COLUMBUS, Ohio – A previously convicted sex offender who, on multiple occasions, stood fully nude at the glass door of his Obetz residence and masturbated while school-aged children were getting off the bus and walking to their homes, pleaded guilty in federal court here today to federal child pornography crimes.
Joshua Bock, 32, of Edgeview Road in Columbus, pleaded guilty to distributing and possessing child pornography. As a convicted sex offender, he faces 15 to 40 years in prison for distributing child pornography and 10 to 20 years in prison for possessing the child sexual abuse material.
According to court documents, in September 2024, law enforcement officials contacted the Franklin County Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force regarding several civilian complaints about Bock. Multiple children witnessed him nude and masturbating while they walked from their school bus near Hamilton Local Schools.
Bock was arrested on local charges of public indecency, and law enforcement agents interviewed Bock and searched his electronic devices. He described the location of numerous devices and child pornography in his home, including a self-described “treasure chest” of material in his bedroom under the stairs. Law enforcement seized multiple laptops, hard drives, flash drives and cell phones from Bock’s residence.
His devices contained more than 3,500 images and videos of child sexual abuse, many including “bondage” of females ranging from toddler age to teenagers with gags in their mouths. Some of the video files depicted adults sexually abusing infants.
In his prior offense, Bock was charged as a hands-on sexual offender to a victim who was approximately 9 years old at the time.
Bock was charged federally in September 2024 via a criminal complaint. He has remained in custody since that time.
Kelly A. Norris, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Jared Murphey, Acting Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Detroit; Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin and other members of the Franklin County Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force announced the guilty plea entered today before U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. Assistant United States Attorney Emily Czerniejewski is representing the United States in this case.
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
On March 18, 2025, a plenary session of the annual congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs was held, in which the Vice-Rector of the State University of Management Dmitry Bryukhanov took part.
The congress was attended by about 1,300 people, including major entrepreneurs, representatives of small and medium-sized businesses from all over the country, heads of ministries and departments, and political figures.
The congress discussed key areas of interaction between business and the state, as well as initiatives of the business community aimed at achieving national development goals and implementing national projects.
The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin took part in the plenary session, and in his speech he raised the issues of the return of Western companies to Russia, free trade, privatization, inflation, adaptation to sanctions, and others.
“It is important that during this time, domestic entrepreneurs have learned to work under sanctions, adapted to them, thought through and launched alternative mechanisms for cooperation with foreign partners, with those who want to work with us. In addition, sanctions have become a kind of even additional catalyst for positive structural changes in our economy, including in the financial and technological spheres, and in many other key areas,” said Vladimir Vladimirovich.
The President also noted that “sanctions are not temporary or targeted measures, they are a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure on our country,” and warned that one should no longer count on complete freedom of payments and capital flows in the world.
In addition, Vladimir Putin instructed the government to prepare rules for the return of Western companies to Russia with guarantees of conscientious fulfillment of obligations by Western businessmen.
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 03/18/2025
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Iloradanon H. Efimoff, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Toronto Metropolitan University
Virtual reality is a rapidly developing technology. As the technology expands, becoming more portable and affordable, the potential uses have expanded as well.
Knowledge of residential schools in Canada is relatively high. Recent national polls show that in 2022, 65 per cent of non-Indigenous respondents had read or heard about residential schools. This number increased to 90 per cent in 2023. This type of awareness, however, does not necessarily reflect a deep knowledge of residential schools.
The virtual rendering took years to develop, with critical relationships forming along the way. Members of this same team, and some new members, then tested the effects of the school.
Overall, researchers with a range of approaches participated, including those who work in the areas of psychology, sociology, and computer science, or who are concerned with representation of war and genocide.
One concern of those involved in the project was how participants would engage in the virtual school. In particular, we didn’t want the virtual school to be “gamified” (used like a video game). To this end, the virtual reality school is “on-the-tracks,” meaning viewers move through the school on a set path.
This set path included visiting a classroom, a dormitory and a cellar, among other spaces that the Survivors described. The school was designed such that the viewers would feel physically small in the space — as if they were the size of a child. While moving through the various rooms in the school, viewers listened to recordings of Survivors’ stories of their experiences at the school.
Would VR experience improve empathy?
To test if a virtual reality residential school could improve empathy toward Indigenous people, we ran an experiment, as researchers do when they want to compare the impact of different experiences.
All experiments include a group of people who receive some sort of intervention, such as our virtual reality school. In the simplest approach, researchers can compare the effects of the intervention group to an “empty control group,” which includes people who receive no intervention and often just respond to questions assessing key outcomes. Through comparisons like this, researchers can understand the effect of the intervention compared to doing nothing.
We used a slightly more rigorous design by adding a third group who simply read the transcripts of the narration that accompanied the virtual school. This allowed us to test if the virtual reality school outperformed the transcripts, which were a different method of learning about residential schools.
Powerful Survivor stories
We tested how the virtual school, transcript and control groups affected four outcomes: empathy, warmth and political solidarity toward Indigenous people as well as perceptions that past events still cause suffering today — what we and often legal scholars call “privity.” We looked at the effects right after the experiment and then again weeks later.
As we thought, compared to the control group, people who received either the transcript or virtual reality intervention responded more favourably toward Indigenous people; they reported more empathy, warmth, political solidarity and privity.
But a surprising thing happened too: People in the transcript and virtual reality groups responded in the same way. Though we cannot be sure why, we suspect these two groups did not differ because the Survivors’ stories are powerful.
Finally, over time, the differences among groups disappeared. The changes caused by reading a transcript or experiencing the virtual world went away.
Need for ongoing education
Our findings imply that a meaningful story does not require sophisticated technology like virtual reality to have impact. In cases where the story is captivating, the technology might not be necessary to engage people.
Though trendy, virtual reality equipment is also more expensive and not as portable as written work. Of course, virtual reality might be just the right fit for audiences that would rather not or can’t read. It might also be a novel hook to get someone to engage with a topic they may otherwise avoid.
Perhaps more clearly, our disappointing finding that the interventions did not last over time highlights the need for ongoing education about residential schools. A single learning opportunity is unlikely to cause long-lasting change in feelings and attitudes toward Indigenous people. There is more work to do.
Katherine B. Starzyk holds funding from the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada as well as Canadian Heritage / Patrimoine canadien. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Manitoba.
Iloradanon H. Efimoff 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.
Our research examines why parents have hesitated or refused to vaccinate their children. Anti-vaccine sentiment is often linked to a now thoroughly discredited 1998 study that suggested a link between the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and autism.
But our research on the anti-vaccine movement in Canada from the 1970s to the early 2000s suggests that parents’ concerns about vaccines started much earlier than that study, and that parents worry about far more than autism.
To address anti-vaccine sentiment, we need to listen to parents’ concerns and make it easy for them to get their children vaccinated. We also need to persuade them of the benefits of vaccination, not just for their own children, but for their family members, friends and fellow citizens.
The anti-vaccine literature is not anti-science. It is filled with statistics and references to scientific studies, although the facts are often wrong. Parents who read this literature need more than the simple reassurance of experts that vaccines are safe and effective. They need to be shown evidence and have confidence that their concerns are being taken seriously.
One argument that appeared frequently in the anti-vaccine literature is that rates of infectious disease had fallen before the introduction of vaccines.
Another common argument was that vaccines are ineffective. This argument was often used with respect to the measles vaccine. Because some people are inadequately vaccinated (receiving only one shot for example, instead of two), and because the vaccine is not perfect, there will be some cases of measles even in vaccinated people. Fortunately, these people tend to have milder cases.
Anti-vaccine texts frequently contain long lists of scary-sounding ingredients in vaccines, similar to what we see for highly processed foods. Thimerosal (ethyl mercury used as a preservative) attracted the most attention. Thimerosal is no longer used in childhood vaccines in Canada.
The anti-vaccine literature is deeply skeptical about the profit-making motivations of pharmaceutical companies and often mentions past disasters such as the thalidomide scandal that saw thousands of children born with shortened limbs.
While this is not the only example of inadequate safety testing of new drugs, it is clear that the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine, used since the early 1970s, has a long safety record and has played a vital role in reducing deaths and illness from the measles in Canada and abroad.
Anti-vaccine literature also stressed that there were natural ways of building immunity that could take the place of vaccination. We see this today with claims by United States Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy claims that poor eating habits are behind the spread of measles in the U.S. This is extremely dangerous. Even the healthiest, best-fed child can get extremely sick with the measles. Not all parents can afford nutritious food. And some children can’t be vaccinated because of medical conditions, leaving them extremely vulnerable.
Tragedies of the past
Anti-vaccine parents see vaccines as one of the dangers of our modern, polluted world, and worry that vaccines might have risks that have not yet been recognized. While there are risks with any medical technology, the benefits of vaccines far outweigh the possible dangers.
Parents today have little memory of these tragedies, but sadly, they could return. Indeed, a powerful article recently published in the Atlantic Monthly profiled a father who had just lost his six-year-old child to the measles.
Along with scholars like sociologist Jennifer Reich, who has studied contemporary anti-vaccine parents, we see anti-vaccination sentiment as part of a larger societal trend towards individualism. Parents think about what’s best for their own child, rather than thinking about what’s best for their community.
At a time when Canadians are bonding together to fight the tariff threat from the U.S., it would be wonderful if we could also come together to fight the scourge of infectious diseases, including measles. The best way to do this is vaccination.
Catherine Carstairs received funding from AMS Healthcare for this project.
Kathryn Hughes receives funding from AMS Healthcare for this project.
The awareness week is an opportunity to celebrate the successes of social workers and the impact the profession has on communities
Social workers provide a wide range of support, helping children and adults to maximise their life chances and reach their full potential
Salford City Council currently provides social care to 5,446 adults and children
This year’s Social Work Week, 17 to 21 March 2025, which coincides with World Social Work Day on 18 March, aims to bring people together to celebrate the successes of social workers and to pay tribute to the impact the profession has on communities.
Key themes of the awareness week this year are focused on:
Data and insight: how to ensure that social workers practice and its regulation is data driven and how this can improve people’s experience of the profession.
Education and training: how are social workers supported throughout each step of their career journey and why continuous learning and supervision is essential.
Innovation: learnings from the adoption of digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve professional practice and where are the ethical tensions.
Professional identity: understanding if a greater sense of professional identity is crucial for the future of social work.
Safe and effective practice: how professional competence contributes to building public trust in the social work profession and what can be learnt from fitness to practise.
Social workers work autonomously and collaborate as part of a professional team to provide a wide range of support, helping children and adults to maximise their life chances and reach their full potential.
In what is very much a rewarding career, the role can be a demanding and emotional one. Social workers are often the unsung heroes, and this is an opportunity to celebrate the amazing work that our social workers do with residents of Salford.
They advise, help and protect children and adults with support needs from harm or abuse and support them to live independently. From helping keep a family under pressure together to supporting someone with mental health problems, learning disabilities and those on the autism spectrum, social workers have to make difficult decisions that impact people’s lives based on the best interests of children and adults.
Social workers also help people to overcome significant difficulties, such as substance addictions, domestic abuse, mental health challenges, and homelessness and poverty, supporting them to be empowered and live independently, develop positive relationships and access education, training and employment.
Salford City Council provides:
13 types of social care services to vulnerable adults and children across the city
an average of 129,545 hours of care to adults/children each month
social care to 5,446 adults and children
Councillor Jim Cammell, Lead Member for Children’s and Young People’s Services at Salford City Council said: “We are proud of the work we do to improve the lives of our children, young people and families in Salford, and our social workers are absolutely key to that. I want to recognise the dedication and valuable work that our social workers do, and also the teams who support them, to ensure that every child has the opportunity to thrive.”
“Through this national recognition, we can help to inform and educate the public on what social work is and work collaboratively with other local authorities and government bodies to share valuable knowledge that can help to address the challenges and create positive solutions. This week is an important part of recognising and celebrating social workers’ commitment and dedication, and to thank them for the incredible work they do every day.”
Councillor John Merry, Lead Member for Adult Social Care and Health at Salford City Council said: “Social care is a very important part of our work with our communities and partners to help everyone lead fulfilling, healthy, and independent lives in Salford. This week is a great way of highlighting all the unseen but vital support that social work provides for residents to care for their strengths, connections, and families, in their own homes and communities.”
Councillor Mishal Saeed, Executive Support Social Care and Mental Health at Salford City Council said: “Our social workers play a vital role in supporting residents in the community, helping their wellbeing in order to live longer and better lives and feel connected to others in their area. This week is an important part of recognising and celebrating social workers commitment and dedication.”
The Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced that the Justice Department filed a statement of interest in the Central District of California to advance the appropriate interpretation of federal laws that prohibit colleges and universities from discriminating against students because of their religion or national origin. The statement of interest is part of the Task Force’s nationwide effort to combat antisemitism in all of its forms.
According to the allegations in Frankelet al. v. Regents of the University of California et al., in the spring of 2024 administrators of the University of California system allowed members of a protest encampment to physically prevent University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) students and faculty from accessing portions of the UCLA campus if they were wearing articles reflective of their Jewish faith or if they refused to denounce Israel.
The plaintiffs are Jewish students and a Jewish professor at UCLA who allege that the university knowingly acted in concert with or allowed members of the protest encampment to prevent them from accessing a central campus space and adjacent classrooms and library on the basis of their Jewish faith or national origin in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and California state law. The United States’ statement of interest addresses the sufficiency of plaintiffs’ claims that defendant administrators violated Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause.
The Justice Department recently announced the formation of a multi-agency task force coordinated by the Civil Rights Division to combat antisemitism, which is visiting 10 university campuses that have experienced antisemitic events. The Department also recently announced its investigation into the University of California to assess whether the university system engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, religion and national origin against its professors, staff and other employees by allowing an antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses, including UCLA. The Task Force also recently announced that the Department, together with other federal agencies, would cancel $400 million in federal contracts and grants to Columbia University due to the school’s inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.
“The President, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the Task Force know that every student must be free to attend school without being discriminated against on the basis of their race, religion or national origin,” said Leading Task Force member and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Leo Terrell. “The Department of Justice is working to combat antisemitism using all of the tools at our disposal.”
“Discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated in our community,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally for the Central District of California. “Our office will enforce anti-discrimination laws to address the issue of antisemitism affecting our residents.”
To learn more about the Civil Rights Division visit www.justice.gov/crt, and to report possible violations of federal civil rights laws go to www.civilrights.justice.gov or call toll-free at 800-253-3931.
The Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced that the Justice Department filed a statement of interest in the Central District of California to advance the appropriate interpretation of federal laws that prohibit colleges and universities from discriminating against students because of their religion or national origin. The statement of interest is part of the Task Force’s nationwide effort to combat antisemitism in all of its forms.
According to the allegations in Frankelet al. v. Regents of the University of California et al., in the spring of 2024 administrators of the University of California system allowed members of a protest encampment to physically prevent University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) students and faculty from accessing portions of the UCLA campus if they were wearing articles reflective of their Jewish faith or if they refused to denounce Israel.
The plaintiffs are Jewish students and a Jewish professor at UCLA who allege that the university knowingly acted in concert with or allowed members of the protest encampment to prevent them from accessing a central campus space and adjacent classrooms and library on the basis of their Jewish faith or national origin in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and California state law. The United States’ statement of interest addresses the sufficiency of plaintiffs’ claims that defendant administrators violated Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause.
The Justice Department recently announced the formation of a multi-agency task force coordinated by the Civil Rights Division to combat antisemitism, which is visiting 10 university campuses that have experienced antisemitic events. The Department also recently announced its investigation into the University of California to assess whether the university system engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, religion and national origin against its professors, staff and other employees by allowing an antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses, including UCLA. The Task Force also recently announced that the Department, together with other federal agencies, would cancel $400 million in federal contracts and grants to Columbia University due to the school’s inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.
“The President, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the Task Force know that every student must be free to attend school without being discriminated against on the basis of their race, religion or national origin,” said Leading Task Force member and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Leo Terrell. “The Department of Justice is working to combat antisemitism using all of the tools at our disposal.”
“Discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated in our community,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally for the Central District of California. “Our office will enforce anti-discrimination laws to address the issue of antisemitism affecting our residents.”
To learn more about the Civil Rights Division visit www.justice.gov/crt, and to report possible violations of federal civil rights laws go to www.civilrights.justice.gov or call toll-free at 800-253-3931.
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., March 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Extensiv, a leading provider of omnichannel software solutions for warehouse, inventory, and order management, today announced the appointment of Carey Ballard as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Ballard brings two decades of marketing experience with a focus on messaging and brand strategy to the role.
Throughout her career, Ballard has held leadership positions at prominent organizations, including Lumin Digital and Arizona State University. She successfully developed and executed comprehensive marketing strategies at these institutions that enhanced brand recognition and drove revenue growth. Her experience and expertise span various industries, including technology and software development, where she has consistently demonstrated a keen ability to align marketing and brand initiatives with business objectives.
In her new role at Extensiv, Ballard will be responsible for leading the company’s overall marketing strategy, including brand building, demand generation, product marketing, and communications. She will work closely with the sales, product, and customer success teams to strengthen Extensiv’s market position and drive continued growth.
“I am thrilled to join Extensiv at this exciting time in the company’s growth,” said Carey Ballard. “Extensiv is a leader in the omnichannel fulfillment space, and I see tremendous potential to further elevate the brand and communicate the value of its solutions to a wider audience. I look forward to working with the team to develop and execute innovative marketing strategies to drive business growth and solidify Extensiv’s position as the partner of choice for businesses looking to optimize their warehouse, inventory, and order management.”
“We are thrilled to welcome Carey to our team,” said Aaron Stead, CEO of Extensiv. “Her experience as a business owner and marketer, coupled with her proven track record of success in technology and software, makes her the right person to lead us forward. Carey’s strategic vision and understanding of Extensiv’s leadership position in the market will be invaluable as we continue to expand our reach and deliver best-in-class solutions to our customers. We are confident she will play a key role in driving Extensiv’s continued profitable growth.”
About Extensiv
Extensiv, formerly 3PL Central, is a visionary technology leader focused on creating the future of omnichannel fulfillment. We partner with warehouse professionals and entrepreneurial brands to transform their fulfillment operations in the radically changing world of commerce and consumer expectations. Through our unrivaled network of more than 1,500 connected 3PLs and a suite of integrated, cloud-native warehouse management (WMS), order management (OMS), inventory management (IMS), and integration management software, we enable modern merchants and brands to fulfill demand anywhere with superior flexibility and scale without painful platform migrations as they grow. More than 25,000 logistics professionals and thousands of brands trust Extensiv every day to drive commerce at the pace modern consumers expect. Learn more at www.extensiv.com.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Susan Dieleman, Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership and Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Lethbridge
A recent poll shows that, across the country, the number of Canadians who consider themselves “proud” or “very proud” has increased — including in Québec, where these numbers have increased from 45 to 58 per cent.
Canadians have been showing their national pride in a variety of ways. Sports fans have been singing “O Canada” at the top of their lungs and booing the U.S. national anthem. Consumers have adjusted their purchasing priorities, buying more Canadian products and avoiding American ones where possible. Vacationers have even changed their travel plans, opting to stay in Canada rather than travel south of the border.
Political leaders, too, have practically draped themselves in the Canadian flag to show their national pride. For example, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been dubbed “Captain Canada” by the media for his response to the tariffs. Federal and provincial leaders have also adopted a so-called “Team Canada” approach — committing to presenting a united front in their response to tariff threats from the U.S.
But what does it mean to be patriotic — and are there good and bad ways of being patriotic? As an expert in the political thought of American philosopher Richard Rorty, I have found his reflections provide useful guidance for understanding the line between being a good patriot — and either taking things too far or not far enough.
The virtuous response
Rorty’s prophetic claims in his 1998 book Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America about the likelihood that a “strongman” would be elected went viral after Donald Trump’s 2016 election. His insights can help us understand patriotism and why it might be important in the present moment.
“National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals: a necessary condition for self-improvement. Too much national pride can produce bellicosity and imperialism, just as excessive self-respect can produce arrogance. But just as too little self-respect makes it difficult for a person to display moral courage, so insufficient national pride makes energetic and effective debate about national policy unlikely. Emotional involvement with one’s country […] is necessary if political deliberation is to be imaginative and productive. Such deliberation will probably not occur unless pride outweighs shame.”
In this passage, Rorty invokes Aristotle’s notion of a “golden mean” — moderation between the excessive and deficient expression of a particular disposition. Very roughly put, to be virtuous is to feel and respond appropriately to any given situation. To exceed or fall short of the appropriate feeling and response is to be vicious.
For example, to be courageous is to fear appropriately and to respond to that fear appropriately. The courageous person is not a person without fear. Rather, they fear what’s worthy of fear and don’t fear that which isn’t.
The courageous person also responds appropriately to fear. What this response looks like will vary according to situation. Sometimes, courage calls one to stand and fight — while at other times, it calls one to turn and run. An inappropriate response is when one is reckless because they’re overly unafraid — or when one is cowardly because they’re overly afraid. As the wise fool character of Falstaff notes in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, the better part of valour is discretion.
Virtuous patriotism
Applying the same approach, we can understand patriotism as feeling and responding appropriately in a situation that calls for national shame. The person who takes pride in their country is not a person who never feels shame. Rather, they’re ashamed when something their country has done is worthy of shame — and not ashamed when there’s no reason to be.
As a result, patriotism sometimes calls one to criticize their country. At other times, patriotism calls us to celebrate our country. The person who exhibits patriotism virtuously will know when criticism and celebration are appropriate. To respond inappropriately, according to Rorty, is to be either quarrelsome and imperialistic when one is overly unashamed, or to be apathetic and uninvolved when one is overly ashamed.
Pride in one’s country is only a virtue when it’s well-deserved. But when it is well-deserved, pride is the virtuous response.
In Achieving Our Country, Rorty was primarily concerned with the fracturing and consequent direction of the political left, worrying that it was veering off the virtuous track in the direction of vicious apathy. The political left, he said, emphasized the ways their country fell short — and of which they were rightly ashamed. But they didn’t look at the way the country had lived up to its promise, which should have made them proud.
However, as I’ve written about previously, the political left wasn’t wrong to identify those aspects of a country’s history that are indeed shameful. And for Rorty, the left has played a vital role throughout history in helping countries become kinder, less shameful places than they otherwise might have been.
In the current political climate, Rorty’s lesson for us is to make sure we don’t veer too far in the opposite direction, becoming quarrelsome or imperialistic. What true patriot love calls for is a more moderate stance — where we’re shameful of that which is worthy of shame, but also proud of that which is worthy of pride. Without a balance of shame and pride, efforts to continue improving what we stand on guard for is likely to falter and fall.
As we Canadians wave our flags and support our Canadian producers, we would be well-served to remember the value of imaginative and productive deliberation — and to steer well clear of both bellicosity and apathy.
Susan Dieleman receives funding as the Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at the University of Lethbridge.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin
For the past few weeks, the world’s attention has been focused on the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine and the diplomatic manoeuvrings that has entailed. But while Donald Trump has been focusing on negotiations with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, the ceasefire deal in Gaza he had a hand in getting over the line appears to have fallen apart.
After negotiations with Hamas broke down, Israel cut off all humanitarian aid to Gaza at the beginning of March, then cut off power, and overnight on March 17 launched massive airstrikes across the Strip, killing more than 400 people.
Meanwhile, the US has responded to attacks on shipping in the Red Sea with massive airstrikes against the Iran-back Houthi rebels. This has been widely interpreted as a message to Iran’s leaders from Trump, who is putting pressure on the Iranian government to negotiate a new nuclear deal to replace the one struck in 2013 which was rejected by the US president in 2018.
Scott Lucas, a Middle East expert at University College Dublin, addresses some of the key issues involved.
Do the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza mean the ceasefire deal is officially dead?
Yes. This is the end of the two-month ceasefire that paused Israel’s open-ended war on Gaza. The six-week phase one of the ceasefire officially ended on March 1, after some hostages held by Hamas were exchanged for some Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.
There never was a possibility of a phase two. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing pressure from hard-right groups inside and close to his government and still vowing to destroy Hamas, was never going to accept a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas remaining in the Strip. Hamas was never going to accept eviction – and there was no prospect of agreement on a successor Palestinian government for Gaza.
So Netanyahu, also being pressed by families of the remaining 59 hostages, sought an extension of phase one with the return of all those dead or alive. Hamas, whose last leverage is retaining those hostages, demanded a phase two.
Israel cut off humanitarian assistance earlier this month. Returning to the aerial assault was the next step. The renewal of ground attacks will be next.
There is no long-term plan at the moment. Netanyahu needs a short-term return of the hostages to escape his political bind, not to mention his ongoing bribery trial.
Israel’s hard right – and Donald Trump – may envisage a depopulated Gaza under Israeli military rule. But all such ambitions will be suspended as the death and destruction continues.
