest asset is our people, and to invest in our future, we must invest in our people. No state will outwork North Carolina when it comes to developing our workforce,” said Governor Josh Stein. “I am proud to sign this executive order and launch this council to keep delivering on the promise of North Carolina – that where you come from should never limit how far you can go.”
“North Carolina’s workforce is the backbone of our thriving business climate,” said NC Department of Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley. “I look forward to working together to identify and amplify strategies that help North Carolina’s workers and businesses continue to thrive.”
“There is a lot of good work being done around North Carolina’s main streets and towns, and they need skilled workers to reap the benefits of our growing economy,” said Senator Eddie Settle. “I am proud to co-chair this council so that we can find ways to strengthen North Carolina’s workforce and attract more employers to every corner of our state.”
“I am proud to co-chair this Council to work alongside Governor Stein’s team, the NC General Assembly and businesses and industries across the state to ensure our NC Community College System continues to expand apprenticeship and other workforce credential programs to give every citizen in North Carolina the skills they need to get a well-paying job in our modern economy,” said North Carolina Community College System President Jeffrey Cox.
Governor Stein believes that every North Carolinian should have a shot at success – finding a good-paying job or starting a small business – no matter their background. Last month, he visited Wake Tech Community College to tour its auto tech lab and proclaimed February as Career and Technical Education Month. In January, Governor Stein joined Surry-Yadkin Works and Altec Industries to launch the Fostering Learning through Education, Employment, and Trades (FLEET) Program. Governor Stein recently released his state budget proposal, which invests $256 million in workforce development and pays for free community college for students pursuing credentials in high-demand fields.
Headline: Members look into bolstering support for trade policies, fast-tracking digital trade growth
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) noted that Aid-for-Trade disbursements reached USD 48 billion in 2023, representing a 5 per cent decrease from 2022. While most funds were channelled towards strengthening infrastructure and productive sectors, the OECD noted, only 2 per cent of Aid for Trade was allocated to trade policy and regulations.
Representatives from Australia, Barbados, the Pacific Islands Forum and the United Kingdom shared their insights into ways to increase the participation of developing economies in the multilateral trading system. They highlighted that it is important for economies to develop and implement national strategies and to coordinate effectively with development partners. For example, progress in implementing the Pacific Aid-for-Trade Strategy, covering services, e-commerce, trade facilitation and quality infrastructure, was acknowledged.
The financial support dedicated to the WTO accession of Comoros and Timor-Leste was highlighted. Speakers also acknowledged the support provided under the Advisory Centre on WTO Law, the Enhanced Integrated Framework, the Fish Fund and the Standards and Trade Development Facility.
The role of cooperation among developing economies in strengthening these economies’ trade capacities was also recognized. Speakers welcomed greater collaboration with the private sector on scaling up financial support.
Members also examined the European Union’s 2024 Aid for Trade Progress Report. As one of the top donors of Aid for Trade, the European Union and its member states provided 36 per cent of the total disbursements in 2022, accounting for EUR 22 billion. The report also highlighted the role of Aid for Trade in creating an enabling environment for investments under the EU’s Global Gateway investment strategy.
According to the Digital Trade Integration Database of the European University Institute, the level of integration into digital trade differs widely across economies, with fewer enabling policies observed in lower-income economies. The database contains information on the digital trade policies of 146 economies.
Speakers noted that in Africa, digital trade integration is being held back by regulatory fragmentation, infrastructure gaps and limited access of small businesses to digital markets.
To bolster the continent’s digital trade expansion, speakers underlined the importance of technical assistance and capacity-building activities to harmonize digital trade regulations, investments in broadband and logistics and greater access of small businesses to digital trade finance. For example, speakers stressed the importance of fully implementing the Digital Trade Protocol of the African Continental Free Trade Area. Estimates indicate this could increase intra-regional trade in services by up to 10.3 per cent.
More information on the WTO-led Aid for Trade initiative can be found here.
The National Pest Surveillance System (NPSS) has been launched on 15th August, 2024 by the Hon’ble Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to enhance the surveillance and management of pest diseases across the country. The system utilizes latest digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI and ML) to provide quick and instant solution regarding pest attacks, crop diseases, crop damages etc. by issuing real time crop protection advisory to the farmers. It includes a user-friendly mobile app and a portal for identification of pests and disease mitigation.
NPSS is being used by the farmers across the country for identification of pests and diseases in 61 crops and pest management advisories for 15 major crops namely cotton, paddy, wheat, maize, pigeon pea, moong, soyabean, sugarcane, brinjal, tomato, apple, banana, grapes, pomegranate. NPSS is currently available in four languages namely English, Hindi, Marathi and Punjabi. So far, 10154 pest management advisories have been issued through NPSS for the benefit of farmers.
The Government has formulated six point strategy for the welfare of farmers and development of agriculture. Strategies for increasing farmer incomes include improving crop productivity, reducing cost of production, agricultural diversification, adaptation to climate change for sustainable agriculture and compensation of farmers’ losses. Further, Ministry has formulated various schemes and programs to ensure effective coordination between the union and state governments and to address agricultural challenges at the grassroot level and also to incentivize and encourage farmers to grow a variety of crops. The list of schemes/ programmes implemented by DA&FW is enclosed at Annexure-I.
Podcasting was once the underdog of the media world: a platform where anyone with a microphone and an idea could share their voice.
With low barriers to entry and freedom from institutional gatekeeping, it promised to amplify marginalised voices and allow underrepresented groups to tell their own stories, on their own terms.
Today, however, this promise seems increasingly strained as corporate interests tighten their grip on the industry. As money flows in, the podcasting space is beginning to resemble the rest of the digital media world – driven by advertising revenues and political polarisation.
The promise of podcasting
Six years ago, audio scholars Martin Spinelli and Lance Dann described podcasting as a “revolutionary” medium for its ability to inspire empathy through innovative forms of audio.
Podcasting was heralded as a format that broke through the barriers of traditional media by offering new ways to engage with underrepresented voices and ideas. Media and cultural studies pointed to the direct-to-ear delivery – free from the biases of visual culture – as a uniquely intimate way to consume content.
Globally, the industry boomed as a result of pandemic lockdowns, with the number of podcasts on Spotify skyrocketing from 450,000 in 2019, to 1.5 million in 2020.
Listenership has also surged in Australia. According to a 2024 report by Edison Research, we’ve seen a 20% increase in listenership from 2022 to 2024 – with 48% of the those aged 12 and above having listened to a podcast within the past month.
From open space to rat race
In his 2024 book Podcasting in a Platform Age, podcast researcher John Sullivan warns the podcasting space is being increasingly dominated by a handful of powerful media companies that dictate what and who gets visibility.
Larger podcasts with higher production budgets, celebrity hosts and backing from major networks are attracting larger audiences, with independent creators struggling to get a foot in the door.
At the time of writing, of the top 50 most popular podcasts in Australia, more than half (52%) come from overseas, and primarily the United States.
Of the 24 Australian-made podcasts on the list, 80% are backed by a media organisation, with most (64%) connected to major networks such as LiSTNR, which is owned by Southern Cross Austereo. Only 12% of the Australian podcasts on the list come from truly independent creators without any corporate funding or major production support.
Why does it matter that large-network ownership is on the rise? To understand this, it helps to first understand how ads keep podcast networks in business – and how this can impact content decisions.
Deepening ideological divides
Advertisers follow the crowds. In a podcasting context, this means they’re more likely to funnel their dollars into large networks, further bolstering their resources.
At the same time, networks want to drive as many ears to their ad sponsors as possible. To do this, they focus on producing content they know will get the most engagement.
The result is a vicious cycle in which attention and advertising power feed each other, making it even harder for independent voices to break through. Over time, this feedback loop can lead to less content diversity and more polarisation.
According to Spotify’s 2024 Wrapped, American podcaster Joe Rogan took out the top podcast spot for the fifth year in a row globally. Shutterstock
In the lead-up to the 2024 US election, Kamala Harris appeared on Call Her Daddy (the second most popular Spotify podcast in 2024), while Donald Trump was on The Joe Rogan Experience (the most popular). Both interviews were later fact-checkedand found to contain false or misleading claims.
Trump’s interview in particular was flagged by CNN for having 32 false claims. Nonetheless, analysts and researchers pointed to it as a driver behind his success with young male voters.
Late last year, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton appeared on the podcast Diving Deep With Sam Fricker. This was followed by an appearance on Straight Talk, hosted by businessman Mark Bouris, in January.
According to 2022 Pew Research Centre data, 55% of Americans said their major reason for listening to podcasts was “to learn”, while 29% said they wanted to stay up-to-date with current affairs. But information-hungry listeners may be getting shortchanged, as podcasts are less likely to be fact-checked against the same editorial standards that govern traditional media.
As platform researcher Michael Bossetta notes, although large platforms such as Spotify have the potential to create a more informed world, they
are more likely to push content that keeps users hooked (that is, content they already enjoy and/or agree with).
Recommender algorithms also have a role to play. One 2020 study found that while Spotify’s personalised suggestions increased user engagement by 28.90%, they also reduced the individual-level diversity of podcast streams by 11.51%.
But platforms do have the power to do better. They could, for instance, use their algorithms to prioritise content diversity. This would help ease the “engagement-diversity trade-off”, in which personalisation increases engagement, but limits the diversity of content consumed by an individual.
That said, it’s unlikely platforms will voluntarily change the way they operate. If meaningful reforms are to happen, they will more likely have to come from government regulations or through independent governing bodies.
In the meantime, listeners aren’t powerless. While we can’t stop algorithms from pushing certain content to the top of our feeds, we can disrupt them by actively seeking out independent voices and diverse stories.
Corey Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vita Pilkington, Research Fellow, PhD Candidate in men’s experiences of sexual trauma, The University of Melbourne
In Australia, it’s estimated almost one in five boys (18.8%) experience child sexual abuse. And at least one in 16 men (6.1%) experience sexual violence after age 15.
However, many boys and men don’t tell others about these experiences. Studies show men are less likely to disclose sexual abuse and assaults than women.
It also takes boys and men longer to first disclose sexual abuse or assaults. On average, men wait 21 years before telling anyone about being abused.
We wanted to understand what prevents boys and men from telling others about sexual abuse and assaults (or “sexual trauma”). So we conducted a systematic review, where we pooled together evidence from a range of studies on the topic.
We found 69 relevant studies, which included more than 10,500 boys and men who had experienced sexual trauma from around the world. Studies were published in 23 countries across six continents, with most studies from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Two studies were published in Australia.
Our new findings offer clues as to how we can break down the barriers preventing men and boys from discussing sexual trauma.
Many boys and men don’t tell anyone if they’ve been victim to sexual violence. gpointstudio/Shutterstock
Upending masculine identities
We found across countries and cultures, boys’ and men’s sexual trauma affected their masculine identities. This included feeling as though they are not “real men”, or that they’re weak for having been targeted and assaulted.
Sexual abuse to a man is an abuse against his manhood as well.
Almost universally, boys and men suffered intense feelings of shame and guilt about being victimised, and many blamed themselves for years to decades.
Many boys and men said they were worried others would think they were gay if they disclosed being abused or assaulted. This harmful stereotype reflects widespread homophobic attitudes as well as mistaken beliefs about survivors of abuse and assaults.
Sexual abuse against boys and men has been long been overlooked, dismissed and misunderstood. The taboo nature of the issue was felt by participants. As a therapist who supported male survivors of abuse said in one study:
We don’t have a cultural place for men as victims.
LGBTQIA+ men face additional barriers to disclosure. Some experienced distress surrounding concerns abuse or assaults somehow cause, or contribute to, their sexualities. Many also reported receiving unsupportive and homophobic responses when they disclosed abuse and assaults to others. This includes their stories being minimised and dismissed, or suggestions they must have consented given their attraction to other men.
Others were discouraged from speaking out about their experiences again. In some countries, people tell boys and men not to talk about being abused or assaulted because this is seen as bringing shame on themselves and their families.
Boys and men who were assaulted by women were often told their experiences can’t be classified as abuse or assaults, or aren’t bad enough to warrant support.
Understanding why men don’t talk
Many of these barriers to disclosure are linked to harmful myths about sexual abuse and assaults among boys and men. These include mistaken beliefs that men are not abused or assaulted, and that only gay men are abused or assaulted.