What has been overshadowed is the possibility of a long-term plan in the West Bank, where Israel has been stepping up military operations and violence is escalating. As the world watches Gaza, the Israelis may seek to expand and consolidate their de facto rule through settlements in a programme which will be tantamount to annexation.
Donald Trump saw the Gaza ceasefire as his deal. How will he react to Netanyahu breaking it?
Trump was happy to grab the immediate, self-proclaimed glory of “peacemaker” for phase one.
Since there was no possibility of being a peacemaker for a phase two, Trump set this aside for the fantasy of Trump Gaza and his golden statue on the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Now he will be content to blame and bash Hamas.
Meanwhile the US has been attacking the Houthis in Yemen. What is Trump’s strategy here?
The airstrikes are, in part at least, Trump speaking to the American public. He poses as a “peacemaker” at times, but he enjoys playing the tough guy. And, at a time when economic issues and Musk-inflicted chaos may dent his approval rating, he could rally support with the bombing.
At the same time, Trump has carried out his standard ploy with Iran’s leaders: give me a photo opportunity for the “art of the deal” or I’ll “rain hell on you”.
A direct strike on Tehran would unleash repercussions throughout the Middle East. Even though Iran has been weakened in the past year, it still has the capability to strike Americans in the region.
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So the low-cost option is to fire on Iran’s ally in Yemen. Some officials in the Trump administration will favour this as a way of putting pressure on the Iranians ahead of any potential talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Others will see this as part of backing for Israel amid the open-ended war in Gaza, and still others could endorse the step as a bolstering of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And there is always the argument that the strikes could deter Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
The Iranian response has been fairly muted. Why is that?
Tehran’s projection of power has been shaken by the fall of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the decimation of Hezbollah in Lebanon last year, and an eroding position in Iraq, where Iran’s influence over the government of prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is looking increasingly tenuous.
The economy is in a parlous state. In early 2018, the exchange rate was 45,000 Iranian rial to the dollar. Now it is approaching 1 million to the dollar.
Inflation is officially at 36%, but is far higher in reality, particularly for food and other essentials. Unemployment is rising and infrastructure is crumbling. There are shortages of electricity in a country that is the world’s seventh-largest oil producer.
Having faced the “Woman, life, freedom” protests since September 2022, the regime is caught between making accommodations to public discontent and cracking down on rights. Some political prisoners have been released, but authorities are pursuing a draconian campaign against women who dare not to wear the hijab.
Hardliners are trying to curb the centrist government, forcing out the economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, and the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was central in the 2015 agreement that restricted Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Pursuing both that domestic campaign and confrontation abroad is a tall order.
What does this mean for a new nuclear deal with Iran?
Some Trump advisers may believe they can use the sledgehammer in Yemen to bludgeon Iran to the negotiating table and Trump’s photo opportunity with the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, or Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Good luck with that. Iran may be weakened, but Khamenei is not going to negotiate at the point of an American weapon. Responding to news of a Trump letter to Tehran that threatened, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal,” last week Khamenei dismissed the idea of talking with the Trump administration.
He said: “When we know they won’t honour it, what’s the point of negotiating? Therefore, the invitation to negotiate … is a deception of public opinion.”
Recent history is instructive. In 2013, Khamenei finally relented to nuclear deal talks when told by the then president, Hassan Rouhani, of an imminent economic collapse if Iran held out. More than five years later, however, the Iranian leadership was prepared to withstand Trump’s “maximum pressure” and withdrawal from the nuclear agreement.
Iran’s idea for talks was based on a cautious process beginning with confidence-building measures on both sides. But a US approach predicated on bombing and bluster has effectively sidelined that.
Scott Lucas 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 2025 Britain is marking the 200th anniversary of the modern railway. Many will be quick to celebrate the legacy of steam engines and the old red lion railway logo, but there’s one bit of Britain’s railway that perhaps doesn’t get enough praise – British Rail. Abbreviated to BR, the brand is 60 this year.
BR officially began trading in 1965 and ended with the privatisation of the railways in 1997. But despite the brand coming to the end of the line, many of its iconic elements remain on the railways today. These include the “double arrow” logo, the font known as Rail Alphabet and a whole palette of colours and styles.
State-owned Great British Railways, which is replacing Network Rail as the operator of most of Britain’s rail infrastructure as well as taking over the privatised franchise system, will unveil a logo in May. This may well incorporate the double arrow. The messaging is about the hope of “restoring pride” in Britain’s rail network.
BR as an organisation, on the other hand, has an often controversial legacy. Those who remember it are quick to complain of late-running trains, high fares and a poor standard of service – including the soggy British Rail sandwich. This legacy is often politicised. One could equally argue that it was a cutting-edge business that served the people in times of dire economic crises, with recessions in the 1970s and 80s as well as the decline in manufacturing that led to widespread unemployment.
The railways were nationalised under the 1947 Transport Act and managed by “British Railways”. Back in the 1950s, the railway had a poor reputation. As one survey respondent described, the railway was a “big, monolithic institution, not at all concerned with the welfare of the individual”.
Trains were often late and dirty, the result of a lack of investment combined with the dying days of the steam era. Coupled to this, British Railways was hesitant about outside intervention, whether from managers, government officials or even passengers. Efforts to improve the railway began with the 1955 modernisation plan, which made a number of strategic recommendations. But by 1960 it had failed to deliver any financial benefits.
For all nationalised industries in Britain, the 1960s were different. With the release of a government white paper in 1961, all the state-owned industries including gas, electricity and airways were set financial targets.
One of the outcomes of this for the railways was Dr Richard Beeching’s Reshaping of British Railways plan published in 1963. It included a number of changes, including slashing the number of unprofitable routes.
My recent research has examined BR marketing in the 1960s and 1970s, and found that this period represented one of great change in the history of marketing the railways.
This included the introduction of the “British Rail” brand, with the publication of a corporate identity manual in July 1965. This represented management slowly opening up to recruit marketing and PR experts from the private sector, including from consumer giants like L’Oréal.
Compared to other operators in Europe, BR received one of the lowest government subsidies. Over its operational life, BR fought hard to innovate in the market with the support and resources it had.
It used new methods to locate and identify consumers, targeted advertising and services, and teamed up with private-sector giants like Kellogg’s and Persil with offers for discounted tickets. It also created new pricing structures, including Awaydays, Weekend Returns and Railcards.
A fierce competitor
As a nationalised railway, it might be easy to assume that BR had a monopoly and therefore did not have to compete. But this couldn’t be further from the reality. The car business was booming, with cheaper, more reliable models on offer. And, thanks to government infrastructure policy, more roads, car parks and fuel stations were being built.
Other domestic transport like coaches (the National Bus Company was formed in 1968) applied constant pressure. And British Airways launched its domestic “shuttle” services between London and other UK cities in 1975, promising passengers they could just “turn up and go” without the need to book.
This also marked a point at which marketing experts shifted their focus from places to people, identifying not only who wanted to travel but why. This included focusing on specific market segments by gender.
In the 1970s, BR’s InterCity launched a TV campaign with the slogan “Travel Inter-City Like the Men Do”, which focused efforts on middle-aged women looking to travel to get away from their domestic duties.
Rail travel could be a feminist issue too.
Similarly, messaging for business travellers tightened. Before the 1960s, business travel was about luxury. Now it was about economic efficiency, where businessmen could work, eat and sleep on the train in advance of their meetings (none of which you could do if you were driving to a meeting).
In the 1980s, before his horrifying crimes came to light, BR brought in TV star Jimmy Savile as the face of rail travel. Although hard to believe today, given what the public now knows about Savile, it was a coup at the time because of his media and business profile.
But today, the railways are at a turning point. The government’s plans to nationalise railway franchises has prompted excitement from organisations like passenger group Bring Back British Rail.
Let’s be clear: nationalisation on its own is not a silver bullet, though the BR case shows that it should be possible to have a nationalised industry that can serve the public interest and compete within the wider economy. Crucially, BR was an innovative marketer. What follows next should endeavour to be the same.
Lewis Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The UK government’s decision to abruptly close all applications for its flagship nature-friendly farming scheme has shocked many of the country’s farmers and environmentalists.
The sustainable farming incentive (SFI) is one of a series of schemes which pays farmers in England to nurture the soil and wildlife and improve water quality. It is far from perfect.
People have criticised its complexity and lack of clarity, its financial viability or its impact on how farms operate and how this would change the balance between producing food and reaching environmental goals.
It’s too early to tell if these critics were correct, but the SFI certainly provided some stability for British farmers after EU farm subsidies ended post-Brexit. It seemed poised to make some positive impact.
The government says a revised version will be announced in the coming months, but it will be hard to regain the trust of farmers. The decision to close the scheme for now throws a stark light on a broader issue: the tendency to prioritise immediate financial needs over the long-term health of both the farming sector and the environment.
This is a classic example of what economists call “future discounting”, and it’s a dangerous game to play when it comes to vital services.
Essentially, future discounting means we value things more in the present than we do in the future. If you are promised £100 today, or £110 in two months, which would you take? Sometimes there’s no right or wrong answer – do what you think is right for you with that £100. But sometimes… well, sometimes there is a right answer.
The value of now, the value of the future
The SFI scheme offers vital support for sustainable practices that, while crucial, often require upfront investment. This includes cover cropping, for example, where a crop is grown simply to cover a field rather than to be harvested.
Cover cropping can help rejuvenate soils and is good for insects, but there are costs attached to purchasing the seeds, sowing them, and missing out on income by not growing a commodity crop.
Other investment examples might involve creating grassland or ponds and ditches to hold back rainwater and prevent floods. These things have an immediate impact on farm output and activities, but with an eye to longer-term benefit.
Investment in soil health might lower yields in the short run, but should pay off in the long run. William Edge / shutterstock
The sudden closure of the scheme creates an immediate financial vacuum for those who missed the (unannounced) window. Thankfully, farmers with existing agreements will continue within the scheme, and applications that had been submitted prior to the sudden closure will still be assessed.
However, even for those who are currently enrolled, this about-face instils fear that support will be withdrawn in the years to come – long before something like an expanded woodland has come to fruition.
The government says that it has run out of money for the current budget cycle. Rather than celebrating the fact that so many farmers want to be involved, want to do adopt better farming practices and act as custodians of nature, it instead panicked and shut people out.
Too much demand for a nature-friendly future, not enough cold hard cash. And now we can see how the discounting works – the perceived urgency of cashflow today overshadows the long-term benefits of healthy soil, thriving biodiversity, and a resilient ecosystem.
There are specific actions that SFIs are meant to support, including soil health, water quality, biodiversity and pest management. Each of these requires investment to manage, and to rectify when things go wrong (see the huge fines for water companies).
For example, it is easier to address issues of water quality by supporting better land use – reduced agri-chemicals, more grassland, tree cover, and so on – than to treat poor water quality downstream.
But farmers operate both within tight financial margins and on long time-scales. They need security of income to plan land use, including whether they can afford to implement alternative strategies. But they do want to. That’s why there’s been so much demand for SFIs.
A false economy
Sympathy could be rustled up for the government, trying to manage complex budgets in a complicated time. But it has made one misstep after another in relation to both food and farming (farmer protests over inheritance tax, for instance) and the environment (such as the planned Heathrow airport expansion)).
So while immediate fiscal prudence is important, ignoring the long-term consequences of environmental degradation is a false economy. We have a responsibility to value the future as much as the present. Failing to do so will have serious consequences for our environment, our food security, and the well-being of future generations.
Rather than discounting futures, we should be doing the opposite – negative futures discounting. It sounds upside-down, but it boils down to this: we should value the future more, not less.
In particular, we should be focused on nurturing good farming and environmental protection. These should take centre stage as mission critical things that we need, and not just for now, but always.
The sustainable farming incentive shutdown is another chance to reflect on the fact that farming and environmental sustainability are not luxuries, but necessities. We cannot afford to continually discount the future, sacrificing the future of farming and the environment for the sake of short-term finance. It’s time to re-evaluate our priorities.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jo Lindsay Walton, Principal Research Fellow in Arts, Climate and Technology, University of Sussex
The first half rips your heart out. The second attempts, tenderly, to put it back again. This is The Winter’s Tale, currently being performed at The Tobacco Factory, Bristol.
In Shakespeare’s tragicomedy, King Leontes of Sicilia, in a fit of jealous paranoia, falsely accuses his wife Queen Hermione of adultery with their friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia. Quickfire catastrophe unfolds.
Before you know it, the couple’s newborn daughter, Perdita, has been abandoned on a Bohemian hillside, left to the mercy of wolves and ravens. Sixteen years later, raised by the mercy of Bohemian shepherds instead, Perdita falls in love with Polixenes’ son. There are disguises. There are japes. And, astonishingly, there is reconciliation.