What’s more, many people believe experiencing sexual abuse or assaults is at odds with socially-held ideas about how men “should” behave: for example, constantly demonstrating physical strength, dominance, self-reliance and toughness.
Receiving unsupportive and stigmatising responses when they try to seek help only makes these issues worse, and adds to cycles of silence and shame.
We must break down barriers that stop boys and men disclosing these traumatic experiences. Doing so could save lives.
Helping boys and men disclose sexual trauma isn’t just about encouraging them to come forward. We need to make sure other people are prepared to respond safely when they choose to speak up.
There are many ways to raise awareness of the fact sexual abuse and assault happens to boys and men. For example, television shows such as Baby Reindeer helped put this issue at the forefront of conversation. Public health campaigns that explicitly bring boys and men into discussions about sexual trauma can also be helpful.
We also need to do more to make sure boys and men who experience sexual trauma have suitable places to go for support. Australia has some services doing vital work in this space, such as the Survivors & Mates Support Network. However, more funding and support is crucial so men across the country have safe spaces to discuss and recover from their experiences.
The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
Vita Pilkington led this project and receives funding from the Melbourne Research Scholarship and the Margaret Cohan Research Scholarship, both awarded by the University of Melbourne.
Sarah Bendall has been awarded a NHMRC Investigator Grant to support research surrounding understanding and treating trauma in young people with mental health difficulties. She has previously held a NHMRC Early Career Fellowship and a McCusker Philanthropic Foundation Fellowship. She advises government on trauma and youth mental health policy, including Victoria’s statewide trauma service (Transforming Trauma Victoria).
Zac Seidler receives funding from an NHMRC Investigator Grant. He is also the Global Director of Research with the Movember Institute of Men’s Health.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Ellerton, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Education; Curriculum Director, UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland
Transgender female runner who beat 14,000 women at London Marathon offers to give medal back
Read about the event elsewhere and it turns out the athlete was also beaten by thousands of people and it was a participation medal. While the Fox News headline is true, it is framed to potentially elicit a negative reaction.
Misinformation is on the rise. We’re told we need to think critically when we read things online, but how can we recognise such situations? And what does it mean to think critically anyway?
What is critical thinking?
Critical thinking is based on the idea that if all ideas are equal, then all ideas are worthless. Without this assumption, there can be nothing to be critical of.
When we think critically, we focus on the quality of our reasoning and the factors that can influence it. In other words, thinking critically primarily means being critical of your own thinking.
Importantly, critical thinking is not strongly correlated with intelligence. While some believe intelligence is basically fixed (though there is debate around this), we can learn to think critically.
Other factors being equal, there’s also no evidence thinking critically is an innate ability. In fact, we have evidence critical thinking can be improved as a skill in itself, and it is transferrable to other contexts.
The tools of argumentation
Many factors can affect the quality of your thinking. They include things like cognitive biases (systemic thinking errors), prior beliefs, prejudices and worldviews, framing effects, and how much you know about the subject.
To understand the quality of our reasoning, we can use the concepts and language of argumentation.
People often think “arguments” are about conflicting views. A better way to understand argumentation is to view it as a way of making our thinking visible and accessible to each other.
Arguments contain premises, those things we think are true about the world, and conclusions, which is where we end up in our thinking. Moving from premises to conclusions is called inferring, and it is the quality of these inferences that is the concern of critical thinking.
For example, if I offer the premises
P1: All Gronks are green
P2: Fred is a Gronk
Then you have already inferred the conclusion
C: Fred is green
You don’t even need to know what a Gronk is to make that inference.
All our rational judgements and decisions are made up of chains of inferences. Constructing, evaluating and identifying types of arguments is the core business of critical thinking.
Argumentation is not about conflicting views – it’s making your thinking accessible. John Diez/Pexels
How can we improve our critical thinking skills?
To help us get better at it, we can understand critical thinking in three main ways.
First, we can see critical thinking as a subject we can learn. In this subject, we study how arguments work and how our reasoning can be influenced or improved. We also learn what makes for good thinking by using ideas like accuracy, clarity, relevance, depth and more. These are what we value in good thinking. By learning this, we start to think about how we think, not just what we think about.
Second, we improve our critical thinking by using what we’ve learned in real situations. This helps us build important thinking skills like analysing, justifying, evaluating and explaining.
Third, we can also think of critical thinking as a habit or attitude – something we choose to practice in our everyday lives. This means being curious, open-minded and willing to question things instead of just accepting them. It also means being aware of our own biases and trying to be fair and honest in how we think.
When we put all three of these together, we become better thinkers – not just in educational contexts, but in life.
Practical steps to improving critical thinking
Since critical thinking centres on the giving and taking of reasons, practising this is a step towards improvement. There are some useful ways to do this.
1. Make reasoning – rather than conclusions – the basis of your discussions with others.
When asking for someone’s opinion, inquire as to why they think that. And offer your thinking to others. Making our thinking visible leads to deep and meaningful conversations in which we can test each other’s thinking and develop the virtues of open-mindedness and curiosity.
2. Always assess the credibility of information based on its source and with a reflection on your own biases.
The processes of our thinking can shape information as we receive it, just as much as the source can in providing it. This develops the virtues of carefulness and humility.
3. Keep the fundamental question of critical inquiry in mind.
The most important question in critical thinking is: “how do we know?”. Continually testing the quality of your inquiry – and therefore thinking – is key. Focusing on this question gives us practice in applying the values of inquiry and develops virtues such as persistence and resilience.
You are not alone!
Reasoning is best understood as a social competence: we reason with and towards each other. Indeed, to be called reasonable is a social compliment.
It’s only when we have to think with others that we really test the quality of our thinking. It’s easy to convince yourself about something, but when you play in the arena of public reasoning, the bar is much higher.
So, be the reasonable person in the room.
That doesn’t mean everyone has to come around to your way of thinking. But it does mean everyone will get closer to the truth because of you.
Use online resources
There are many accessible tools for developing critical thinking. Kialo (Esperanto for “reason”), brings together people from around the world on a user-friendly (and free) platform to help test our reasoning in a well-moderated and respectful environment. It is an excellent place to practice the giving and taking of reasons and to understand alternative positions.
The School of Thought, developed to curate free critical thinking resources, includes many that are often used in educational contexts.
There’s also a plethora of online courses that can guide development in critical thinking, from Australian and international universities.
Peter Ellerton is affiliated with the Rationalist Society of Australia.
Founded in 1670 as a fur-trading enterprise, Hudson’s Bay grew into one of Canada’s most iconic department store chains. But with nearly all locations set to close by June 30 and its loyalty programs suspended, the future of Hudson’s Bay remains uncertain.
The retailer’s financial troubles raise broader questions about the viability of traditional department stores in an increasingly fast-paced, digitally driven retail environment.
In recent years, Hudson’s Bay attempted to modernize by blending its physical retail footprint with a growing digital presence. This included launching a revamped e-commerce platform and creating an online marketplace that allowed third-party sellers to broaden its product assortment.
But despite these efforts, Hudson’s Bay has struggled to differentiate its online platform in an overcrowded and highly competitive digital landscape, all while maintaining its physical presence.
The large investments required in distribution capabilities has made it increasingly difficult for smaller competitors, such as Hudson’s Bay, to match the delivery speeds and product assortments of these retail heavyweights.
Ikea, Wayfair and other direct-to-consumer brands lead the online home goods and furniture market, while Canadian-based Holt Renfrew and France-based LVMH are both leaders in the luxury market.
With almost all of its stores closing and its loyalty programs suspended, the future of Hudson’s Bay is in question. While its brand recognition remains strong, it’s unclear whether it will be able to come back from the brink it’s now on.
For any struggling legacy retailer looking to survive in today’s evolving market, reinvention is essential. Department stores and legacy retailers will need to reinvent themselves across five key dimensions:
1. Reposition the brand: Canadian retailers can redefine their core value propositions, emphasizing what makes them unique. Their uniqueness may lie in their Canadian heritage, for instance. Brands like Roots and Canada Goose have been successful with this strategy.
3. Optimize physical presence: Strategic location decisions are crucial. Physical retailers must right-size their physical footprints — closing underperforming locations while reinvesting in high-traffic, high-return outlets. Future expansion should favour asset-light, data-informed models based on actual consumer demand.
4. Improve in-store experiences: To draw customers back into stores, shopping must become experiential. Immersive displays, personalized service and community-centric events could make a visit to a physical store more memorable and engaging for customers.
5. Integrating physical and digital channels: A cohesive digital and physical strategy is essential. Technologies such as augmented reality fitting rooms, virtual showrooms, click-and-collect options and AI-powered personalization could bridge the gap between online and in-store shopping.
A defining moment for Canadian retailers
Canadian retailing stands at a pivotal crossroads. The collapse of legacy department stores, the dominance of e-commerce giants and the rise of off-price and digital-first competitors all signal a permanent shift in how consumers shop.
A long legacy alone does not secure survival. As seen with the collapses of Sears, Eaton’s and now Hudson’s Bay, failure to adapt can lead to obsolescence. The retail landscape is now defined by agility, innovation and the ability to meet consumers where they are.
For retailers still standing, the lesson is clear: nostalgia is not a business model. Shoppers are now more price-conscious, convenience-driven and digitally engaged than ever before. Companies unwilling or unable to evolve will likely face the same fate as the retail giants that came before them.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The White House
class=”has-text-align-left”>By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. The continued use of paper-based payments by the Federal Government, including checks and money orders, flowing into and out of the United States General Fund, which might be thought of as America’s bank account, imposes unnecessary costs; delays; and risks of fraud, lost payments, theft, and inefficiencies. Mail theft complaints have increased substantially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Historically, Department of the Treasury checks are 16 times more likely to be reported lost or stolen, returned undeliverable, or altered than an electronic funds transfer (EFT). Maintaining the physical infrastructure and specialized technology for digitizing paper records cost the American taxpayer over $657 million in Fiscal Year 2024 alone.
This order promotes operational efficiency by mandating the transition to electronic payments for all Federal disbursements and receipts by digitizing payments to the extent permissible under applicable law (but not, for avoidance of doubt, to establish a Central Bank Digital Currency).
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to defend against financial fraud and improper payments, increase efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance the security of Federal payments.
Sec. 3. Phase Out of Paper Check Disbursements and Receipts. (a) Effective September 30, 2025, and to the extent permitted by law, the Secretary of the Treasury shall cease issuing paper checks for all Federal disbursements inclusive of intragovernmental payments, benefits payments, vendor payments, and tax refunds, except as specified in section 4 of this order.
(b) All executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall comply with this directive by transitioning to EFT methods, including direct deposit, prepaid card accounts, and other digital payment options, and take all steps necessary to enroll recipients in EFT payments, except as specified in section 4 of this order.
(c) As soon as practicable, and to the extent permitted by law, all payments made to the Federal Government shall be processed electronically, except as specified in section 4 of this order.
(d) The Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take appropriate action to eliminate the need for the Department of the Treasury’s physical lockbox services and expedite requirements to receive the payment of Federal receipts, including fees, fines, loans, and taxes, through electronic means except as specified in section 4 of this order.
(e) The Secretary of the Treasury shall support agencies’ transition to digital payment methods, including by providing access through the Department of the Treasury’s centralized payment systems to:
(i) direct deposits;
(ii) debit and credit card payments;
(iii) digital wallets and real-time payment systems; and
(iv) other modern electronic payment options.
Sec. 4. Exceptions and Accommodations for the Phase Out of Paper Check Disbursements and Receipts. (a) The Secretary of the Treasury, shall review and, as appropriate, revise procedures for granting limited exceptions where electronic payment and collection methods are not feasible, including exceptions for:
(i) individuals who do not have access to banking services or electronic payment systems;
(ii) certain emergency payments where electronic disbursement would cause undue hardship, as contemplated in 31 C.F.R. Part 208;
(iii) national security- or law enforcement-related activities where non-EFT transactions are necessary or desirable; and
(iv) other circumstances as determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, as reflected in regulations or other guidance.
(b) Individuals or entities qualifying for an exception under this section or other applicable law shall be provided alternative payment options.
Sec. 5. Implementation and Compliance of Electronic Transactions. (a) The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the heads of agencies, shall develop and implement a comprehensive public awareness campaign to inform Federal payment recipients of the transition to electronic payments, including guidance on accessing and setting up digital payment options.
(b) Agencies shall coordinate with the Department of the Treasury to facilitate a smooth transition to digital payments, ensuring that affected individuals and entities receive adequate support.
(c) The Secretary of the Treasury shall work with financial institutions, consumer groups, and other stakeholders to address financial access for unbanked and underbanked populations.
(d) The Secretary of the Treasury and the heads of agencies shall take all necessary steps to protect classified information and systems, as well as personally identifiable information and tax return information, through the implementation of this order.
Sec. 6. Reporting Requirements. (a) The heads of agencies shall submit a compliance plan to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget within 90 days of the date of this order detailing their strategy for eliminating paper-based transactions.
(b) The Secretary of the Treasury shall submit an implementation report to the President through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy within 180 days of the date of this order detailing progress on the matters set forth in this order.
Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Source: United States Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico)
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, joined U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and 24 of their colleagues in pressing the U.S. Department of Agriculture for more information about the cancellation of previously-approved funding through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) for food banks and other emergency food providers. This would take food away from hungry Americans already facing high grocery prices and hurt American farmers who are being squeezed by tariffs and other cuts to domestic markets.
“We write regarding the reported cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in previously approved funding for food banks and other emergency food providers through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP),” wrote the Senators. “A cancellation of these funds could result in $500 million in lost food provisions to feed millions of Americans at a time when the need for food shelves is extremely high due to costly groceries and an uncertain economy.”
“If true, this major shift in a program utilized by emergency food providers in every state in the nation will have a significant and damaging impact upon millions of people who depend upon this program for critical food assistance,” the Senators continued. “In addition, this program consists of purchases of U.S. commodities at a time when America’s growers and producers are struggling due to tariffs, proposed tariffs, animal disease and many other challenges.”
In addition to Senators Luján and Klobuchar, the letter was signed by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Ron Wyden (D-Oreg.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Jeff Merkley (D-Oreg.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Angus King (I-Maine), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).
This letter comes following a roundtable discussion Senator Luján convened last week at Roadrunner Food Bank in Albuquerque where he discussed the specific needs of New Mexico food banks with stakeholders.
The full letter is available here and below.
Dear Secretary Rollins:
We write regarding the reported cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in previously approved funding for food banks and other emergency food providers through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). A cancellation of these funds could result in $500 million in lost food provisions to feed millions of Americans at a time when the need for food shelves is extremely high due to costly groceries and an uncertain economy. If true, this major shift in a program utilized by emergency food providers in every state in the nation will have a significant and damaging impact upon millions of people who depend upon this program for critical food assistance.
In addition, this program consists of purchases of U.S. commodities at a time when America’s growers and producers are struggling due to tariffs, proposed tariffs, animal disease and many other challenges.
According to recent statistics, nearly one in every seven Americans have faced food insecurity. Many of these households turn to community and emergency relief organizations such as food banks and food pantries to help them obtain sufficient nutrition. In 2023 alone, 50 million Americans turned to emergency food providers, according to a report from Feeding America, America’s largest network of food banks. While food banks rely on a variety of sources (including private) to obtain food for distribution through their networks, federally purchased commodities are a key part of how they provide nutritious meals to Americans.
Due to this reported change, a number of us have heard that trucks delivering American-grown foods may not arrive. These trucks represent hundreds of thousands of nutritious meals containing poultry, fruits, vegetables, and dairy. If confirmed, the cancellation of this previously announced funding also comes on top of the cancellation of Local Food for School Program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program funding, which also helps farmers deliver nutritious foods to schools and food banks. These cuts will deprive Americans of food assistance, emergency food providers of necessary support to carry out their work, and American farmers of vital domestic markets.
To help us understand USDA’s actions and their impact on communities around the country, we ask that you answer the following questions.
Has USDA cancelled previously approved purchases of food provided through TEFAP? If so, what level of funding has been cancelled thus far and when will state agencies be notified of any cancelled TEFAP purchases?
Does USDA plan to cancel additional purchases of food provided through TEFAP?
Has USDA paused any TEFAP food orders or purchases? If so, what is the current status of those orders or purchases? Does USDA intend to un-pause these funds?
Please provide information on what types of funding, by commodity, have been cancelled and the financial impact of those cancellations on producers such as pork, chicken, turkey and dairy farmers.
Is the funding announced on October 1, 2024 and detailed in the implementation memo that the Food and Nutrition Service sent to state agencies on December 2 rescinded?
Does USDA intend to use Commodity Credit Corporation funds in Fiscal Year 2025 for future purchases that will be distributed through TEFAP?
We ask for a prompt response to these questions by the end of the week.
Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet has this evening approved the site for a new girls’ secondary school which will also see the much-loved African Caribbean Centre being preserved.
Following February’s Cabinet meeting, when members approved to release the council-owned land to the Department for Education (DfE) for the Eden Girls’ Leadership Academy, the decision was called in and referred to the Culture and Economy Scrutiny Committee for further discussion.
As a result of that discussion, the scrutiny committee asked cabinet to review its original decision and give a stronger commitment to the African Caribbean Centre to remain on its current site.
At tonight’s Cabinet meeting, held at Liverpool Town Hall, members heard that previous plans that informed that decision have now been fully reviewed.
As a result, some additional land, close to the former St Margaret of Antioch School, has been identified that will increase the area of the proposed site. There is also the possibility of using part of the nearby Princes School site, on Selborne Street, for non-teaching uses as there is a plan for this school to be relocated from 2027.
Consequently, a way forward was approved by Cabinet that will see the African Caribbean Centre building preserved and a substantial amount of the land currently used by the Centre be excluded from any site agreed for the creation of the new girls’ school.
The council will now seek to hold talks with the African Caribbean Centre’s Trustees and community representatives of the centre following this evening’s decision, which will be led by the Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Services, Councillor Liz Parsons.
Councillor Liam Robinson, Leader of Liverpool City Council, said: “I again express the Council’s absolute commitment to supporting a vibrant future for the African Caribbean Centre, for many years to come.
“The community has sent a clear message that they want it to remain on the current site, and the council has listened and shares that commitment.
“The review of the plans has shown it is possible to deliver the girls school and secure a future for the centre on the same site. We now look forward to engaging with the community representatives to explore the options in more detail.”
The opening of the Eden Girls Leadership Academy, by Star Academies, has been made under the previous government’s Free Schools Programme, and will eventually provide 600 places across Years 7– 11 and 200 places years 12-13. Up to 50 per cent of the school places will be reserved for Muslim girls and the remainder will be available for girls of other faiths and non-faith.
The text-to-image model DALL-E uses generative adversarial networks (GANs) to generate images.(Shutterstock)
In the age of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), the phrase “I’ll believe it when I see it” no longer stands. Not only is GenAI able to generate manipulated representations of people, but it can also be used to generate entirely fictitious people and scenarios.
GenAI tools are affordable and accessible to all, and AI-generated images are becoming ubiquitous. If you’ve been doom-scrolling through your news or Instagram feeds, chances are you’ve scrolled past an AI-generated image without even realizing it.
As a computer science researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo, I’m increasingly concerned by my own inability to discern what’s real from what’s AI-generated.
My research team conducted a survey where nearly 300 participants were asked to classify a set of images as real or fake. The average classification accuracy of participants was 61 per cent in 2022. Participants were more likely to correctly classify real images than fake ones. It’s likely that accuracy is much lower today thanks to the rapidly improving GenAI technology.
We also analyzed their responses using text mining and keyword extraction to learn the common justifications participants provided for their classifications. It was immediately apparent that, in a generated image, a person’s eyes were considered the telltale indicator that the image was probably AI-generated. AI also struggled to produce realistic teeth, ears and hair.
But these tools are constantly improving. The telltale signs we could once use to detect AI-generated images are no longer reliable.
Improving images
Researchers began exploring the use of GANs for image and video synthesis in 2014. The seminal paper “Generative Adversarial Nets” introduced the adversarial process of GANs. Although this paper does not mention deepfakes, it was the springboard for GAN-based deepfakes.
Some early examples of GenAI art which used GANs include the “DeepDream” images created by Google engineer Alexander Mordvintsev in 2015.
But in 2017, the term “deepfake” was officially born after a Reddit user, whose username was “deepfakes,” used GANs to generate synthetic celebrity pornography.
In 2019, software engineer Philip Wang created the “ThisPersonDoesNotExist” website, which used GANs to generate realistic-looking images of people. That same year, the release of the deepfake detection challenge, which sought new and improved deepfake detection models, garnered widespread attention and led to the rise of deepfakes.
About a decade later, one of the authors of the “Generative Adversarial Nets” paper — Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio — began sharing his concerns about the need to regulate AI due to the potential dangers such technology could pose to humanity.
Hao Li, deepfake pioneer and one of the world’s top deepfake artists, conceded in a manner eerily reminiscent of Robert Oppenheimer’s famous “Now I Am Become Death” quote:
“This is developing more rapidly than I thought. Soon, it’s going to get to the point where there is no way that we can actually detect ‘deepfakes’ anymore, so we have to look at other types of solutions.”
The new disinformation
Big tech companies have indeed been encouraging the development of algorithms that can detect deepfakes. These algorithms commonly look for the following signs to determine if content is a deepfake:
Number of words spoken per sentence, or the speech rate (the average human speech rate is 120-150 words per minute),
Facial expressions, based on known co-ordinates of the human eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, teeth and facial contours,
Reflections in the eyes, which tends to be unconvincing (either missing or oversimplified),
Image saturation, with AI-generated images being less saturated and containing a lower number of underexposed pixels compared to pictures taken by an HDR camera.
But even these traditional deepfake detection algorithms suffer several drawbacks. They are usually trained on high-resolution images, so they may fail at detecting low-resolution surveillance footage or when the subject is poorly illuminated or posing in an unrecognized way.
Disinformation isn’t new, but the modes of propagating it are constantly changing. Deepfakes can be used not only to spread disinformation — that is, to posit that something false is true — but also to create plausible deniability and posit that something true is false.
It’s safe to say that in today’s world, seeing will never be believing again. What might once have been irrefutable evidence could very well be an AI-generated image.
A Sudanese man celebrates as the military enters the central city of Wad Madani, pushing out the Rapid Support Forces in January 2025. AP Photo/Marwan Ali
A series of advances by the Sudanese military has led some observers to posit that the African nation’s yearslong civil war could be at a crucial turning point.
Even if it were to end tomorrow, the bloody conflict would have left the Sudanese people scarred by violence that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people. But the recent victories by the military do not spell the end of its adversary, a rebel paramilitary group that still holds large areas in Sudan.
On April 15, 2023, fighting broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF – led by de facto head of state Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known colloquially as “Hemedti.” The RSF emerged out of the feared Janjaweed militia that had terrorized the Darfur region of Sudan.
While the SAF and RSF previously worked together to forcibly remove longtime President Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019, they later split amid a power struggle that turned deadly.
The major point of contention was the disputed timeline for RSF integration into the national military, with the RSF preferring a 10-year process to the SAF’s preferred two-year plan.
By early April 2023, the government deployed SAF troops along the streets of the capital, Khartoum, while RSF forces took up locations throughout the country. Matters came to a head when explosions and gunfire rocked Khartoum on April 15 of that year. The two forces have been in conflict ever since.
To human toll of the civil war has been staggering. As of February 2025, estimates of those killed from the conflict and its related causes, including lack of sufficient medical facilities and hunger, have ranged from 20,000 to 150,000 – a wide gulf that, according to Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond, is partially due to the fact that the dead or displaced are still being counted.
The conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, a number that demographically makes the Sudan situation the world’s worst displacement crisis. Nearly half of Sudan’s population is “acutely food insecure,” according to the U.N.’s World Food Programme. Another 638,000 face “catastrophic levels of hunger” – the world’s highest number.
How have recent developments changed the war?
The SAF has recently scored a slew of victories. At time of writing, the Sudanese military controls much of the country’s southeastern border with Ethiopia, the Red Sea coast – and, with it, Sudan’s strategically important Port Sudan – and parts of the country’s metropolitan center located at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers.
Further, the SAF has reclaimed much of the White Nile and Gezira provinces and broken an RSF siege of North Kordofan’s provincial capital of el-Obeid. In perhaps the most important development, the army in late March recaptured the RSF’s last major stronghold in Khartoum, the Presidential Palace.