It’s a marvellous production, directed by Heidi Vaughan, and it marks a welcome return of Shakespeare to The Tobacco Factory after a hiatus. With a cast drawn from Bristol’s deep talent pool, the connections on stage feel secure, energetic, and richly nuanced.
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Hermione and Paulina are two of Shakespeare’s most intriguing roles for women, and Alice Barclay and Rose Wardlow do them justice. Barclay is stunning as the stunned Hermione, while Wardlow brings layers of vulnerability and sarkiness to Paulina’s righteous fury. Many of the smaller and medium roles shine. Amy Loughton (Perdita’s shepherdess mum) and Bill Ward (Polixenes) find organic situational comedy in moments that could easily have been merely functional.
King Leontes’ tyranny, which dominates the first half, is played by Felix Hayes as a kind of psychotic episode. I’m torn. Hayes has a strong stage presence, with a whiplash switch from gentle loveliness to shuffling, brooding, whimpering monstrosity.
It’s a spellbinding breakdown. But I was left wondering – might a less unhinged portrayal have better exposed the complicity of the court?
The costume and set design also feel a little elusive. This ambiguity means the nature of Leontes’ authority is hard to pin down, as is the misogyny that shapes his tyranny. With androgynous-suited courtiers and soft furnishings, it’s hard to pin down the time or place, unless it’s the soft play area at Wacky Warehouse.
The choice seems deliberate, leaning into that timeless fairytale quality. But The Winter’s Tale is specifically about time, including a particular time – now.
What The Winter’s Tale can tell us in 2025
The play celebrates the healing power of time, nature and the turn of the seasons. But the seasons themselvesare not immune to tyranny. In other words, The Winter’s Tale is about responses to tyranny, as well as tyranny itself.
Paulina (Wardlow) attempts to bloody well sort it out. She directly confronts both Leontes (“this most cruel usage of your queen, / not able to produce more accusation / than your own weak-hing’d fancy, something savours / of tyranny”) and the cowardly court (“such as you, /
that creep like shadows by him, and do sigh / at each his needless heavings”).
But how about the others? Camillo (Dorian Simpson) pragmatically scurries for the hills to bide his time. Cleomenes (Amy Loughton) musters some flustered bravery. Antigonus (Stu McLoughlin), let’s be frank, deserves to be eaten by a bear. It’s lucky there’s one handy.
The Winter’s Tale can be tricky to stage in the round. It’s a story filled with centripetal forces – characters beg, vow, comfort, cling, smother – yet the space encourages just the opposite: centrifugal forces, outward motion, striding away, lobbing repartee over a shoulder, performers unfolding like a clockwork mechanism. The round staging comes into its own, however, in beautiful scenes of revelry, song, and dance, which are also scenes of healing.
Someone once told me that boredom is an important part of healing. The lengthy pastoral scenes of the First Folio Winter’s Tale seem to bear that out. But for this production, Robin Belfield has given the script a tight edit, shortening many of these scenes.
Ultimately, I’m grateful for the judicious cuts – people do, after all, need to leave the theatre eventually, and the two halves feel equally balanced.
The Winter’s Tale proposes that real healing comes from remorse, time, and distance. It also comes from the company of those less wrapped up in the trauma. Your wounds will define you until you learn to relinquish the lead role in your own tragedy, and accept a supporting role in somebody else’s comedy.
By the end of the play, Leontes feels remorse – but is it enough to provide healing for those he has hurt? Or is something more missing – some more explicit reckoning or reparative justice? I don’t know. The Winter’s Tale won’t resolve the question of whether healing is ever truly complete. It only asks whether we are willing to live with the weight of what cannot be undone.
Jo Lindsay Walton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The rate of children permanently excluded from school in England rose against last year and is higher than before the pandemic.
A recent BBC documentary by actor Idris Elba pointed out that being excluded from school can be a tipping point that pushes a child towards serious violence. This observation is backed up by convincing evidence.
Data in a joint report by the Ministry of Justice and Department for Education shows that the risk of being cautioned or charged for a serious violence offence by age 18 is 15 times higher in children who had been excluded from school.
Crucially, though, exclusion and violence have many risk factorsin common. Children who have special educational needs, have grown up in deprivation or have been in care, for instance, are more at risk both of being excluded from school and of committing a violent offence.
This makes the job of teasing out the impact of exclusion on violence challenging. Research needs to account for the contribution of these other factors.
We carried out research to isolate the effect of school exclusion on serious violence, trying to do so in a way that just focused on the impact of exclusion.
The best way to know whether or not something has caused a change is to split a group of people at random and give one group something and not the other, be that a medicine, a programme or anything else. This is known as a randomised controlled trial.
Finding a cause
By randomly splitting the group, any other risk factors – ones that we know about and ones that we don’t – are shared equally across the two groups, so if we see a difference between the groups, the only explanation is the difference introduced by the researchers.
However, there are lots of situations where randomisation would be unethical. We could never randomise people to start smoking to test if it causes a disease, nor could we randomise skydivers to not wear parachutes. School exclusion is a situation like this. Excluding some children but not excluding others in the name of science would be a dangerous experiment.
Instead of this unethical coin toss, we used a new technique from medical research, known as a target trial emulation. This approach seeks to mimic the circumstances of a randomised controlled trial.
It does so by ensuring that the study only includes people who meet the “eligibility” criteria for the study, that the two groups are as similar as possible and that they are followed up for identical periods.
It is important to define who is “eligible” for exclusion. While in theory, any children can be excluded, they are only truly eligible if they have done something “exclusion-worthy”.
Finding groups of people who meet these criteria and where some have been excluded and others have not is challenging. Fortunately, in 2020, the Department for Education linked the records of over 15 million people to criminal records held by the Ministry of Justice and anonymised them. This data set is just the type of “big data” we need for this question.
We identified every record of a child who had been excluded between 2006 and 2016 – over 20,000 children. We then matched these records against those of other children from the same data set who had the same background, educational experience and history of suspensions and (non-violent) offending, but who, crucially, were never excluded.
Following those cases from the time of the exclusion and comparing them, we found that, within a year, the excluded children were more than twice as likely to commit serious violent crime than their not excluded peers.
A doubling of risk of the most serious violence in an already high-risk group points to exclusion being an important factor in youth violence.
But because we cannot rule out other factors and because we can’t know if the comparison group were truly “eligible” for exclusion, this may be as close as we can get to understanding the causal influence of exclusion.
Cut back on exclusions?
The evidence on a link between exclusion and future violence might suggest that it would be a good idea to limit exclusions from schools. But this is an extremely contentious issue.
Limiting or preventing exclusions risks schools having to spend a great deal of precious resources keeping a small number of children in school. The Department for Education and many teachers state that exclusions are necessary when a child’s behaviour becomes a risk to their classmates and teachers or harms the potential to learn.
On the other hand, continuing with increasing rates of exclusions risks letting down the most vulnerable and traumatised children – as well as potentially creating victims of crime and heaping pressure on prisons later on.
Critics of exclusions argue that, as well as increasing risk of offending, exclusions unfairly target children from ethnic minorities and children with special educational needs, and should be avoided as much as possible.
We may never truly know the causal effect of exclusion on violent offending. But perhaps we do not need to. Addressing the common causes of exclusion and violence should be the greater priority.
The warning signs for a child’s exclusion and violence will have been clear in many cases but too often schools and teachers lack the time and resources to help and include a child showing these signs, falling back on disciplinary policies that may be doing more harm than good.
It would be better to introduce an inclusive system that views schools as being part of a system that does not just respond to violence but can prevent it. However, although exclusion from school may be a trigger and a predictor of serious violence, preventing such violence cannot be the responsibility of schools alone.
Iain Brennan receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council, Home Office, College of Policing, Youth Endowment Fund and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside.
Rosie Cornish receives funding from the UK Medical Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Youth Endowment Fund, the Home Office and the Avon and Somerset Violence Reduction Partnership.
Source: Rosneft – Rosneft – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
In honor of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, ANK Bashneft (part of Rosneft) organized a round table with the participation of historians, industry veterans and schoolchildren from the Movement of the First. The goal of the patriotic action is to preserve the historical memory of the feat of the Soviet people in the fight against the Nazi invaders.
During the discussion, the participants talked about the labor feat of Bashkir oil workers during the Great Patriotic War. Schoolchildren were able to ask questions to veterans and historians and learn about the key role of fuel and lubricants from Bashkiria in the victory of the Red Army in the legendary battles of Stalingrad and the Kursk Bulge.
Bashkiria was one of the most significant centers of the fuel and energy complex of the country during the war. From July 1941 to May 1942, the People’s Commissariat of the Oil Industry of the USSR was located in Ufa. During the war, new fields and deposits were discovered in the republic, and the capacity of oil refineries was significantly increased.
In the period 1941-1945, Bashkiria accounted for 4.5% of the all-Union oil production – 5.1 million tons, as well as 6.5% of the production of aviation and automobile gasoline – 1.3 million tons. In addition, other oil products were produced in the amount of more than 1 million tons.
During the war, Bashkir oil workers not only successfully developed the Ishimbay and Tuymazinskoye fields, but also discovered new ones. Among them were the Pokrovskoye, Kinzebulatovskoye, Salikhovskoye fields, as well as Devonian oil deposits, which allowed for a sharp increase in oil production at Bashkir fields. Bashkiria became the key center of the Volga-Ural oil province, which was called the “Second Baku”.
Industry veterans told the young participants about the amazing labor feats of Bashkir oil workers of those years, who, in the difficult conditions of war, achieved great results and did everything in the name of the common Victory.
Separately, during the discussion, attention was drawn to the work of women in oil fields and oil refineries in Bashkiria during the Great Patriotic War. For example, during the war, the training center of the Ufa Oil Refinery trained about 800 workers, 470 of whom were women. Shifts of 12 hours could be extended to four in a row.
Bashkir oil workers were repeatedly awarded the Challenge Red Banner of the State Defense Committee (GKO). In 1946, the Red Banners of the GKO as a symbol of labor glory were transferred for eternal storage to the No. 1 Tuymazaneft Trust and the Ufa Oil Refinery.
The round table paid special attention to the issues of preserving historical truth and forming spiritual and patriotic values in the younger generation. At the end of the discussion, it was decided to hold such meetings regularly.
Reference:
ANK Bashneft is one of the oldest enterprises in the country’s oil and gas industry, operating in the extraction and processing of oil and gas. The company’s key assets are located in the Republic of Bashkortostan. Oil and gas exploration and production are also carried out in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug – Yugra, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Orenburg Region, Perm Krai and the Republic of Tatarstan.
Department of Information and Advertising of PJSC NK Rosneft March 18, 2025
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Chicago, March 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Nerdio, the automated End-User Computing (EUC) platform transforming how organizations deploy and manage Microsoft cloud technologies, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement for a $500 million minority investment from General Atlantic, a leading global growth investor, with participation from Lead Edge Capital and StepStone. Upon closing, the investment will quadruple Nerdio’s valuation in just two years to $1 billion+.
Companies waste millions trying to manage complex cloud environments, relying on highly-skilled IT talent and outdated tools. This challenge has become increasingly critical as flexible work models become the norm and end-user computing requires increasing sophistication. Industry analysts project the Desktop-as-a-Service market will exceed $60 billion by 2037, growing by 18% annually, as organizations worldwide seek more efficient ways to deliver secure, high-performance digital workspaces to their employees.
Nerdio solves this problem with a platform that simplifies Microsoft cloud management, automating both routine and complex processes while making the most of existing resources and enabling cost savings. The platform allows organizations to deliver better digital workspace experiences for employees while eliminating the complexity typically associated with cloud infrastructure—all without requiring specialized technical expertise.
The Nerdio platform serves more than 5 million users across 15,000 customers in over 50 countries, including Chevron, Impact Networking, Kraft Heinz, ASDA, Carnival Cruise Line, Willis Towers Watson, and Penn State University.
Nerdio’s record over the past year included:
Scaling profitably at over 85% year-over-year ARR growth
Being awarded 2024 Microsoft Americas Partner of the Year
Influencing more than $350 million of Microsoft revenue
Launching 20 product releases, including new Microsoft 365 management capabilities for Nerdio Manager for MSP, broad endpoint management and application delivery enhancements, and AI infused into all products
Expanding its global presence with new offices in the EMEA and APAC regions
“The workplace has fundamentally changed, with remote and hybrid models becoming standard for organizations of all sizes,” said Vadim Vladimirskiy, Co-Founder and CEO of Nerdio. “Most companies struggle with the technical complexities and costs of supporting this transformation. Nerdio’s platform turns what would be months of engineering work into automated processes that any IT team can manage. We are pleased to partner with General Atlantic on the next stage of our growth journey and believe this investment will accelerate our mission to make cloud management simple and cost-effective for every organization, regardless of their technical resources.”
“Switching from traditional virtual desktop infrastructures to Nerdio has truly been transformative for Teleperformance,” said Garion Bown, Global Vice President of Virtualization Technologies at Teleperformance. “The challenge with traditional VDI is that you still have that legacy mindset with infrastructure. With the capabilities of the cloud, you now have the ability to essentially manage your entire infrastructure, and that’s what drove me to Nerdio. The ability to no matter where I was in the world, have a central management plane for my organization.”
The new funding will help drive innovation and growth across several strategic areas:
Accelerating product innovation for the End-User Computing (EUC) market and Managed Service Providers (MSPs), including enhanced Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Microsoft 365 management solutions to simplify IT operations and boost efficiency
Expanding Nerdio’s global presence to serve growing international demand
Augmenting its engineering and customer success teams to support rapid customer growth
“Nerdio is enabling the transition of virtualization to the cloud and is delivering immediate and measurable value to organizations struggling with cloud complexity,” said Aaron Goldman, Managing Director and Head of Enterprise Technology at General Atlantic. “The team’s ability to combine technical innovation with ease of use has resulted in remarkable customer loyalty and growth.”
Asher Hecht, Principal at General Atlantic, added, “We’re excited to support Nerdio’s vision of making advanced cloud workspace technology accessible to all organizations.”
As part of the investment, General Atlantic will take two seats on Nerdio’s board, with Aaron Goldman and Asher Hecht representing the firm. J.P. Morgan served as exclusive financial advisor to Nerdio. With no debt, ongoing profitability, and a growing global footprint, Nerdio is well-positioned to scale while continuing to prioritize its mission—making cloud management accessible, cost-effective, and effortless for organizations of all sizes and managed service providers.
Westminster City Council has launched the 10 by 10 programme designed to give children the opportunity to take part in 10 enriching activities by the time they turn 10-years-old.
The 10 by 10 programme aims to offer all children free and low-cost opportunities to explore new talents, learn important life skills, and experience everything on offer across Westminster. 10 by 10 represents one of many council initiatives that is intended to reduce inequalities in the City – an objective which sits at the heart of our Fairer Westminster strategy.
In partnership with schools and local organisations, we have curated a wide-ranging offer to empower children to complete the 10 activities before they turn 10-years-old. All activities are hosted here:
4. Take part in drama and performing arts. Attending a theatre production
5. Visit the seaside and the countryside
6. Experience museums, galleries, and heritage sites in Westminster that include the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, Cartoon Museum, Somerset House, (and sites in nearby local authorities – like Natural History Museum, Science Museum, London Zoo)
7. Take part in camping trips and overnight residentials
8. Learn to ride a bike to improve children’s confidence
9. Take part in debating
10. Register with a library and use it at least 5 times per year
10 by 10 is an exciting addition to the council’s children’s services department, which was rated Outstanding by Ofsted in January 2025. The programme joins other vital family support services, such as our Family Hubs which are located across Westminster and specialised support for children with disabilities, including the Tresham Centres.
This campaign is part of the council’s effort to create further awareness of free and low-cost activities in the borough with specific consideration for affordability for residents.
By ensuring that all children have access to these experiences, we are taking important steps toward creating a fairer and more inclusive city for all.
Pictured is: Cllr Less, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services; Cllr Hug, Leader of the Council; Lyndsy Killip, Executive Headteacher of London Community Education Federation; Iraklis Kolokotronis, Head of Early Years
Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Cllr Aicha Less said:
All children deserve equal access to enriching activities and the ‘10 by 10’ campaign offers a way to remove barriers that often deny access to these life-changing opportunities.
Throughout the process we have kept affordability for families in mind – with all activities being offered for free or at a low cost so no child misses out.
I encourage parents, carers and guardians to get their children involved to empower them with new knowledge, experiences, and confidence.
To see the free and low-cost activities on offer to help children complete the 10 by 10 check out the directory on the Family Information Hub: westminster.gov.uk/10by10
Inspectors visited Edward the Elder Primary School last month and, in their report published this week, found that everyone ‘subscribes to the values of partnership for achievement’.
Staff, pupils and parents ‘are right to be proud of their school’, with pupils achieving ‘high standards’ in reading, writing and mathematics.
Staff hold ‘consistently high expectations’ for how pupils should behave, and they are described as ‘very polite and friendly’ and praised for the way they ‘concentrate and listen well’.
The curriculum is ‘well thought through with carefully considered concepts, knowledge and vocabulary identified’. The school, part of Elston Hall Learning Trust, prioritises reading, with staff ‘experts in early reading’ and pupils achieving high standards in the subject.
Edward the Elder is a ‘very inclusive school with ambition for pupils with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND)’. Pupils with SEND are identified swiftly and support is introduced to help them to succeed. As a result, pupils with SEND ‘achieve well’.
The school also ‘places importance on building pupils’ character’, with residential visits and a range of inclusive extra curricular activities and visits which ‘enrich the curriculum’.
Edward the Elder is ‘highly visible in the local community’, regularly involving parents and carers in pupils’ learning, and governors and trustees know their roles and responsibilities well, having ‘an in depth understanding of the work of the school’.
Inspectors concluded that Edward the Elder Primary School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at its last inspection in 2019, when it was judged to be Good.
Headteacher Bridget Highman said: “We are absolutely thrilled with the outcome of our recent Ofsted inspection.
“This result reflects the hard work, dedication and commitment of our talented staff, governors, supportive families, and, most importantly, our wonderful pupils at Team Edwards.
“It is a testament to the strong community spirit we have here and throughout our Trust, and we will continue to work together to provide the best possible learning environment for every child in our care.”
Councillor Jacqui Coogan, the City of Wolverhampton Council’s Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education, added: “This is an excellent report about a school which has high expectations for its pupils, and which is supporting them to achieve these high expectations.
“I would like to congratulate Bridget Highman, her leadership team and staff, the governors and trustees and of course the parents and pupils on their continuing success.”
They were open to all City of Wolverhampton Council social workers and adults and children’s social care practitioners across 4 venues, with staff invited to share good practice and reflect on the theme of this year’s World Social Work Day, which is ‘Strengthening Intergenerational Solidarity for Enduring Wellbeing’.
It emphasises the importance of caring and respecting across generations to build strong societies, sustain the environment, and share wisdom for a better future.
Councillor Jasbir Jaspal, Cabinet Member for Adults and Wellbeing, said: “World Social Work Day is a great opportunity to celebrate the fantastic work social workers do day in, day out, for our city’s adults, children and young people.
“We arranged a series of activities enabling social workers and social care practitioners to collaborate with one another, and to learn and to share good practice across Children’s and Adult Services, and staff were encouraged to have meaningful conversations about all things related to World Social Work Day.”
Councillor Jacqui Coogan, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education, added: “Our social workers do an incredible job, often in very difficult circumstances, and it is important that we recognise the vital role they play, not just on World Social Work Day but indeed every day of the year.”
For more details about World Social Work Day, organised by the International Federation of Social Workers, please visit IFSW.
For more information about social work jobs available with the City of Wolverhampton Council, please visit Be the Social Worker you want to be.
Meanwhile, the British Association of Social Workers is once again recognising colleagues from the council as part of its Amazing Social Workers campaign which is running on social media throughout World Social Work Month – visit Facebook and X over the coming days for more information.
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is to host an exclusive workshop aimed at anyone involved in indoor crop production, focusing on increasing yields while cutting resource use.
Taking place at ARU’s Chelmsford campus on 6-7 May, it will be the first time that Netherlands-based Plant Empowerment – global leaders in sustainable crop production – have run a workshop in the UK.
Plant Empowerment are renowned for their data-driven approach to optimising plant growth by maintaining natural balances, and their philosophy focuses on enhancing crop resilience, increasing yields, and ensuring efficient use of water, energy, and nutrients.
The two-day event will feature practical demonstrations and expert insights aimed at growers, industry leaders, innovators, and academics.
Anglia Ruskin University’s Writtle campus, located just outside Chelmsford, is a leading centre for agricultural and horticultural courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Established as a specialist land-based institution in 1893, Writtle merged with Anglia Ruskin University last year to become ARU Writtle.
“Plant Empowerment view a greenhouse as a connected ecosystem, where light, water, climate, and nutrients must work in harmony to maximise plant health and productivity. Their innovative approach is transforming indoor crop production, and we’re excited to host their first UK workshop here at ARU.
“Attendees will benefit from interactive sessions, live demonstrations of technology applications – including greenhouse management and environmental control – and networking opportunities focused on tackling food security and sustainability challenges.”
Dr Kami Baghalian, Senior Lecturer in Crop Production at ARU Writtle
Topics that will be covered during the workshop include Exploring the Rootzone: Understanding its critical role in crop health; Light and Irrigation: Managing resources for maximum growth efficiency; A Fresh Approach to Pest and Disease Management: Reducing crop risks through innovation; and Optimal Pollination Strategies: Tailored techniques for both summer and winter conditions.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Press release
Curriculum and Assessment Review publishes interim findings
Becky Francis and review team publish their initial findings and set out the next phase of work which will focus on four key areas.
The curriculum and assessment review interim report, published today (Tuesday 18 March), finds the current system is not delivering for every child, as it sets out its next phase of work which will focus on four key areas.
Over 7,000 responses were submitted to the review team as part of an extensive engagement programme, including young people and parents, educators and experts as well as employers and wider organisations with an interest in what is taught in our schools.
Professor Becky Francis and the review panel’s interim report confirms that many aspects of the curriculum and assessment system are working well and reiterates Francis’ initial assessment that the review should be focusing on evolution, not revolution.
However, the panel’s findings highlight that, in practice, ‘high standards’ currently too often means ‘high standards for some’ rather than ‘high standards for all’. The current system is not delivering for young people with SEND, or for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, where there remains a stubborn attainment gap.
The interim report identifies four key areas needing improvement:
Ensuring high standards for all – exploring how curriculum and assessment can be more inclusive and equitable, to ensure excellence for all.
Addressing subject-specific challenges, and ensuring curriculum is consistently achieving depth and breadth – including an in-depth analysis of individual subjects to ensure appropriate depth and mastery of knowledge, and that subjects are cutting edge.
Responding to social and technological change – examining how education can better prepare students to grasp the opportunities of the future, for example heightened digital skills and media literacy to address trends in digital information and the rise of AI, and scientific and cultural knowledge to meet the challenges of climate change.
Ensuring pathways beyond GCSE work for all – examining the current pathways to ensure they work for all young people in supporting successful routes to further study or employment, especially those from less privileged backgrounds.
Curriculum and Assessment Review Lead, Professor Becky Francis CBE said:
I have learnt much from our data analysis and research, and from the fantastic response to our call for evidence. The review panel and I have a clear picture of the present state of the curriculum and assessment system.
We have a deep understanding of where the key challenges lie and where our efforts to improve the system will see the best result in ensuring all young people are able to achieve and thrive.
This evidence gives us confidence in embarking on the next stage of the review which will see us do further analysis on these issues, including subject content.
The next stage of the curriculum and assessment review will develop analysis in the four key areas, considering questions that have been raised across different subjects about the specificity, relevance, volume and diversity of content. Keeping in line with the aim of evolution, not revolution, work will include:
considering concerns that have been raised across subjects about the specificity, relevance, volume and diversity of content, and conduct closer analysis to diagnose each subject’s specific issues and explore and test a range of solutions.
considering the impact of current performance measures on young people’s choices and outcomes.
exploring level 2 and 3 pathways at Post-16, with special attention to vocational routes and support for progression.
conducting further analysis of assessment and consider any necessary improvements.
The review expects to recommend a phased programme of work across the subjects listed in the national curriculum. This will allow reforms to be made incrementally in a way that does not destabilise the system.
The review is ongoing with a final report and recommendations due to be published in autumn.
Notes to Editor:
The review was launched by the government in July 2024 to look closely at the key challenges to attainment for young people, and the barriers which hold children back from the opportunities and life chances they deserve – in particular those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, or with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).
Mastery in education refers to a teaching and learning strategy where students need to fully understand a concept before moving on to related concepts.
The 10th National Security Education Day thematic exhibition was launched at the Hong Kong Museum of History today, kickstarting a series of activities on national security education.