A fighter loyal to the Sudanese army patrols a market area in Khartoum on March 24, 2025. AFP via Getty Images
Each of these actions indicates that the SAF is taking an increasingly proactive approach in the war. Such positive momentum could not only serve to reassure the Sudanese populace that the SAF is the country’s strongest force but also signal to foreign powers that it is, and will continue to be, the country’s legitimate authority moving forward.
And yet, there are other indications that the RSF is in no rush to concede defeat. Despite the SAF’s advances, the RSF has strengthened its control over nearly all of Darfur, Sudan’s massive western region that shares a lengthy border with neighboring Chad.
It is here that the RSF has been accused of committing genocide against non-Arab communities, and only the besieged capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, stands in the way of total RSF hegemony in the region. The RSF also controls territory to the south, along Sudan’s borders with the Central African Republic and South Sudan.
The fact that the SAF and RSF are entrenched in their respective regional strongholds casts doubt on the significance of the military’s recent victories.
Could Sudan be heading to partition?
As a historian who spent years writing about South Sudanese separatism, I find it somewhat unfathomable to imagine that Sudan would further splinter into different countries. Given the current state of affairs, however, partition is not outside the realm of possibility. In February, during a summit in Kenya, the RSF and its allies officially commenced plans to create a rival government.
The African Union’s 55 member states are said to be split on the issue of Sudanese partition and the question of whether any entity linked with the RSF should be accepted. In January, during the waning days of U.S. President Joe Biden’s presidency, Washington determined that the RSF and its allies had committed genocide and sanctioned Hemedti, the RSF leader, prohibiting him and his family from traveling to the U.S. and freezing any American assets he may hold.
Any attempt to entertain partition could be read as an acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the RSF and would also create a dangerous precedent for other leaders who have been accused of human rights violations.
In addition to the RSF’s perceived lack of moral legitimacy, there is also the recent precedent of South Sudan’s secession. South Sudan, since seceding from Sudan in 2011, has experienced enormous difficulties. Roughly 2½ years into independence, the nation erupted into a civil war waged largely along ethnic lines. Since the conclusion of that war in 2018, the world’s youngest nation continues to struggle with intergroup violence, food insecurity and sanctions resulting from human rights violations.
Simply put, recent Sudanese history has shown that partition is not a risk-free solution to civil war.
How has shifting geopolitics affected the conflict?
It is important to understand that the conflict’s ripples extend far beyond Sudan’s borders. Similarly, the actions of countries such as the U.S., Russia and China have an impact on the war.
Sudanese people line up to collect a charity ‘iftar’ fast-breaking meal in Omdourman on March 19, 2025. Ebrahim Hamid/AFP via Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing contributions from the U.S. government’s development organization, USAID, has shuttered approximately 80% of the emergency food kitchens established to help those impacted by the conflict. An estimated 2 million people have been affected by this development.
Russian financial and military contributions have been credited with helping the SAF achieve its gains in recent months. Russia has long desired a Red Sea naval base near Port Sudan, and the expulsion of Russia’s fleet from Syria following the fall of President Bashar Assad increased the importance of such a base.
And then there is China. A major importer of Sudanese crude oil, China engaged in conversations to renegotiate oil cooperation agreements with Sudan in October 2024 with the hopes of increasing oil production amid the war. An end to the war – and, with it, protecting the flow of oil through pipelines vulnerable to attack – would benefit both members of this bilateral relationship.
As the war enters its third year, the outlook remains frustratingly difficult to discern.
Christopher Tounsel has previously received funding from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.
Under this policy, children were compared against the level of achievement expected for their age and time at school. The goal was to improve results across the education system.
The planned introduction of a new standardised assessment tool is concerning for a number of reasons – particularly when it comes to long-term consequences for schools and student learning.
But what has also raised the hackles of many in education is how the tender process for the new tool happened without warning. Here is what parents, schools and the public should know about the background to this debate.
In 2024, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced plans to allow schools to choose between two tools to assess students, but the ministry has now issued a tender for just one. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
A narrowing curriculum
There is plenty of research – from New Zealand and overseas – highlighting the negative consequences of standardised testing in education.
Standardised assessment can, for example, lead to schools being ranked against each other according to their achievement data. A low ranking could jeopardise a school’s reputation and therefore the number of enrolments and subsequent funding they receive.
In this high-stakes environment, teachers can be pressured to focus on assessed subjects, often to the detriment of the broader curriculum. While the curriculum in New Zealand has already been considerably narrowed under the government’s “Teaching the Basics Brilliantly” policy, a standardised assessment could further exacerbate this trend.
Teachers may also be inclined to “teach to the test” and employ rote learning strategies, where children are encouraged to memorise the correct answers. While this may result in high test scores, it is questionable whether deeper learning will occur.
Finally, while standardised tests might promise an “easy fix” to improve educational outcomes, they do not address the deeper socioeconomic disparities which continue to significantly affect educational achievement.
It’s not our intention to pit schools against each other. This data is for parents to know how their kids are going, teachers to inform practice, and as a system to know how we’re tracking.
But according to documents released later the same year, the government already had a plan to rely on a single standardised assessment tool that could produce comparable data.
Principals and teachers can also be held accountable for student achievement, while larger contextual factors, such as socioeconomic inequalities, are ignored. This can ultimately lead to educators being blamed if achievement targets are not met.
Regardless of who wins the tender for the new assessment tool, New Zealand’s recent experience with standardised testing didn’t achieve what was promised. Returning to national standards – either in name or just in spirit – should raise alarms for everyone.
Marta Estellés has previously received funding from The Spencer Foundation, New Zealand National Commission of UNESCO, the Division of Education at The University of Waikato and The University of Cantabria.
Jade Wrathall 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.
Defendants Overbilled City Agencies Using Fabricated Invoices with Fraudulently Inflated Prices and Shell Companies
Earlier today, in federal court in Brooklyn, Walter Stanzione and William Neogra, the principals of a fire alarm maintenance company, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy. Both defendants were charged with a decade-long scheme to defraud the City of New York by seeking payment on millions of dollars of grossly inflated fraudulent bills. The proceedings were held before United States Magistrate Judge Joseph A. Marutollo. When sentenced, each defendant faces up to 20 years in prison.
John J. Durham, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Leslie R. Backschies, Acting Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), Jocelyn E. Strauber, Commissioner, New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) and Harry T. Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, New York (IRS-CI New York) announced the charges.
“For over a decade, the City of New York relied on the defendants to ensure that the fire safety systems in hundreds of city buildings were in safe, working order,” stated United States Attorney Durham. “The defendants abused this position of trust so that they could scheme and steal, defrauding New York City out of millions of dollars. The guilty pleas announced today make clear that reprehensible conduct like this will be uncovered and prosecuted.”
“Millions of dollars went up in smoke as Walter Stanzione and William Neogra fraudulently inflated the cost of their company’s products to finance personal luxurious purchases,” stated Acting FBI Assistant Director in Charge Backschies. “For more than ten years, the defendants charged various New York City clients exaggerated pricing for fire alarm systems and obfuscated this misconduct through doctored invoices. The FBI remains determined to protect our city’s citizens and infrastructure from criminals seeking to unlawfully profit with little concern for safety.”
“Stanzione and Neogra orchestrated a scheme to defraud the City of New York. They created shell companies to pass-through supplies sold to NYC agencies at inflated prices with false invoices. Millions of dollars were billed over a decade, and the excessive profit left these fraudsters living large. Today’s plea means the defendants’ lifestyle will go from extravagant in size to a reduction in square feet,” stated IRS-CI New York Special Agent in Charge Chavis.
“These defendants systematically inflated costs billed to multiple City agencies—including the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Environmental Protection, and the Department of Sanitation, for more than a decade,” stated DOI Commissioner Strauber. “When vendors exploit their contractual relationship with the City by overbilling, they steal public funds from City taxpayers. I thank our federal law enforcement partners for their commitment to protect the City’s resources and to ensure vendors who commit fraud are held responsible.”
As set forth in various public court filings and in today’s proceedings, the defendants exercised control over Fire Alarm Electrical Corp., a company that held numerous contracts with New York City agencies to repair and maintain fire alarm systems. For more than a decade, the defendants overbilled those agencies by submitting fraudulent invoices with dramatically inflated prices. They accomplished this scheme in several ways:
The defendants created numerous shell companies that were secretly owned by defendant Stanzione. After purchasing supplies from legitimate retailers, the defendants would re-invoice the parts through the shell companies for roughly three to five times the real purchase price, ultimately passing along those “costs” to the City.
The defendants took advantage of pre-existing shell companies that were being used in other ongoing frauds. For example, the defendants used shell companies created by convicted EDNY defendant David Motovich, which Motovich had used in an entirely separate fraud scheme that was also investigated and prosecuted by EDNY, FBI, DOI and IRS (21-CR-497).
When city auditors became suspicious of the shell companies, the defendants fraudulently modified the documents of legitimate retailers, passing off the altered invoices from these companies as if they were genuine.
These methods enabled the defendants to submit millions of dollars of fictitious payment requests to four separate city agencies over an eleven-year period. Defendant Stanzione, the leader of the fraud, then siphoned off much of the ill-gotten gains and used the stolen money to fund his family’s lavish spending habits.
The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Public Integrity Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Erik Paulsen, Michael Gibaldi and Eric Silverberg are in charge of the prosecution, with the assistance of Paralegal Specialist Kavya Kannan.
Spacesuits were an important consideration that Nasa had to factor into its plans to bring the astronauts back home. Wilmore and Williams had travelled to the ISS in Boeing’s experimental Starliner spacecraft, so they arrived wearing Boeing “Blue” spacesuits.
Following helium leaks and thruster (engine) issues with Starliner, Nasa decided it was safer not to send them back to Earth on that vehicle. The astronauts had to wait to return on one of the other spacecraft that ferry crew members to the ISS, the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
This meant they needed a different type of spacesuit, made by SpaceX for use in its vehicle only. Boeing’s suits cannot be used in Crew Dragon in part because the umbilicals (the flexible “pipes” that supply air and cooling to the suit) have connections and standards that don’t work with the ports inside a Crew Dragon.
This highlights a general problem for the growing number of space agencies and companies sending people into orbit, and for planned missions to the Moon and beyond. Ensuring that different spacesuits are compatible, or “interoperable”, with spacecraft they weren’t designed to be used in is vital if we are to protect astronauts’ lives during an emergency in space, especially in joint missions.
The spacesuits worn during a return from space are called “launch, entry and abort” (LEA) suits. These are airtight and provide life support to the astronauts in case there is a decompression, when air is lost from the cabin.
Unfortunately, a decompression has already caused loss of life in space. During the Soyuz 11 mission in 1971, three Soviet cosmonauts visited the world’s first space station, Salyut 1. But during preparations for re-entry, the crew cabin lost its air, killing cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev, who were not wearing LEA suits. All cosmonauts wore them after this incident.
As well as the connections for life support, the Boeing and SpaceX suits also have restraints and connections for communications that are specific to each vehicle. For their return home from the ISS in a SpaceX capsule, Williams was able into use a spare SpaceX suit that was already aboard the space station and the company sent up an additional suit on a cargo delivery for Wilmore to wear.
Two spacecraft are usually docked at the ISS as “lifeboats” to evacuate the astronauts in the event of an emergency. These are generally a SpaceX Crew Dragon and a Russian Soyuz capsule.
If an emergency evacuation were to occur and there weren’t enough of the right spacesuits available – for either the Crew Dragon or Soyuz – it could endanger astronauts during the fiery re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere. Interoperability between spacesuits has therefore become a matter of survival.
The Outer Space Treaty, which provides the basic framework for international space law, recognises astronauts as “envoys of humankind” and grants them specific legal protections. These were expanded on in subsequent UN treaties – notably the Rescue Agreement, which imposes a range of duties on states to render assistance to each others’ astronauts in cases of emergency, accident or distress.
For the ISS, a collaborative space programme with international flight crews, protocols include terms that set forth how this obligation is to be met. However, these protocols do not contain terms relating to spacesuit interoperability.
Risks to astronauts in space
A major potential cause of an emergency evacuation is space debris. The ISS has regularly had to manoeuvre to avoid collisions with debris – including entire defunct satellites.
In his memoir, Endurance, Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly describes being commanded to enter the Soyuz vehicle with two other crew members and prepare to detach from the ISS because of a close approach by a large defunct satellite. Luckily, the spacecraft passed by harmlessly.
As orbits become increasingly congested, with an exponential increase in the number of space objects being launched, the risk of collisions will also increase.
Ever more companies and governments are entering the human spaceflight arena. The Tiangong space station, China’s orbiting laboratory, has been fully operational since 2022, and there are plans to open it to space tourism, just like the ISS.
India is planning to join the community of nations with the capability to launch humans into space, under a programme called Gaganyaan. And while most space travellers remain government-funded astronauts, the number of private space-farers is increasing.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman (who is President Trump’s nominee to run Nasa) has commanded two private missions into orbit using Crew Dragon. On the second of these, he participated in the first spacewalk by privately funded astronauts. The ISS is set to be retired in 2030 – but one company, Houston-based Axiom Space, is already building a private space station.
Against this complex and part-unregulated backdrop, ensuring the interoperability of different spacecraft systems, including spacesuits, will increase levels of safety in this inherently risky activity.
While the safety and practicality of spacesuits has always been the top priority, compatibility between different suits and vehicles should also be high on the list. This requires space agencies and private spaceflight companies to engage with each other in a process to agree on standard interfaces and connections for life support and communications, across all their suits and space vehicles.
Amid this period of increased commercialisation and competition between the organisations and companies involved in orbital spaceflight, a move toward greater collaboration can only be a good thing.
Berna Akcali Gur 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.
H.R. 1702 would permanently authorize 65 new district court judgeships and authorize 1 judgeship for a five-year appointment. The bill would add new judgeships every two years from 2025 through 2035.
The bill also would authorize appropriations for the administrative costs of the affected district courts. Finally, H.R. 1702 would reorganize certain judicial districts in California, Texas, and Utah and would require the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report to the Congress.
Estimated Federal Cost
The estimated budgetary effect of H.R. 1702 is shown in Table 1. The costs of the legislation fall within budget function 750 (administration of justice).
Table 1.
Estimated Budgetary Effects of H.R. 1702
By Fiscal Year, Millions of Dollars
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2025-2030
2025-2035
Increases in Direct Spending
Estimated Budget Authority
*
3
4
7
8
10
12
14
15
18
20
32
111
Estimated Outlays
*
3
4
7
8
10
12
14
15
18
20
32
111
Increases in Spending Subject to Appropriation
Estimated Authorization
13
14
24
24
33
33
44
44
53
53
62
141
397
Estimated Outlays
*
5
12
16
20
26
30
36
40
47
51
79
283
* = between zero and $500,000.
Basis of Estimate
For this estimate, CBO assumes that the legislation will be enacted in fiscal year 2025 and that the authorized and estimated amounts will be provided in each year beginning in 2025. Estimated outlays are based on historical spending patterns for the affected activities.
Direct Spending
The compensation (that is, salary and benefits) of judges in federal district courts is classified as direct spending in the federal budget. In 2024, the average compensation for each judge was $270,000. Using information from the AOUSC about past and projected pay increases, CBO estimates that compensation costs for each new judge would be $280,000 in 2025 and would rise to $335,000 in 2035. Based on the time required for Congressional confirmations of judges in recent years and the schedule specified in the bill, CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1702 would increase direct spending by $111 million over the 2025-2035 period.
Spending Subject to Appropriation
CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 1702 would cost $79 million over the 2025-2030 period and $283 million over the 2025-2035 period for administrative expenses and other costs. Any related spending would be subject to the appropriation of the necessary funds.
Administrative expenses. The bill would authorize the appropriation of specific amounts each year through 2035 for administrative expenses, including compensation for staff and overhead for facilities, security, and technology. The bill would further authorize those amounts to increase each year by the percentage increase in inflation in the previous year. Using the inflation projections that underlie CBO’s baseline, we estimate that the bill would authorize appropriations totaling $397 million over the 2025-2035 period. Based on the expected costs for staff and other administrative expenses, CBO expects that the courts will not need the full amounts that would be authorized in the bill.
Using information from the AOUSC about district courts’ typical administrative costs, CBO estimates that the cost of the first year of operation for a new court would average $760,000, and that, once fully established, each new court would operate at an average annual cost of about $700,000 over the 2025-2030 period. CBO expects that the costs of operating the new courts would rise over time as more judgeships are authorized and staffed and to accommodate pay increases and inflation. In total, CBO estimates that operating the new courts would cost $282 million over the 2025-2035 period, assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts.
Other costs. Additionally, H.R. 1702 would require GAO to report to the Congress on judiciary caseloads and federal agencies’ need for detention space. Using information about the cost of similar reports, CBO estimates that the report would cost $1 million over the 2025-2030 period.
Finally, H.R. 1702 also would reorganize certain districts in California and Texas by adding localities to their jurisdictions. The AOUSC would be required to report every two years detailing the recommendations and methodology used by the Judicial Conference of the United States for judicial nominations. Using information from the AOUSC, CBO estimates that the costs of implementing those provisions would not be significant.
Any spending related to the reports would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
Pay-As-You-Go Considerations
The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 establishes budget-reporting and enforcement procedures for legislation affecting direct spending or revenues. The net changes in outlays that are subject to those pay-as-you-go procedures are shown in Table 1.
Increase in Long-Term Net Direct Spending and Deficits
CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1702 would not increase net direct spending by more than $2.5 billion in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2036.
CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1702 would not increase on‑budget deficits by more than $5 billion in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2036.
Mandates
The bill contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
Federal Costs: Jon Sperl
Mandates: Grace Watson
Estimate Reviewed By
Justin Humphrey Chief, Finance, Housing, and Education Cost Estimates Unit
Kathleen FitzGerald Chief, Public and Private Mandates Unit
H. Samuel Papenfuss Deputy Director of Budget Analysis
I grew up in a mixed-heritage family. Both of my parents’ childhoods were deeply affected by colonialism in India and they often told me stories about this period in their lives. As a result, I inherited a sense of place and a feeling for a country which was never my home.
It’s a strange feeling, which I still struggle to put into words, though I tried in my memoir, Shalimar: A Story of Place and Migration, which holds at its heart the sensation and imagery of India’s climate and its wildlife. India, for me, will always coexist with English weather and the roses my father tended to in our modest, suburban home in Hayes, west London.
While we now have beautifully written, tender children’s books which address colonial history, from Nazneen Ahmed Pathak’s City of Stolen Magic (2023) to Jasbinder Bilan’s Nush and the Stolen Emerald (2024), The Secret Garden still holds a powerful spell over me. That’s because of its representation of nature and its use of fiction to tell a story about England and India, two countries brought together through the healing space of the garden.
I believe that re-contextualising A Secret Garden as an early work of climate fiction – a type of storytelling that imagines how climate change could shape our world – is an apt way to rethink this classic tale.
This article is part of Rethinking the Classics. The stories in this series offer insightful new ways to think about and interpret classic books and artworks. This is the canon – with a twist.
Published in 1911, The Secret Garden unfolds against the backdrop of the fictional Misselthwaite Manor and its walled garden on the Yorkshire Moors.
While Yorkshire and its thick sheets of rain, enveloped in mist and fog, is portrayed vividly by Hodgeson Burnett, the ghostly heat and skies of India are also woven throughout the book’s micro-climates. Hodgeson Burnett’s attention to nature is masterful and magical:
One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing … And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries.
The climates of India and Yorkshire blur into a new reality when seen through the eyes of the book’s central protagonist, the recently orphaned Mary Lennox. She is sent to live with her uncle after her parents die of cholera in colonial Calcutta.
Wilful and fiery, Mary’s grief and rootlessness seems to be unending until she follows a twitching robin into a walled garden. There she befriends other children including her cousin Colin, who uses a wheelchair, and the gardener, Weatherstaff.
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The hidden sanctuary and wonder of the garden is intertwined with Mary’s inner world and her search for solace after the loss of her parents. Her resilience thrives and blooms, particularly when she becomes a storyteller and draws the other children into this secret place through her tales of adventure.
Here, the telling of the “story” of the garden is as important as the experience of the garden itself. This is where fiction does its work – we need stories like this to recover a sense of care in times of ecological crisis.
Last year saw the launch of the Climate Fiction Prize, a vital endeavour to specifically support literary fiction as a cultural form which permits writers the freedom to imagine alternative paths for human existence. The Secret Garden is a work of such imagination, of transformation from otherwise impossible states of crisis and inertia.
Beyond the Canon
As part of the Rethinking the Classics series, we’re asking our experts to recommend a book or artwork that tackles similar themes to the canonical work in question, but isn’t (yet) considered a classic itself. Here is Davina Quinlivan’s suggestion:
Shaun Tan’s Tales From the Inner City (2018) is a beautiful and extremely moving collection of illustrated, eco-centric stories exploring the relationship between humans and animals in urban environments.
Tan is well known for his elegiac and often uncanny, playful storytelling and Tales From the Inner City skilfully braids these aesthetic values with a powerful message of hope and compassion for the wild and domestic creatures we share our world with. While there is no explicit reference to the climate crisis, Tan’s exquisite images illustrate stories of kinship between humans and dogs, snails, whales, pigeons, cats and tigers – all bound to each other as intertwined species.
Set within cities, the wild beauty of each animal seems enlarged, as does the poignancy of each story, reminding us of what we have to lose. Some of the creatures literally morph into giant versions of themselves, eerie against Tan’s various backdrops of urban space. In one story, two tiny humans are seen being carried through stormy waters, perched between the ears of an enormous cat. It’s an indelible image of hope and survival in the wake of environmental devastation. Tan’s imaginative power is utterly extraordinary.
Davina Quinlivan is an AHRC-funded StoryArcs Fellow based in the Department of English and Creative Writing at The University of Exeter. She is also an Artistic Lead with Emblaze, an imprint of Paper Nations. Paper Nations is an award-winning creative writing incubator illuminating stories of colour in the South West, funded by Arts Council England and produced by The Story Society, Bath Spa University.
Psychopathy has long been associated with murderers, notorious criminals, and the griping true crime stories that dominate Netflix documentaries. But our recent research is showing they have a complex relationship with pain which may in part be responsible for their lack of empathy.
Psychopathic traits are on a spectrum. We all have levels somewhere on this scale. To be deemed a “psychopath” by some medical professionals, though, you would need to sit on the higher end of the spectrum.
When we conducted our recent research on pain and people with different levels of psychopathy, our results surprised us. Participants with high levels of psychopathy seemed to process pain differently to people low in psychopathy.
We applied pressure pain to our participants using a device that gently pressed a small circular probe onto the participant’s fingernail using compressed air. We measured their reactions from their sweat responses.
This is called skin conductance response (SCR), and is activated in times of “fight or flight”, or even when we need to pay attention. And this normally increases sweat production. That’s what we used to measure participants’ response to pain and empathy in our experiment.
Before our experiment began, we slowly increased the levels of pressure that participants felt until they told us they had reached their pain threshold (the most pain they could bear). The low and high psychopathy groups chose similar levels of pressure for their pain threshold.
Next, we delivered varying levels of pressure (with the highest being each participant’s pain threshold) to ensure participants did not become used to the stimulations. Following each stimulation, participants were asked to rate how much pain they felt using a self-report measure ranging from 0-100.
We found that participants higher in psychopathy reported feeling less pain than participants who were lower in psychopathy. The high psychopathy group even rated their own pain thresholds as less painful than the low psychopathy group (on the 0-100 scale). However, their SCRs were the same as those lower in psychopathy.
So, what does this mean?
It suggests that people higher in psychopathy interpret pain differently. Perhaps this explains why psychopathy relates to greater risk-taking and increased levels of violence or aggression towards others – they do not recognise feelings of pain in the same way as other people.
Usually, psychopathy relates to lower levels of physiological responses in threatening situations because they don’t associate pain with fear or punishment.
The results of our study suggest that the difference in pain perception between high and low psychopathic people may be psychological rather than physiological. This could explain why there were differences in self-reports, but not in sweat responses.
We don’t know whether they are pretending to feel pain or are less connected to their body’s physiology. But a 2019 study on children suggests those high in psychopathic traits may engage in extreme coping when scared. For instance, those children showed blunted emotional responses, disengagement or risky behaviour to cope with the stress.
What about empathy for other people’s pain?