The exhibition will be open to the general public from tomorrow.
April 15 this year marks the 10th National Security Education Day. The thematic exhibition adopts the national theme of “The 10th anniversary of National Security Education Day: advancing towards more in-depth & effective implementation”, reflecting on the development of promoting national security education in the country and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region over the years.
Officiating at the opening ceremony of the thematic exhibition, Secretary for Education Choi Yuk-lin said the Education Bureau has been supporting schools in enhancing national education as well as fostering students’ sense of patriotism and awareness of national security.
“We will continue to work hand in hand with all sectors of society to promote national security education, with a view to strengthening the public’s awareness and sense of responsibility in safeguarding national security on their own accord, and creating a positive atmosphere of patriotism and love for Hong Kong.”
The Hong Kong SAR Government stressed that it will continue to widen and deepen the promotion of national security education.
As of the first term of the current school year, over 43,000 students from about 120 primary and secondary schools visited the National Security Exhibition Gallery.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime News
SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Thomas Trotta, age 49, of Dunmore, Pennsylvania, was sentenced on March 13, 2025, to 96 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by a term of supervised release, and to pay restitution in the amount of $2,759,073, by U.S. District Judge Malachy E. Mannion for one count of theft of major artwork.
According to Acting United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, Trotta had previously pleaded guilty to one count of theft of major artwork, and admitted to stealing the following:
“Le Grande Passion” by Andy Warhol and “Springs Winter” by Jackson Pollock stolen in 2005 from the Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania;
Nine (9) World Series rings, seven (7) other championship rings, and two (2) MVP plaques all belonging to Yogi Berra, worth over $500,000 stolen in 2014 from the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center in Little Falls, New Jersey;
Six (6) championship belts, including four belonging to Carmen Basilio and two belonging to Tony Zale stolen in 2015 from the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York;
The Hickok Belt and MVP Trophy belonging to Roger Maris, stolen in 2016 from the Roger Maris Museum in Fargo, North Dakota;
The U.S. Amateur Trophy and a Hickok Belt awarded to Ben Hogan, stolen in 2012 from the USGA Golf Museum & Library;
Fourteen (14) trophies and other awards worth approximately $300,000 stolen in 2012 from the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame in Goshen, New York;
Five (5) trophies worth over $30,000, including the 1903 Belmont Stakes Trophy, stolen in 2013 from the National Racing Museum & Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York;
Three antique firearms stolen in 2006 from Space Farms: Zoo & Museum in Wantage, New Jersey;
A 1903/1904 Tiffany Lamp stolen in 2010 from the Lackawanna Historical Society in Scranton, Pennsylvania,
“Upper Hudson” by Jasper Crospey, worth approximately $120,000, stolen in 2011 from Ringwood Manor in Ringwood, New Jersey;
Antique firearms worth over $150,000, stolen in 2011 from Ringwood Manor in Ringwood, New Jersey;
Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gold nuggets stolen in 2011 from the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, New Jersey;
An antique shotgun worth over $30,000 stolen in 2018 from Space Farms: Zoo & Museum in Wantage, New Jersey;
Trotta committed the above thefts as part of a larger, eight-person conspiracy. After a month-long trial held earlier this year, co-conspirators Nicholas Dombek, age 54, of Thornhurst, Pennsylvania, Damien Boland, age 48, of Moscow, Pennsylvania, and Joseph Atsus, age 48, of Roaring Brook, Pennsylvania, were convicted of conspiracy to commit theft of major artwork, concealment and disposal of major artwork, and interstate transportation of stolen property, as well as multiple related substantive offenses. They are presently pending sentencing.
Three additional co-conspirators pleaded guilty pursuant to felony informations and were sentenced by Judge Mannion earlier this year. They include:
Dawn Trotta, age 53, of Dunmore, Pennsylvania, who was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to commit theft of major artwork, concealment and disposal of major artwork, and interstate transportation of stolen property;
Frank Tassiello, age 52, of Taylor, Pennsylvania, who was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to commit theft of major artwork, concealment and disposal of major artwork, and interstate transportation of stolen property; and
Ralph Parry, age 47, of Springbrook Township, Pennsylvania, who was sentenced to three years of probation as well as a period of home-confinement for conspiracy to commit theft of major artwork, concealment and disposal of major artwork, and interstate transportation of stolen property.
After stealing the above-described items, the conspirators would transport the stolen goods back to northeastern Pennsylvania, often to the residence of Dombek, and melt the memorabilia down into easily transportable metal discs or bars. The conspirators would then sell the raw metal to fences in the New York City area for hundreds or a few thousands of dollars, significantly less than the sports memorabilia would be worth at fair market value.
Dombek burnt the painting “Upper Hudson” by Jasper Crospey, valued at approximately $100,000, to avoid the painting being recovered by investigators and used as evidence against the members of the conspiracy. The whereabouts of many of the other paintings and stolen objects are currently unknown, however, several antique firearms stolen from the Space Farms: Zoo and Museum and the Ringwood Manor Museum, both in New Jersey, were recovered by investigators.
The matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Pennsylvania State Police, the New Jersey State Police, the New York State Police, the New Jersey State Park Police, the Newport Police Department (Rhode Island), the Fargo Police Department (North Dakota), the Chester Police Department (New York), the Exeter Borough Police Department (Pennsylvania), the Scranton Police Department, the Franklin Police Department (New Jersey), the Village of Goshen Police Department (New York), the Metropolitan Police Department (Washington, D.C.), the West Milord Township Police Department (New Jersey), the Montclair Police Department (New Jersey), the Saratoga Springs Police Department (New York), the Canastota Police Department (New York), the South Abington Police Department (Pennsylvania), the Bernards Township Police Department (New Jersey), the Salisbury Township Police Department (Pennsylvania), the Montclair State University Police Department (New Jersey) the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office (Pennsylvania), the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office (New Jersey), the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office (New Jersey), the Orange County District Attorney’s Office (New York), and multiple other local law enforcement agencies from across the country.
Assistant United States Attorneys James M. Buchanan, Jenny Roberts, and Sean Camoni prosecuted the case.
Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
The list of participants in the main track was approved by the Council for the Support of Universities Development Programs – Participants of “Priority 2030”, chaired by the Minister of Education and Science Valery Falkov.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko emphasized that the updated architecture of the Priority 2030 program evaluates the target model of the university and its focus on achieving technological leadership by our country. Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized this in his Address to the Federal Assembly.
“Since this year, the updated Priority 2030 program has been implemented within the framework of the Youth and Children national project. It encourages universities to set ambitious goals and restructure internal processes. An important result is the strengthening of the connection between universities and the real sector of the economy. Since the launch of the program in 2021, the amount of funds invested in the development programs of participating universities by technology partners has doubled – up to 61 billion rubles last year. At the same time, the number of technology partners has also increased – there are already almost 12.5 thousand of them,” the Deputy Prime Minister noted.
A distinctive feature of the current council was the new view of universities on their development programs – the focus of the universities was on specific projects for interaction with industry, emphasized the head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Valery Falkov.
“This is a serious challenge and an important stage for most universities. Each participant presented a specific technology project, through which we assessed all the work, the entire concept of the university for its development strategy. It is especially pleasant to note that heads of regions and representatives of federal ministries came to support their universities. At the defense in each team of participating universities there were top managers, heads of large companies – partners of the universities. All this speaks to the growing role of the program itself and universities in the country’s economy,” said Valery Falkov.
An expert group of researchers representing various subject areas was formed to evaluate strategic technology projects and monitor their implementation. They assessed how ambitious, realistic and resourced the projects submitted by universities were.
Based on the results of the selection, the first group included 11 universities, each of which will receive about 1 billion rubles. The second group included 21 universities, each of which will receive 460 million rubles. The third group included 68 universities – each of them will receive up to 100 million rubles. Subsidy funds can be used to build a system of incentive payments for faculty, develop university infrastructure, purchase high-tech equipment, attract world-class researchers to universities, and organize scientific events.
The total amount of funds that will be distributed among 100 universities will be 27.8 billion rubles. It is important that about 70% of recipients of subsidies under the Priority program are regional universities.
22 universities have received candidate status in the main track of the Priority and will implement their programs independently using their own funds and attracted financing. During this period, the university has the opportunity to apply for a grant. Financing is provided subject to the successful implementation of the development program and a positive assessment by the collegial bodies of the Priority-2030 program.
The approved list of participants and candidates for the 2025 program can be found atlink.
Priority 2030 is the largest state university support program in the modern history of Russia, successfully implemented since 2021. Its goal is to concentrate resources to ensure the contribution of Russian universities to the achievement of the national development goals of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030, to increase the scientific and educational potential of universities and research organizations, and to ensure the participation of higher education institutions in the socio-economic development of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
This year, the Priority 2030 program is focused on achieving technological leadership as one of Russia’s national development goals. Each participating university included in its development program up to three strategic technological projects planned for implementation by 2030 and for the long term up to 2036.
Thanks to the strengthening of ties with the real sector of the economy in 2021–2024, the number of scientific and technological projects implemented by Priority participants more than doubled – from 3.2 thousand to 7.1 thousand.
An important achievement of the program is the influx of applicants to participating universities, most of which are located in the regions. Today, they have 200 thousand more students than in 2021.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Demonstrating that Gen Z and Gen Alpha students embody “STEMpathy”—the fusion of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) skills and a compassionate drive to solve community challenges—Samsung Electronics America has announced the 10 National Finalist schools advancing in the 15th annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition. Selected based on the project pitch videos submitted by this year’s 50 State Winners, each Finalist team will be awarded a prize package of $50,000 in Samsung technology and classroom supplies, and will advance to the final competition round.
Samsung Solve for Tomorrow challenges public school students in grades 6-12 to drive positive change in their communities by applying STEM know-how to address real-world, pressing local issues. Celebrating its 15th year, the award-winning education-based citizenship program launched in 2010 with a mission to boost interest, proficiency, and equity in STEM. Over the years, it has become a force for reshaping the perception of STEM as a vital field for fostering a skilled workforce and informed citizens of tomorrow. To date, Samsung has awarded more than $27 million in resources to nearly 4,000 public schools across the U.S.
This year, with guidance from their teachers, schools, Samsung employee mentors, and local businesses and public officials, the Finalist teams—half of which are from Title 1 schools—will complete their STEM solution prototypes and present them to a panel of judges at a live pitch event on April 28, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The impressive array of bright ideas utilize cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine leaning (60%), 3D modeling and printing (60%), Internet of Things (40%) and robotics (20%) to address key challenges in accessibility, public health, public safety, sustainability, and mental health.
Three schools will ultimately be named National Winners, selected by a distinguished judging panel that includes Charlotte Dungan, Chief Learning Officer at the Mark Cuban Foundation, Rameen Rana, Investor, at Samsung NEXT, and other esteemed judges. Notable guests attending the event include Yoonie Joung, President and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America, and Allison Stransky, CMO of Samsung Electronics America.
“Watching Year 15 of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow unfold, it’s clear that care, compassion and creative genius are alive and well among America’s 6-12 grade students,” said Stransky. “It’s inspiring to see Gen Z and Gen Alpha, as digital natives, embracing emerging tech like AI and harnessing it to improve lives and communities. We are proud to recognize not only the National Finalists but also the many students from schools across the country who participated this year, contributing their innovative ideas and showcasing the incredible promise of the next generations.”
Salman Taufiq, Head of Brand Marketing, Samsung Electronics America, added, “Solve for Tomorrow highlights the incredible potential of young minds. We are proud to see so many bright and passionate students are ready contribute to the growth and progress of our communities and country. As they embrace the power of STEM, they’re not just learning—they’re actively shaping a future where innovation and technology create real, positive impact.”
Introducing the 10 National Finalists
SchoolCity/StateCommunity Issue, STEM Solution & Video
Lathrop High SchoolFairbanks, AKPublic Safety – Winter Driving: Snow-covered roads obscure lane markings, causing dangerous driving conditions that contribute to nearly 300,000 crashes per year on the 70% of U.S. roads that experience snow-related reduced winter safety. Students developed Laser Lane Lines – a solution that uses AI, robotics, and GPS tech to project laser lane markings onto snow-covered roads. Their application of STEM makes driving on snowy roads much safer for residents of Alaska and winter drivers across the country. https://youtu.be/UHzK9OWp0r8
Bentonville West High SchoolCenterton, ARPublic Health – Cancer: Oral cancer causes 170,000 deaths annually, with early detection critical to saving lives. In Arkansas, limited access to affordable specialists and diagnostics makes detection especially challenging, particularly in rural and low-income areas. In 2024, 90% of residents didn’t visit a dentist. To address this, students developed an AI-powered mobile cancer screening app, allowing users to take images of their mouths and self-screen for oral cancer—offering an affordable, accessible early detection solution. https://youtu.be/f0uTMiuasF8
Aurora Highlands P-8Aurora, COAccessibility – Gaming: Gaming isn’t just about high scores—it’s a way to connect, compete, and build friendships. But many games come with controllers that aren’t built for players with physical disabilities or who lack fine motor precision, leading to a risk of social isolation. Using 3D modeling, printing, and coding to design a customizable, affordable controller, middle schoolers developed an adaptive video game controller for gamers with diverse abilities, make gaming more inclusive. https://youtu.be/b_-mV_ld8uo
Academy of Aerospace and EngineeringWindsor, CTClimate Action – Heat Disparities: In approximately 65 U.S. cities, the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect causes temperatures to rise by 8°F for 34 million people, a significant temperature increase that impacts public health and sustainable city development. To identify locations with heat-absorptive surfaces (e.g., dark pavement, roofs) or areas lacking cooling vegetation, high school students created H.E.A.T.M.A.P., an AI-powered app using 3D-printed, solar-powered IoT sensors with thermal imaging to track, predict, and mitigate UHI locations in real-time, combatting climate-driven heat disparities. https://youtu.be/MZ2a3BZEHzI
Charter School of WilmingtonWilmington, DEPublic Health – Physician Shortage: Delaware’s physician shortage has left several counties without adequate access to healthcare, causing primary care wait times to soar by nearly 200%. High school students developed the AKQUA-Gel hydrogel bandage—a smart, AI-powered smart bandage with IoT sensors and 3D-printed components that monitors wound healing in real-time. Linked to a mobile app, it tracks biomarkers like moisture, pH, and oxygen, providing data to patients and doctors, advancing treatment, and reducing hospital congestion by enabling remote wound monitoring. https://youtu.be/Vs-Ou3CnCZg
Bloomington High School SouthBloomington, INAccessibility – Sports: Nearly 20% of Americans experience hearing loss, and with 8 million high school athletes participating in sports, many are at risk of damaging their hearing aids during physical activities. Current solutions are bulky and non-compliant. Storm Shield, a lightweight, eco-friendly headband, protects hearing aids from wind, rain, and impact using hydrophobic mesh and a wireless motion sensor for safety. Combining material science, programming, IoT, machine learning, and 3D printing, this all-girl student-led project offers an affordable, sustainable, and innovative solution for athletes’ hearing aid protection. https://youtu.be/PlQEmMA2O9w
Denham Springs High SchoolDenham Springs, LASustainability – Water Quality: To address community concerns about the potential risks of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in Lake Maurepas in Southeastern Louisiana, students developed the Safety C Sensor and app. Using AI and IoT, the system monitors carbon levels and alerts users to potential dangers like leaks. This initiative combines engineering, data science, and community education to ensure safety and raise awareness. https://youtu.be/-ZXrb92NUvw
Edgerton Elementary SchoolMaplewood, MNPublic Safety – Ice Hazard: Minnesota’s frozen lakes pose a serious safety risk, with numerous fatalities each winter from falling through ice. To address this, middle school students developed Ice Savers, a sensor system that measures ice thickness and shares real-time data through a mobile app. Using ultrasonic sensors, buoys, and AI-driven analysis, their solution helps prevent accidents by informing users when lake ice is safe to walk on. https://youtu.be/LzUOlEAJ-0w
Doral Academy of Northern NevadaReno, NVAccessibility – Modular Prosthetic: At Doral Academy, a student with a partial arm amputation couldn’t play the violin, a passion of theirs. To help, classmates came together to create a cost-effective, 3D-printed modular prosthetic. By using CAD software and recyclable PLA, the middle schoolers crafted a solution that’s not only functional but adaptable. The innovation enhances accessibility, underscoring how STEM can foster inclusivity. https://youtu.be/5-ufOdRPMn0
CY Middle SchoolCasper, WYMental Health – Youth Well-being: In response to rising youth mental health challenges, students created SEL-bot, a roaming robot that delivers positive messages throughout the school to promote mental wellness and self-esteem. Using mechanical engineering, robotics, and coding, they are applying STEM principles to build a functional robot that fosters a supportive, connected school environment, helping reduce anxiety and improve social interactions. https://youtu.be/n41Jq_mcoVE
Your Vote Matters: Help Choose the Community Choice Winner
The 10 Solve for Tomorrow National Finalists have showcased their groundbreaking STEM solutions in three-minute pitch videos, and now it’s your turn to weigh in! Cast your vote to help select one Community Choice Winner, who will receive an additional $10,000 prize package on top of their $50,000 National Finalist earnings. Watch the videos here, vote for your favorite, and make your voice count. You can vote once per day until 11:59 p.m. EDT on April 20, 2025.
New This Year: An Interactive, AI-Powered Prize to Empower U.S. Classrooms
In celebration of Year 15 of Solve for Tomorrow, in addition to the $2 million-plus total prizes, all 10 National Finalist teams will receive a Samsung WAF Interactive Display, which delivers a dynamic, engaging experience designed for the classroom of the future. Its intuitive interface and wide compatibility make it easier for teachers to leverage education apps and features that optimize lessons to help students discover the joy of learning. Each teacher will also receive specialized training from the Samsung Education Solutions team on effective uses of both interactive display technology and AI technology in the classroom.
What’s Next: Live Student Pitches & Game-Changing Prizes Await
The 10 National Finalists will head to a live Pitch Event on April 28 in Washington, D.C. Based on the live pitch presentations, judges will name three schools National Winners, each of which will receive a $100,000 prize of Samsung technology and classroom supplies. The remaining seven National Finalist schools will have been awarded $50,000 prize packages. All 10 National Finalist teams will receive a Samsung WAF Interactive Display and Samsung Education Solutions team training.
From among the 50 State Winners, one school will be selected for the Rising Entrepreneurship Award, receiving an added $25,000 prize package to nurture and develop their STEM solution into a venture extending beyond the competition.
One of the 50 State Winner schools will be recognized with a Sustainability Innovation Award for driving sustainable change through STEM innovation, and an additional $25,000 prize package, including Samsung ENERGY STAR® technology.
From the National Finalists, one Community Choice Winner, selected through online voting by the general public, will receive an additional $10,000 in prizes on top of their National Finalist winnings.
One Employee Choice Winner will be chosen by Samsung employees from among the National Finalists to receive $10,000 in prizes in addition to their National Finalist winnings.
To learn more about Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, please visit www.samsung.com/solve and follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephen Norris, Professor of History; Director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, Miami University
‘Atlases,’ Victoria Lomasko’s mural at Miami UniversityUsed by permission of Victoria Lomasko
Victoria Lomasko, a graphic artist and muralist, has spent her career documenting how authoritarianism took hold in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. What she has illustrated – as well as the personal journey she has taken – affords a chance to see how dictatorship can develop and strengthen across a decade.
In 2019, I invited Lomasko – who goes by Vika for short – to Miami University, where I teach Imperial Russian and Soviet history. The Havighurst Center for East European, Russian and Eurasian Studies was holding a semester-long series on “Truth and Power” that also included two other Russian dissidents: Leonid Volkov, then chief of staff for opposition leader Alexei Navalny; and Mikhail Zygar, who helped found the independent news station TV Rain in 2010.
I asked Lomasko to paint a mural illustrating the consequences of telling the truth in Putin’s Russia – a theme she has explored in all her works. Her completed mural, “Atlases,” depicted the struggle individuals face between desires to protest or to turn inward under authoritarianism.
Taking action
Lomasko first gained acclaim for “Other Russias,” which was published in English in 2017. The book is a collection of what she terms “graphic reportage”: comic-style art combined with current events.
In it, she covered Russians who are largely invisible: activists, sex workers, truckers, older people, provincial residents, migrants and minorities. She wanted to represent them as “heroes” in their own lives, giving them agency and visibility.
Her heroes came into the public spotlight in 2011 and 2012, when mass protests began in Russia after fraudulent elections and Putin’s return to the presidency. Lomasko attended the protests and sketched the participants. The rallies of 2012 seemed to signify that Russian citizens from a wide range of backgrounds could unite to resist creeping authoritarianism.
A protester in Moscow asks a police officer, ‘Are the police with the people?’ in an illustration from ‘Other Russias.’ Used by permission of Victoria Lomasko
In addition to publishing her drawings, Lomasko also exhibited her work in Moscow and St. Petersburg – a seeming sign that censorship could not prevent an artist or ordinary citizen from voicing their frustration.
This hope did not last long. Over the next few years, the Kremlin passed a series of laws that designated organizations, then media outlets and eventually individuals as “foreign agents” if they received any funding from abroad.
Led by then Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, who was appointed by Putin in 2012, the Russian state also began to demand “patriotic” culture supporting the government, and label anyone who resisted as “unpatriotic.”
In these years, Lomasko documented how protests shrunk to local levels – truckers who decried a new tax, Muscovites who lamented the destruction of local parks, and urban activists who protested plans to tear down Soviet-era apartments. She still depicted participants as everyday heroes, yet she also noticed how protesters’ brief sense of power through collective action faded into disillusionment after the Kremlin went ahead with its plans.
An illustration from ‘Other Russias’ of a truckers protest camp in 2016 in Khimki. Used by permission of Victoria Lomasko
Changing tack
“Other Russias” introduced Lomasko to a worldwide audience. By the time the book came out in 2017, however, she began to question the very basis of her graphic reportage.
Was it enough for an artist to document social change? Lomasko concluded that the answer was no – art should offer solutions. She decided to paint murals that would move beyond graphic reportage.
This new trajectory informed her Miami University project. By the time she arrived in March 2019, Lomasko had completed her first two murals: one for a gallery in England and a second in Germany.
The first, “The Daughter of an Agitprop Artist,” featured her father, who had worked as a propaganda poster artist in her hometown of Serpukhov in the 1980s. In the mural, her father gazes at his work, the rituals of government-sponsored marches, and Lenin posters plastered everywhere. Young Vika stands with her back to her father, holding a red balloon. She stares at her future self, a woman covering the grassroots protests of 2012.
Victoria Lomasko’s mural at the Arts Centre HOME in Manchester, England. Used by permission of Victoria Lomasko
“Our Post-Soviet Land,” her second mural, depicted the ways some former Soviet states, particularly Ukraine, were distancing themselves from their communist past after independence – while others, particularly Russia itself, seemed to be increasingly nostalgic for the Soviet era.
Two paths
Lomasko spent two weeks on campus at Miami University here in Ohio, completing a mural that built on these themes.
The central feature are two figures representing contemporary versions of Atlas, the titan who held up the world in Greek mythology. One faces left, toward a group of people praying in front of an Orthodox icon of Jesus. Here Lomasko depicts one path Russians took in response to the oppressive nature of Putinism: turning inward, retreating to a spiritual life.
The second Atlas gazes upward, holding an artist’s brush. Below this figure a series of people take to the streets, protesting. They hold flags and banners representing a number of causes, including the 2011 “Occupy” movement in the United States. Lomasko’s message seems clear: This is a second path to take to resist authoritarianism – one that might succeed if participants see themselves connected across borders.
Victoria Lomasko stands with her mural ‘Atlases’ at Miami University. Stephen Norris
Art in exile
After unveiling “Atlases,” Lomasko mentioned that she was still trying to retain hope for her country and for humanity. Once again, it did not last long.
During the first two terms of Putin’s presidency, and that of Dmitry Medvedev, the government had largely left citizens’ speech alone, though it controlled information through state media. In 2018 and 2019, however, Russia passed laws that clamped down on internet access and mobile communication.
Lomasko could no longer exhibit her work in Russia and was increasingly unable to find paid work as an artist. As she told me, the state considered her unvarnished depictions of ordinary Russians to be distasteful, while publishers and gallery owners considered her works politically dangerous.
When the country began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, these changes allowed the government to criminalize opposition. Lomasko made the difficult decision to flee Moscow. She took her cat and as many artworks as she could carry, but she had to abandon most of her possessions. She documented this new journey the only way she knew: through a series of art panels titled “Five Steps.”
“Isolation” encapsulates how Lomasko and dissidents like her grew ever more cut off from the rampant patriotism espoused by Putin. “Escape” shows her leap into the unknown, fleeing her country because she feared arrest, while others are caught up in war and political repression.
“Exile” depicts Lomasko starting anew in a different country. “Shame,” the most powerful, seeks to capture her emotions at having to flee, as well as the shame she felt for what Russia was doing to Ukraine. “Humanity” retains the artist’s attempt to preserve her optimism – her sense that humans have more in common than they have differences, and that seeing oneself within a larger, global community might give power to the invisible.