We also tested our participants’ responses to other people’s pain by showing them images, such as a hand trapped in a door or a bare foot stepping on glass. Previous research has shown that people higher in psychopathy show reduced levels of physiological arousal to other people’s distress.
For example, a 2015 study found people higher in psychopathy demonstrated lower levels of brain activity when seeing other people in painful situations. In our study, we found that people higher in psychopathy not only reported feeling less empathy but also showed lower sweat responses when viewing other people’s pain.
Our study shows that a lack of empathy for others may not be a conscious choice. Our recent systematic review, where we looked at eight previous studies on psychopathy and pain perception, also helped to corroborate these findings, showing that psychopathy links to lower levels of brain activity in response to other people’s pain.
Research has shown that lower levels of empathy for other people can be influenced by a higher tolerance for pain. If someone does not understand the feelings of pain the same way as other people, they probably don’t understand the pain that other people may be experiencing.
Also, a 2020 review showed that the brain networks used in processing pain are also used to process empathy. This could mean that if people higher in psychopathy don’t feel as much pain themselves, their perceptions of other people’s pain could also be reduced via this shared network.
Just because you show higher psychopathic traits does not necessarily mean you are going to be the lead character of your own true crime documentary, though. In fact, recent research, including a 2022 study, noted psychopathic traits can be positive and help people regulate their emotions.
Perhaps this is what allows medical professionals high in psychopathic traits to stay calm under pressure, allowing them to make quick, rational decisions without being overwhelmed by stress.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
One of the lasting memories from my teenage years is what I now recognise as an obsession with weight control. Thin was in, and magazines promoted a variety of diets, each claiming effectiveness, often accompanied by images of beautiful, slim models. Not much has changed.
Diets, intermittent fasting, weight-loss surgery, and more recently, weight-loss injections continue to be marketed as solutions for shedding pounds. Achieving a healthy weight is widely regarded as essential for overall wellbeing.
Many studies have explored the relationship between weight changes and mortality, as well as mortality in obese people with heart disease. These studies often suggest that excessive weight is unhealthy and that people with obesity and heart disease should lose weight.
However, findings from a recent study, of which I was a co-author, challenge this assumption. Our research indicates that significant weight loss – greater than 10kg – can actually increase the risk of early death in obese people with cardiovascular disease.
This study was based on data from over 8,000 participants in the UK Biobank, a comprehensive resource for medical research that includes genetic data.
While it’s known that rapid weight loss can signal underlying health issues and lead to serious complications, the weight changes in our study were observed over an average of nine years, meaning for some participants, these changes were relatively quick.
This creates a paradox. While both obesity and cardiovascular disease are known to increase the risk of early death, in obese people with cardiovascular disease, weight loss – intended to improve health – can have the opposite effect.
The relationship between body weight and illness is complex. Though obesity contributes to cardiovascular problems, studies have also shown an increased risk of early death in those with chronic heart failure who are lean, and in people with coronary artery disease whose weight fluctuates.
Obesity rates are rising, but simply focusing on weight loss may not be the answer.
Variability in weight loss
For weight loss to be effective, we must consider the diverse factors contributing to weight gain, which vary from person to person. Genetics play a significant role in appetite and metabolism, and they can also influence lifestyle factors like overeating, inadequate exercise and poor dietary choices that lead to obesity.
In our study, my colleagues and I couldn’t account for all the factors behind the participants’ obesity or the methods they used to lose weight. This means we can’t definitively determine which weight-loss strategies – whether in terms of duration, diet or physical activity – pose the greatest risks.
The conventional approach to healthy weight – using body mass index (BMI) – may not apply to everyone. BMI is increasingly recognised as having limitations. Some people may tolerate higher weights without adverse health effects. The real question isn’t how quickly weight should be lost, but how quickly it should be lost for each person.
Given the current evidence, we cannot accurately determine an ideal weight range that’s universally beneficial for health. However, intriguing patterns are emerging from various countries.
For instance, Tonga has a high rate of obesity, yet it experiences significantly lower rates of heart-disease-related deaths than many European countries where obesity is less prevalent. Tonga also reports lower levels of alcohol consumption and suicide than most European nations.
Health encompasses both physical and mental wellbeing. Shifting the focus to holistic wellbeing and happiness may offer more lasting health benefits. Treating obesity requires a comprehensive approach, addressing all underlying factors contributing to the condition.
Barbara Pierscionek 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 US, under president Donald Trump, rapid assaults on civil servants’ rights, including their rights to speak out about wrongdoing, are increasingly part of the administration’s play for power. Shock tactics tend to work when the speed leaves observers too stunned to act.
But countering the paralysis, whistleblower supporters are organising. Civil society groups are collaborating to shore up workers’ rights, challenge threats in the courts, and inform the public why it’s important to protect whistleblowers. Their cool-headed approach shows what it takes to work together to preserve democratic freedoms.
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has assaulted federal workers’ rights including whistleblowing protections. Key personnel are being fired, with thousands of other civil servants under threat of being reclassified as “at-will” workers who can be sacked at any time for any reason.
But the US needs whistleblower rights. In the past ten years alone, US government workers speaking out have protected citizens from a long list of ills. This includes food contamination, health risks, airline dangers and climate censorship. And they have called out managers for fraud and corruption.
Recent UK research demonstrates how listening to whistleblowers in some cases – including the Post Office scandal and the collapse of contractor Carillion – would have saved taxpayers nearly £400 million.
Functioning government bureaucracies, staffed by well-qualified, professional and independent civil servants, curtail attempts by politicians to control the state.
In the US, long-standing structures like the Pendleton Act of 1883 and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, were put in place to ensure this. These laws insist government workers are hired and fired on the basis of skill and ability, not their political views. New employees take an oath of loyalty to the US constitution, not to the president.
Whistleblower protection is a critical part of ensuring this independence, because it enables civil servants to challenge abuses of power. But whistleblowers can only call out wrongdoing if they are protected from reprisal. Right now, these protections are under threat.
Shock and awe
Critics of the new US administration know all this. But the speed of change seems overwhelming. And the will to resist depletes, as people struggle to make sense of the constant disruption.
What to do with widely reported shows of anti-democratic aggression, like the recent appearance of senior Trump adviser Elon Musk on stage with a red chainsaw, shouting about a “chainsaw for bureaucracy”?
This is exactly the kind of chaotic, performative scene that stokes fascist passions, but leaves critics frozen.
Elon Musk’s chainsaw stunt was made famous by Argentinian president Javier Milei, who was looking on as Musk played to the gallery. Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock
Connecting such moves with Trump’s aggression against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes and trans citizens, US philosopher Judith Butler has warned that people can be stunned into inaction by increasingly shocking events. They stop seeing how they are connected.
What links these events, fundamentally, is contempt for ordinary US citizens’ rights and for constitutional democracy. As Butler also says, it’s important that citizens are not left immobilised by the outrage.
To counter the chaos, cool heads are needed. Supporters of whistleblower rights are pushing back. With partners, the nonprofit whistleblower organisation Government Accountability Project is suing Trump over the unconstitutional roll-back of federal worker protections. And civil society groups successfully challenged February’s firing of the chief of the federal whistleblowing agency.
This kind of whistleblower activism has happened before in other parts of the world. In Europe, NGOs monitor countries’ adoption of the new EU whistleblower protection law.
Organisations like the Whistleblowing International Network and the UNCAC coalition support civil society groups in countries around the world with new but fragile whistleblower protection systems introduced to support public trust and democratic accountability. These partnerships harness public opinion through the media and lobby for change. They come together in regular online events and forums to sustain momentum.
These coalitions of whistleblower activists have a history of working together, celebrating small wins and publicising each other’s work.
As my recent book details, this collective activism is not easy. These organisations operate on limited funding. And in the face of disinformation on social media, defending truth and facts can be challenging. Yet as I found, strategising and collaborating can help counter aggressive opposition.
Trump is working to remake the federal government in the service of his political agenda. It is a classic move made by “strongman” leaders. They seize control of government bureaucracy in order to reward elite supporters, give favours and jobs to insiders, and weaken oversight on corruption.
Attacking government bureaucracy has been a first step in the power grab by authoritarian leaders worldwide, from Hungary to Benin, Turkey and Venezuela.
Working with his largest election donor Elon Musk, who already owns businesses benefiting from government contracts, Trump’s aggressive overhaul of the federal government radically dilutes the potential for dissenting workers to speak out in protest.
It is tempting to remain paralysed in the face of daily attempts to roll back workers’ rights. But through their dedication, mutual support and celebration of even small wins, international collectives of whistleblower activists remind us that there is a way forward and why it’s vital to keep going.
Kate Kenny has in the past and at different times engaged in research funded by organizations including: the EU Commission, ESRC UK, the British Academy, Harvard University, Science Foundation Ireland and Leverhulme Trust.
Even more noteworthy is TGL’s unique format. Events are played inside SoFi Center, a custom-built venue in Florida with an audience capacity of 1,500.
At one end lies the “ScreenZone,” where a golf simulator is used for longer shots such as drives and iron play. At the other end, players chip and putt along the physical surface of the “GreenZone” to record a final score on each hole.
TGL is the latest commercial venture to shake up the golf world in recent years. The league is no doubt novel in some ways, yet it can also be explained as the convergence of two longstanding trends: the “mediatization” and “indoorization” of sport.
Mediatization is a concept that speaks to relationships of interdependence between media and other institutions, such as sport. More than simply conveying sport content, communication technologies have helped change sport over the years — consider “television timeouts” or the use of instant replay.
In return, sport is a source of live, unpredictable and exciting media content, something that is highly valuable in a competitive attention economy.
First, there is the golf simulator. The ScreenZone is so named because players hit into a massive screen measuring 64 by 53 feet. Tracking technology is used to map and represent the flight of the ball on screen. This allows for a thoroughly datafied sport experience as an array of performance metrics are available to both players and fans.
Also relevant are TGL’s seemingly made-for-TV conventions, some of which might be anathema to golf traditionalists. Among them, a 40-second shot clock keeps a brisk pace of play. Players are also mic’d up, making strategy conversations and reactions accessible to the audience.
In all, TGL is a media spectacle. It is not uncommon for sports leagues to adopt new rules and formats, seemingly in a bid to capture consumer attention. But, through TGL’s video game-like components, media representation — golf on a simulated volcano, among other places — becomes part of the sport competition itself.
Sport moves indoors
TGL is also an indoor spectacle. In this sense, it contributes to the indoorization of outdoor sports.
Outdoor sports from surfing to skiing, rock climbing and many more have moved indoors in recent years (while remaining outdoor sports too). A potential trade-off is that, while outdoor sports often foreground adventure, uncertainty and danger, their indoor analogues often trade this for control, predictability and calculability. The authenticity of indoor sport might therefore be debated, especially in historically counter-cultural sports such as surfing.
Yet indoorization can also lead to expansion. From the late 1800s onwards, artificial ice in North American arenas allowed for reliable skating conditions and helped hockey move to new locations, growing the game as a commercial endeavour and cultural institution.
“Covered rinks allowed patrons to escape winter’s cold temperatures, harsh winds, and blowing snow and eliminated the immediate danger of falling through thin ice on ponds and streams.”
Indoorization is not new, even for golf: golf simulators can be found in converted garages; Topgolf facilities offer high-tech, all-weather golf experiences. But TGL is a high-profile entrant in a history of moving sport indoors.
Indoorization as adaption?
Researchers assessing the prospects for outdoor skating against recent climate projections have concluded the future looks bleak for outdoor rinks, and that indoor arenas and synthetic surfaces will grow more important in the years ahead.
Put another way, indoorization may increasingly be a requirement, and not just a luxury, in the context of a worsening climate crisis.
Likewise, sport mega-events have implemented various climate adaptation measures over time, from snow-making on ski slopes to refrigeration of sliding tracks and far beyond. The future is likely to see host cities become climate unreliable to an even greater extent.
It’s not just winter sports. From air-conditioned stadiums to relocated events in search of cooler conditions to indoor recess for students escaping poor-quality outdoor air, the changing climate is a point of vulnerability year-round — and for sport and physical activity participation at various levels.
Our point here is not that TGL was conceived with the climate crisis in mind. Nor do we expect outdoor golf to disappear. Rather, the climate crisis will demand adaptation in sport in the years ahead.
In a time of technological innovation — augmented reality, artificial intelligence and more — the mediatization of sport will provide new commercial and recreational opportunities that offer escape from, and perhaps distraction from, worsening outdoor conditions.
TGL’s blend of real and artificial elements can be seen as foreshadowing “solutions” to much greater problems that are beginning to seem inevitable.
Brad Millington receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Brian Wilson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Michael L. Naraine receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Sport Canada.
Parissa Safai has received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hannah Budnitz, Research Associate in Urban Mobility, Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford
Elon Musk’s controversial political views and actions have sparked an exodus from X (formerly Twitter), his social media platform, and mass protests against his car company, Tesla. Dealerships in the US and beyond have experienced peaceful protests and occasional vandalism, while sales are down almost everywhere and the company has lost almost half its value in two months.
Ironically, these political controversies may broaden the mass market appeal of electric vehicles. This is an industry that needs to go beyond the early-adopter tech bros – and now might be the moment.
In 2010, when Tesla became the first American carmaker to go public since Ford in 1956, fully electric cars were still a niche technology. The Nissan Leaf was launched that same year, but it was still limited to shorter trips in cities. Other big carmakers weren’t yet taking electric seriously, and the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) industry was just starting to gear up.
In 2013, when the International Energy Agency (IEA) produced its first Global EV Outlook report, there were less than 60,000 on the road worldwide. A decade later, almost the same number of EVs are sold every day.
Tesla’s competition was initially just little urban runarounds like this 2010 Nissan Leaf. Dong liu / Shutterstock
So, there is plenty of evidence that Tesla had a leading role in making EVs a “winning technology” – something the traditional major carmakers felt compelled to compete with. Governments around the world also got on board.
Not made for the mainstream
In fact, Tesla’s approach to making electric cars mainstream was to not make them for the mainstream. Its marketing strategy was to sell direct to customers who not only bought into the environmental credentials but the hi-tech glamour – and didn’t mind the price tag.
In other words, Tesla targeted “early adopters” which, in the case of electric cars, meant wealthy men. Study after study shows these early adopters in North America and Europe were skewed towards men and those with higher incomes.
Although these studies often measured income and gender separately, research I published with colleagues indicated it was having both characteristics – being both a man and wealthy – that made someone more likely to be an EV owner, or more likely to say their next car would probably be electric.
Out of our representative sample of nearly 2,000 UK drivers, wealthy men were also more likely to agree that their social circle expected them to switch.
We did not find the same results among women, no matter their income level, nor low-income men. This despite the fact that women were significantly more likely to value protecting the environment and to feel an obligation to drive an electric car (if they were first convinced it would reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality).
This points to another key implication of our research. To support mass adoption, drivers need to be confident that EVs can deliver the environmental benefits they promise, as well as being more comfortable and cheaper to run than conventional cars.
To gain this confidence, drivers – no matter who they are – want to hear consistent messaging from a trusted source that highlights the benefits, not just the costs.
However, as we found in our project Inclusive Transition to Electric Mobility, drivers and policymakers alike perceive EVs as unaffordable. Some research participants even mentioned Tesla by name when giving an example of how making the switch is beyond the means of people like them.
Cheaper EVs need new messaging
Although Tesla sells mass-produced models and slashed its prices around the world last year, its cars are still expensive (in the UK, they start at about £40,000). The company’s reputation and brand is linked not only to the tech-bro image of Silicon Valley, but with elitism and inequity.
However, the reputation of EVs in general need not be. Unlike ten years ago, this is a technology with momentum among many manufacturers, and consumers have plenty of new, cheaper models to choose from, as well as a growing second-hand market. The IEA’s latest report suggests EVs are finally becoming a mass-market product.
Tesla is facing stiff competition from cheaper rivals such as Chinese firm BYD. i viewfinder / Shutterstock
As electric cars become more affordable in real terms, the messaging needs to be about environmental benefit rather than futuristic technology. It needs to emphasise long-term affordability of use as well as purchase. EVs need to be seen as practical and safe – and drivers need to hear these messages from trusted sources.
My research highlighted how family, friends, colleagues and neighbours could be this source of trusted information. Early adopters I interviewed described the many personal, social interactions involved in the practicalities of parking and charging their cars – such as coordinating workplace charging so no one is caught short, and sharing tips on the best tariff for home charging. Some have effectively become local ambassadors for EVs.
I’m also investigating how communities coming together around EVs might lead to more car sharing. This could maximise the environmental benefits of the transition, since reducing the number of cars on the road is as important as ensuring cars switch from petrol to electric.
There is little doubt about the damage Musk’s political approach has done to Tesla’s image, although it is not the sole cause of the company’s current troubles.
Meanwhile, the transition to electric personal mobility is well underway around the world. Tesla’s troubles won’t stop this – but they can give the car industry an opportunity to make the messaging around electric vehicles more diverse, equitable and inclusive for the mass market.
Hannah Budnitz 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.
Donald Trump started out with more Americans approving than disapproving of his performance just after inauguration day on January 20 , and this continued into February. By early March, his ratings had turned a little bit negative, but not by much, and it has stayed that way. As of March 20, 48% of Americans approved of his job performance so far, while 49% disapproved.
The daily average of polls measuring approval/disapproval ratings for the job Trump is doing appears in the chart below. They cover the period from February 20 to March 20.
Approval and disapproval ratings for Trump’s performance:
These aggregate ratings are interesting, but they disguise the political divide which is revealed when we drill down into the details. This can be done using an Economist/YouGov poll completed on March 18, for instance.
This reveals how polarised American public opinion has become when it comes to judging the president. Around 6% of respondents who identified themselves as Democrats approved of his performance, while 93% of them disapproved. Those who identified as Republican were almost the exact opposite, with 90% approving and 7% disapproving.
One problem in analysing these statistics is that only 29% of the sample interviewed were Republicans, compared with 34% Democrats. The pollsters do their best to get a representative sample of the US electorate and it’s worth noting that there are currently more registered Democrats in the US than there are Republicans.
Interestingly, the American National Election Study survey conducted just before the presidential election last year showed that only 11.6% of Americans were supporters of the Maga movement. This highly respected study, which has been carried out over the past 75 years as a national resource, would suggest that Maga supporters are noisy, but fewer in number than some people might realise.
What do independents think?
Around 37% of those interviewed for the Economist poll described themselves as independents. In their case 37% of them approved of his performance and 54% disapproved. Trump may have a very strong following among Republicans, but they are less than one-third of the electorate.
A quick calculation looking at support among Democrats, Republicans and independents in proportion to their size in the electorate suggests that 42% of Americans have a favourable view of his performance, while 54% have an unfavourable view.
If we look at the social backgrounds of respondents in the survey there is not much difference between the young and the old, or different income groups in their attitudes to the president’s performance. But there is a large gender gap with 53% of men, but only 39% of women, approving. Similarly, while 53% of whites approved, only 24% of blacks and 31% of Hispanics did so. Finally, 7% of ideological liberals approved of Trump’s job performance, compared with 81% of conservatives and 44% of moderates. Overall, partisanship and ideology completely dominate the picture when it comes to judging Trump’s record.
How important is the economy?
US politics is in turmoil with large federal jobs losses and significant changes, such as tariffs on Canadian goods, being announced by the new administration, so there are a lot of factors at work which can explain attitudes to Trump. In the 2024 presidential election the economy played a key role in explaining how people voted, and it is always an important issue in elections.
Given that, it is interesting to look at one of the key measures of the voter’s attitudes to the economy, namely consumer confidence. This has been measured by researchers at the University of Michigan for many decades using a series of surveys conducted every month.
US consumer sentiment scale March 2024 to March 2025:
The chart shows scores on the Index of Consumer Sentiment from March of last year until March this year. A high score means Americans are confident about the state of their economy and a low score the opposite. Confidence has plunged from a rating of 79.4 a year ago to 57.9 now. It is notable that, as recently as December 2024, it stood at 74.0, but after the inauguration of Trump it started to rapidly decline. Americans are getting increasingly worried about the state of their economy, along with the rest of the world.
The cause is not hard to discern: the imposition of tariffs, a fall in the stock market, the threat of inflation, the administration’s sympathy towards Vladimir Putin and its threats to allies such as Canada and Greenland over their territorial integrity. These issues are all adding up to a self-imposed economic crisis.
But what are the implication of this for presidential approval ratings? The chart below shows the relationship between consumer confidence and presidential approval over a period of nearly 50 years. There is a moderately strong relationship between the two series (correlation = 0.40). When consumers are optimistic, they approve of the president’s performance, and when they are pessimistic, they disapprove.
Presidential approval and consumer confidence 1978-2025:
Overall, the data suggests that Trump should not be confident of his approval ratings across the US, if you look at people across all political affiliations and who vote. Along with a looming economic crisis, this could lead to a rapid loss of support for the president and the Republicans in the near future.
Paul Whiteley 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.
KwaZulu-Natal Finance MEC, Francois Rodgers, has announced a number of strategic initiatives aimed at boosting the province’s economic growth, creating jobs, and stabilising the cost of living.
Rodgers highlighted some of the initiatives, when he was tabling the province’s R158.478 billion budget for the 2025/2026 financial year, on Tuesday.
In his address, Rodgers highlighted the positive signs of economic recovery, pointing to key indicators, including an increase in the province’s equitable share and additional allocations in conditional grants.
He also noted the progress being made through the Provincial Financial Recovery Plan.
“What is required now is discipline with a sharp focus on the end objective, growth in our economy, job creation, and stabilising and reducing the cost of living,” Rodgers said.
Initiatives to strengthen financial discipline
The MEC said the provincial Treasury is committed to perform financial oversight and monitor provincial expenditure, with a view to prevent non-essential government activities.
He added that efforts are underway to identify new streams of revenue for the provincial fiscus.
Another key initiative is the adoption of a cost-containment instruction by the Executive Council, which aims to sustain KZN’s ability to meet its needs, “while protecting its future.”
“Cutting the nice to haves to protect the must haves. One such example is [council] agreement to do away with rental vehicles, with procurement for vehicles, in line with National Treasury guidelines.
“When the GPU (Government of Provincial Unity) took office, the province was projecting to over-spend in the region of R10 billion, [but] with strict control measures and compliance, we have now reduced this to R4.9 billion,” Rodgers highlighted.
E-procurement tool
To further improve financial efficiency, Rodgers announced that Treasury is awaiting approval for the acquisition and implementation of an e-procurement tool, a system designed to eliminate overcharging of goods and services during the Supply Chain Management (SCM) and tender processes.
“This system will yield enormous savings for the province and reduce irregularities in the procurement process,” Rodgers said.
The MEC said the provincial government is making great strides in achieving a balanced budget, noting that “it’s a painful process, but a process that needs to be sustained and supported.”
Rodgers further announced that starting in April 2025, the provincial government will introduce departmental financial dashboards, which will reflect departments financial metrics, such as creditors, debtors, cash balances, and projected expenditure.
He said these dashboards will assist members of the Executive Council and oversight committees with a clearer picture of the province’s financial health.
Additionally, the provincial Treasury is exploring the establishment of an information centre, which will focus on “Operation Pay on Time” and assist with tender processes and supplying information on Public Private Partnerships (PPPs).
“Going forward, I will continue, in my capacity as MEC, to regularly engage the Premier and the provincial executive on good financial practices. We will be consistent in our advocacy for efficient expenditure and the prioritisation of programmes aimed at alleviating poverty, inequality, unemployment, effective service delivery and building a sustainable economy,” the MEC said.
Provincial budget highlights
A large portion of the 2025/2026 provincial budged (79.9%), has been allocated to the three key social services departments, including Education, Health, and Social Development.
The Education Department received the largest share of the budget, with R66 690 206 allocated, followed by Health with R56 211 801.
Other allocations include: • Transport allocated R13 827 066. • Office of the Premier R817 875. • Provincial Legislature R850 796. • Agriculture and Rural Development R2 757 443. • Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs R3 606 998. • Provincial Treasury R710 190. • Human Settlements R3 549 877. • Community Safety and Liaison R275 716. • Sport, Arts and Culture R1 598 141. • Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs R1 931 153. • Social Development R3 613 297. • Public Works and Infrastructure R2 037 490. – SAnews.gov.za
Spurgeon Integrates Artificial Intelligence and Materials Science To Accelerate Discovery and Advance Next-Generation Technologies
Materials science researcher Steven Spurgeon (left) and his lab associates Grace Guinan and Michelle Smeaton work on autonomous electron microscopy at NREL. Photo by Brooke Buchan, NREL
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) materials data scientist Steven R. Spurgeon has been honored with the Microscopy Society of America’s (MSA’s) Burton Medal award. The award, which is given annually to a single physical sciences researcher under the age of 40, is the highest honor the MSA bestows upon early-career scientists in the field of microscopy and microanalysis.
“I’ve been involved with the MSA for 15 years and have been fortunate to work with amazing leaders in the field of microscopy,” Spurgeon said. “To be recognized with this award and join their ranks is a true honor.”
Throughout his career, Spurgeon has pioneered the integration of machine learning (ML) with electron microscopy, using artificial intelligence (AI), to help make sense of the detailed images generated by electron microscopes. This approach not only dramatically enhances the efficiency of microscopy techniques; it also provides new insights into the behavior of functional materials—like silicon microprocessors used in computers and cell phones—at the atomic level. These insights enable researchers to fine-tune material properties and enhance efficiency to drive advancements in energy solutions.
“Dr. Spurgeon’s pioneering work at the intersection of AI and microscopy continues to transform materials science,” said Katherine Jungjohann, who manages NREL’s Analytical Microscopy and Imaging Science group. “His visionary leadership and groundbreaking research make him a truly deserving recipient of the Burton Medal.”
Spurgeon’s journey to the AI/microscopy frontier began with a deep curiosity about the fundamental building blocks of matter. As a graduate student at Drexel University, he studied materials science and engineering, focusing on developing new functional materials. After Spurgeon completed his Ph.D., he joined Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), first as a postdoctoral research associate, and later as a staff scientist in the laboratory’s longstanding thin-film Basic Energy Sciences program. At PNNL, he developed new functional materials that could be used for energy storage and computing, which was recognized by the PNNL Laboratory Director’s Award for Early Career Achievement. He also had a realization that would shape the trajectory of his career.
AI-powered tools like transformers—which is what the “T” in ChatGPT stands for—began to emerge in the scientific community about 10 years ago and were used in areas like processing internet data and building autonomous vehicles. Watching the rise of these ML tools, Spurgeon began to wonder if they could benefit his own field of work.
“I realized we were collecting and analyzing all our data by hand,” Spurgeon recalled. “That made me ask, ‘Can we use AI to accelerate our experiments so that humans don’t have to make every single decision?’ I saw that machine learning could help us analyze larger datasets, uncover patterns that would be difficult to detect manually, and ultimately shorten the time to discovery.”
Inspired by these possibilities, Spurgeon helped launch an AI initiative at PNNL and established a groundbreaking partnership with industry to design a completely new AI-infused microscope. His efforts led to the development of the Autonomous Electron Microscope (AutoEM), a platform that leverages AI to improve the way researchers study and understand functional materials. The platform, which enables researchers to conduct analyses up to 1,000 times faster than traditional methods, earned Spurgeon and his team an R&D 100 Award in 2024.
“During his time at PNNL, Dr. Spurgeon rapidly ascended to international prominence in AI-guided materials science and electron microscopy,” said Sergei Kalinin, chief scientist of Physics-Informed Machine Learning at PNNL. “He established himself as a brilliant researcher, a staunch advocate for our field, and an exceptional mentor, and he continues this reputation today.”
After nearly 10 years at PNNL, Spurgeon joined NREL’s Material Science team in May 2024 with a mission to lead research on autonomous materials science and characterization in the development of new energy technologies.
“I joined NREL to help establish a forward-thinking vision for autonomous science,” Spurgeon said. “NREL’s leadership in emerging energy technologies, coupled with its proactive approach to integrating AI, creates an environment like no other, where researchers can strategically innovate and push the boundaries of energy solutions.”
Since joining NREL, Spurgeon has integrated autonomous capabilities into lab workflows, established new industry partnerships, and created effective teams. In May 2025, he is organizing a workshop to convene leading experts to explore practical, real-world applications of autonomous research.
His work has sped up experiments and led to faster discoveries in energy materials and microelectronics, which translates to tangible benefits for NREL’s partners and the wider community. Moving forward, he is focused on using AI to develop important materials—like advanced semiconductors and catalysts—that could lead to major breakthroughs in technology.
As Spurgeon explained, “AI-driven autonomy in materials science is the key to breaking through current research bottlenecks. It allows us to move beyond incremental improvements and achieve truly transformative discoveries in the energy materials we use every day, saving money and improving resilience.”
Reflecting on his career, Spurgeon identified the thrill of discovery, bolstered by persistence in the face of failure, as a driving factor in all that he has achieved.
“Breakthroughs don’t come easily. They often follow many, many failures,” Spurgeon said. “But every once in a while, you get a new process to work or you uncover a phenomenon no one has seen before. Those moments of seeing something for the first time—something no one else has seen—are what make me come to work every day.”
Beyond the personal satisfaction of pushing the boundaries of knowledge, Spurgeon finds inspiration in the support of the scientific community and in the impact of his work on real-world technologies.
“When you’re all pushing in the same direction, you can help each other, share in the struggles, and celebrate the wins,” Spurgeon said. “It has been especially rewarding to work with so many talented early-career staff and students over the years.”
Spurgeon also recognizes that the focus of his work—AI integration—has been the subject of a fair amount of debate in recent years.
“We’re at the start of a significant transformation in science, but the essence of the scientific process—generating and testing a hypothesis—still belongs to humans,” Spurgeon said. “AI can help us analyze more data and refine our decision-making, but it’s still on us as scientists to take responsibility for our conclusions.”
With this in mind, Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of building practical, trustworthy AI implementations whose conclusions can be clearly explained and that provide real value for users.
Looking ahead, Spurgeon is optimistic: “The future of materials science lies in the collaborative power of AI and human ingenuity. Together, we’ll push the boundaries of innovation and improve the lives of everyone around the world.”
Source: United States Senator for Arkansas – John Boozman
––U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR) introduced former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on his nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
Boozman recalled his long-standing relationship with Huckabee, who served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007. The senator expressed his confidence in the Governor’s leadership and ability to strengthen the relationship between the United States and the Jewish State.
Click here to watch Boozman’s remarks.
Below are Boozman’s remarks as delivered:
Thank you, Chairman Risch and Ranking Member Shaheen, and good morning to my distinguished colleagues.
It is an honor to be here today to introduce my friend and fellow Arkansan – Governor Mike Huckabee, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
I know Senator Cotton would have liked to be here too. In fact, it was the first call I received very early this morning, reminding me to tell everybody how much he supported this and what a great ambassador he thinks Gov. Huckabee would make.
I would also like to say hi to Gov. Huckabee’s family and friends here in attendance, and how glad we are that they are here supporting him. We all know these are family affairs, whether it’s us or people that serve in other aspects of government.
This is a pivotal moment in history, not just for our country, but for Israel and the special relationship between our nations.
I’ve had the privilege of knowing the Governor for many years, and I can say without hesitation that he is the right person to be our representative to Israel at this critical moment, and I’m thankful to President Trump for selecting such a staunch and passionate advocate for the Jewish State.
Mike was raised in Hope, Arkansas, and went on to graduate from Ouachita Baptist University, where he majored in religion. He then attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, in preparation for a lifetime of ministry that included pastoring Immanuel Baptist Church in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and later at Beech Street Baptist Church in Texarkana, Arkansas.
He went on to serve as president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, where his leadership and communications skills intersected at the cornerstone of his life – spreading the gospel and shepherding fellow Christians in their faith – and foreshadowed his calling into public service.
Mike served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas for over a decade, with his time as our state’s chief executive marked by his tireless pursuit of pragmatic solutions, a tireless work ethic, and an innate ability to forge relationships across political divides.
He brought transformational change to Arkansas, leaving a legacy of lower taxes, job creation, improvement of state infrastructure, K-12 education reform, and his enactment of a nationally recognized health initiative focused on disease prevention.
Mike is not only qualified to serve as our ambassador to Israel, but he is uniquely suited for this role given the way he has championed Israel throughout his entire life, including as a steadfast supporter of Israel’s right to exist and defend itself.
He has an intimate familiarity with Israel’s people and its leaders, having frequently visited for over fifty years, leading groups to the region since 1981.
He also understands the importance of diplomacy and has a profound respect and appreciation for it. And he has worked persistently throughout his life to advocate for strengthening and furthering the distinctly profound ties between our two countries.
As the United States Ambassador to Israel, he will bring a thoughtful, principled approach to our relationship – as his extensive experience already shows.
He believes, like many of us, that the United States and Israel share a sacred bond that transcends politics – both in terms of shared values and mutual security.
In an increasingly dangerous world, where Israel is under constant attack from Iran and its terrorist proxies, the United States needs a representative in Israel who not only understands the complex Middle East geopolitics, but can navigate them with conviction, strength and tact.
Governor Huckabee’s background, character, and experience all uniquely qualify him to be that figure at this moment and for this purpose.
His deep understanding and love for Israel and its people will undoubtedly make him an exceptional ambassador.
I know that he will represent the United States with honor, integrity, and an ironclad commitment to the enduring partnership between our two nations.
I look forward to seeing all the great things he will do as the United States Ambassador to Israel.
I strongly support his nomination and urge my colleagues to do the same, as does my colleague Sen. Cotton from Arkansas. Thank you very much.
Source: United States Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont)
MONTPELIER, VT – U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) spent the Senate’s first in-state work week of the 119th Session meeting with concerned Vermonters, business owners, farmers, patients, and members of the Vermont State Legislature.
On Saturday, March 15, Sen. Welch joined Vermont Treasurer Mike Pieciak and local legislators for a town hall in South Burlington. Senator Welch spoke about the Trump Administration’s reckless and illegal policies, which are hurting Vermont families, farmers, businesses, and the local economy. Watch the town hall here:
On Tuesday, March 18, Senator Welch convened Vermont and Canadian business leaders for a roundtable in Newport, Vermont —near the U.S.-Canada border— on Tuesday to discuss President Trump’s Trade War and how the Trump Administration’s reckless tariffs are hurting workers, families, and farmers. Senator Welch was joined by the Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, Member of Parliament for Compton-Stanstead, and Vermont and Canadian business owners. Following the roundtable, Senator Welch toured Track, Inc. and Built by Newport and continued discussions on the impacts of the tariffs.
Welch convenes international business leaders in Newport to discuss impacts of Trump’s trade war
Welch at Track, Inc. with Mike Desmarais, Owner & CEO of Track Inc.
Welch at Track, Inc. with Mike Desmarais, Owner & CEO of Track Inc.
Welch at Built by Newport with owner Dave LaForce
Welch at Built by Newport with the LaForce family
On Wednesday, March 19, Senator Welch toured Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, where he discussed his new bipartisan bill to support rural health care providers, the Rural Hospital Support Act and the impact of President Trump’s and Congressional Republicans’ proposed Medicaid cuts on Vermonters. Following the tour at the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, Sen. Welch met with business leaders and workers from Allard Lumber Co., and G.S. Precision, Inc., in Brattleboro.
Welch at the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital
Welch Tours Allard Lumber Co. in Brattleboro
Welch at G.S. Precision, Inc. in Brattleboro
On Thursday, Senator Welch returned to the Statehouse to meet with the Vermont State Senate Appropriations Committee. The Senator provided an update on the recent passage of the Continuing Resolution and ongoing annual budget negotiations, as well as the harm of the budget proposed by President Trump and Congressional Republicans, which would make drastic cuts to Medicaid and other programs and services Vermonters rely on. Senator Welch was elected to the Vermont State Senate in 1980 and became the first Democrat in Vermont history to hold the position of President Pro Tempore.
After, he toured Rhino Foods, which develops and manufactures edible additions for ice cream and frozen foods, such as cookie dough. Rhino Foods is a Certified B Corp and is focused on advancing innovative employee-centered practices that help workers of all abilities and experience succeed.
Senator Welch also provided remarks and shared a meal at Winooski High School’s district-wide Community Iftar – an evening of community, celebration, and learning about Ramadan. This was Winooski’s fifth Community Iftar.
Welch provides an update to the Vermont Senate Appropriations Committee
Welch Tours Rhino Foods to discuss workforce training and development
Welch speaks at Winooski High School’s district-wide Community Iftar