‘Humanity,’ by Victoria Lomasko. Used by permission of Victoria Lomasko
Tens of thousands of Russians have left the country since the start of the war, many of them artists and activists. Zygar and Volkov – the two other Russian citizens on campus for our university’s 2018-19 series – have also had to flee.
Lomasko’s art helps trace how authoritarianism took hold in Russia across the past decade. I believe her responses to Putin’s dictatorship, including her decision to flee her homeland, offer us all something to ponder.
Stephen Norris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Things feel different this time around. Critics seem quieter. Some point to fear of retribution. But there’s also a sense that the protests of Trump’s first term were ultimately futile. This has contributed to a widespread mood of despair.
As The New York Times noted not long ago, Trump “had not appeared to be swayed by protests, petitions, hashtag campaigns or other tools of mass dissent.” That’s a commonperspective these days.
But what if it’s wrong?
As a historian, I study how our narratives about the past shape our actions in the present. In this case, it’s particularly important to get the history right.
In fact, popular resistance in Trump’s first term accomplished more than many observers realize; it’s just that most wins happened outside the spotlight. In my view, the most visible tactics – petitions, hashtags, occasional marches in Washington – had less impact than the quieter work of organizing in communities and workplaces.
Understanding when movements succeeded during Trump’s first term is important for identifying how activists can effectively oppose Trump policy in his second administration.
Progressive activists were a key reason. By combining decentralized organizing and nationwideresource-sharing, they successfully pushed scores of stateand local governments to adopt sanctuary laws that limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
When the sociologist Adam Safer examined thousands of cities and dozens of states, he found that a specific type of sanctuary law that activists supported – barring local jails and prisons from active cooperation with ICE – successfully reduced ICE arrests. A study by legal scholar David K. Hausman confirmed this finding. Notably, Hausman also found that sanctuary policies had “no detectable effect on crime rates,” contrary to what many politicians allege.
Another important influence on state and local officials was employers’ resistance to mass deportation. The E-Verify system requiring employers to verify workers’ legal status went virtually unenforced, since businesses quietly objected to it. As this example suggests, popular resistance to Trump’s agenda was most effective when it exploited tensions between the administration and capitalists.
The ‘rising tide’ against fossil fuels
In his effort to prop up the fossil fuel industry, Trump in his first term withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, weakened or eliminated over 100 environmental protections and pushed other measures to obstruct the transition to green energy.
Researchers projected that these policies would kill tens of thousands of people in just the United States by 2028, primarily from exposure to air pollutants. Other studies estimated that the increased carbon pollution would contribute to tens of millions of deaths, and untold other suffering, by century’s end.
That’s not the whole story, though. Trump’s first-term energy agenda was partly thwarted by a combination of environmental activism and market forces.
His failure to resuscitate the U.S. coal industry was especially stark. Coal-fired plant capacity declined faster during Trump’s first term than during any four-year period in any country, ever. Some of the same coal barons who celebrated Trump’s victory in 2016 soon went bankrupt.
CBS News covered the bankruptcy of coal firm Murray Energy, founded by Trump supporter Robert E. Murray.
The most obvious reasons for coal’s decline were the U.S. natural gas boom and the falling cost of renewable energy. But its decline was hastened by the hundreds of local organizations that protested coal projects, filed lawsuits against regulators and pushed financial institutions to disinvest from the sector. The presence of strong local movements may help explain the regional variation in coal’s fortunes.
Environmentalists also won some important battles against oil and gas pipelines, power plants and drilling projects. In a surprising number of cases, organizers defeated polluters through a combination of litigation, civil disobedience and other protests, and by pressuring banks, insurers and big investors.
In 2018, one pipeline CEO lamented the “rising tide of protests, litigation and vandalism” facing his industry, saying “the level of intensity has ramped up,” with “more opponents” who are “better organized.”
Green energy also expanded much faster than Trump and his allies would have liked, albeit not fast enough to avert ecological collapse. The U.S. wind energy sector grew more in Trump’s first term than under any other president, while solar capacity more than doubled. Research shows that this progress was due in part to the environmental movement’sorganizing, particularly at the state and local levels.
As with immigration, Trump’s energy agenda divided both political and business elites. Some investors became reluctant to keep their money in the sector, and some even subsidized environmental activism. Judges and regulators didn’t always share Trump’s commitment to propping up fossil fuels. These tensions between the White House and business leaders created openings that climate activists could exploit.
Nonetheless, workers’ direct action on the job won meaningful victories. For example, educators across the country organized dozens of major strikes for better pay, more school funding and even against ICE. Workers in hotels, supermarkets and other private-sector industries also walked out. Ultimately, more U.S. workers went on strike in 2018 than in any year since 1986.
In addition to winning gains for workers, the strike wave apparently also worked against Republicans at election time by increasing political awareness and voter mobilization. The indirect impact on elections is a common side effect of labor militancy and mass protest.
Quiet acts of worker defiance also constrained Trump. The early months of the COVID-19 pandemic featured widespread resistance to policies that raised the risk of infection, particularly the lack of mask mandates.
Progressive movements have no direct influence over Republicans in Washington. However, they have more potential influence over businesses, lower courts, regulators and state and local politicians.
Of these targets, business ultimately has the most power. Business will usually be able to constrain the administration if its profits are threatened. Trump and Elon Musk may be able to dismantle much of the federal government and ignore court orders, but it’s much harder for them to ignore major economic disruption.
While big marches can raise public consciousness and help activists connect, by themselves they will not block Trump and Musk. For that, the movement will need more disruptive forms of pressure. Building the capacity for that disruption will require sustained organizing in workplaces and communities.
Kevin A. Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ben Zdencanovic, Postdoctoral Associate in History and Policy, University of California, Los Angeles
President Lyndon B. Johnson, left, next to former President Harry S. Truman, signs into law the measure creating Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.AP Photo
The Medicaid system has emerged as an early target of the Trump administration’s campaign to slash federal spending. A joint federal and state program, Medicaid provides health insurance coverage for more than 72 million people, including low-income Americans and their children and people with disabilities. It also helps foot the bill for long-term care for older people.
Instead, the United States developed its current fragmented health care system, with employer-provided health insurance covering most working-age adults, Medicare covering older Americans, and Medicaid as a safety net for at least some of those left out.
Health care reformers vs. the AMA
Medicaid’s history officially began in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the system into law, along with Medicare. But the seeds for this program were planted in the 1930s and 1940s. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration was implementing its New Deal agenda in the 1930s, many of his advisers hoped to include a national health insurance system as part of the planned Social Security program.
Those efforts failed after a heated debate. The 1935 Social Security Act created the old-age and unemployment insurance systems we have today, with no provisions for health care coverage.
Harry Truman assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s death in 1945. He enthusiastically embraced that legislation, which evolved into the “Truman Plan.” The American Medical Association, a trade group representing most of the nation’s doctors, feared heightened regulation and government control over the medical profession. It lobbied against any form of public health insurance.
This PBS ‘Origin of Everything!’ video sums up how the U.S. wound up with its complex health care system.
During the late 1940s, the AMA poured millions of dollars into a political advertising campaign to defeat Truman’s plan. Instead of mandatory government health insurance, the AMA supported voluntary, private health insurance plans. Private plans such as those offered by Kaiser Permanente had become increasingly popular in the 1940s in the absence of a universal system. Labor unions began to demand them in collective bargaining agreements.
The AMA insisted that these private, employer-provided plans were the “American way,” as opposed to the “compulsion” of a health insurance system operated by the federal government. They referred to universal health care as “socialized medicine” in widely distributed radio commercials and print ads.
In the anticommunist climate of the late 1940s, these tactics proved highly successful at eroding public support for government-provided health care. Efforts to create a system that would have provided everyone with health insurance were soundly defeated by 1950.
JFK and LBJ
Private health insurance plans grew more common throughout the 1950s.
Federal tax incentives, as well as a desire to maintain the loyalty of their professional and blue-collar workers alike, spurred companies and other employers to offer private health insurance as a standard benefit. Healthy, working-age, employed adults – most of whom were white men – increasingly gained private coverage. So did their families, in many cases.
Everyone else – people with low incomes, those who weren’t working and people over 65 – had few options for health care coverage. Then, as now, Americans without private health insurance tended to have more health problems than those who had it, meaning that they also needed more of the health care they struggled to afford.
But this also made them risky and unprofitable for private insurance companies, which typically charged them high premiums or more often declined to cover them at all.
Health care activists saw an opportunity. Veteran health care reformers such as Wilbur Cohen of the Social Security Administration, having lost the battle for universal coverage, envisioned a narrower program of government-funded health care for people over 65 and those with low incomes. Cohen and other reformers reasoned that if these populations could get coverage in a government-provided health insurance program, it might serve as a step toward an eventual universal health care system.
While President John F. Kennedy endorsed these plans, they would not be enacted until Johnson was sworn in following JFK’s assassination. In 1965, Johnson signed a landmark health care bill into law under the umbrella of his “Great Society” agenda, which also included antipoverty programs and civil rights legislation.
As Medicaid enrollment grew throughout the 1970s and 1980s, conservatives increasingly conflated the program with the stigma of what they dismissed as unearned “welfare.” In the 1970s, California Gov. Ronald Reagan developed his national reputation as a leading figure in the conservative movement in part through his high-profile attempts to cut and privatize Medicaid services in his state.
Upon assuming the presidency in the early 1980s, Reagan slashed federal funding for Medicaid by 18%. The cuts resulted in some 600,000 people who depended on Medicaid suddenly losing their coverage, often with dire consequences.
Medicaid spending has since grown, but the program has been a source of partisan debate ever since.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Republicans attempted to change how Medicaid was funded. Instead of having the federal government match what states were spending at different levels that were based on what the states needed, they proposed a block grant system. That is, the federal government would have contributed a fixed amount to a state’s Medicaid budget, making it easier to constrain the program’s costs and potentially limiting how much health care it could fund.
These efforts failed, but Trump reintroduced that idea during his first term. And block grants are among the ideas House Republicans have floated since Trump’s second term began to achieve the spending cuts they seek.
In the absence of a universal health care system, Medicaid fills many of the gaps left by private insurance policies for millions of Americans. From Medi-Cal in California to Husky Health in Connecticut, Medicaid is a crucial pillar of the health care system. This makes the proposed House cuts easier said than done.
Ben Zdencanovic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In 1950, global plastic production was about 2 million tons. It’s now about 400 million tons – an increase of nearly 20,000%.
As a material, it has seemingly limitless potential. Plastic is inexpensive to produce while being lightweight and sturdy. Its applications range from food and beverage packing to clothing and health care.
When a plastic item ends its useful life, it can take a very long time to decompose, up to 500 years in some cases. Even then, the plastic pieces don’t disappear entirely – instead, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually becoming microplastics that end up in the soil where we grow food, the water we drink and the air we breathe.
Research has linked these microplastics to health issues such as diabetes, heart disease and low male fertility.
For years, local governments and manufacturers have relied on recycling as the answer to keep plastic waste from accumulating. However, despite their efforts to sort and separate recyclables, most plastics still end up in landfills – or worse, in green spaces and waterways.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the overall recycling rate for plastics is 8.7%. About a third of milk jugs and plastic bottles are recycled – a higher rate than other types of plastic.
Because plastic is so commonly used, finding new ways to manage and recycle plastic waste is becoming ever more important. Plastic waste pyrolysis is one technology that could help address this issue.
This is a relatively new technique, so researchers still have only a limited knowledge of the pyrolysis process. As analytical chemists, we strive to understand the composition of complex mixtures, especially new creations from sources such as plastic waste pyrolysis.
What is plastic pyrolysis?
Plastic pyrolysis is a chemical process that involves chemically breaking down plastics into other molecules by heating the plastics to extremely high temperatures in the absence of oxygen.
Plastics are fed into the pyrolysis reactor, where they get hot and turn to oil. The oil moves to another vat where it’s boiled and distilled. Alexander Kaplitz and Kevin A. Schug
Unlike traditional plastic recycling, pyrolysis theoretically isn’t limited to specific types of plastic. It could be made to accommodate many of them, although current technology is limited to a few types – polyethylene and polypropylene, used in food containers and bottles – at an industrial scale.
So, plastic pyrolysis could help handle the waste from consumer products such as plastic bags, bottles, milk jugs, packaging materials, wet wipes and even discarded children’s toys. Pyrolysis can also handle more complex plastic waste such as tires and discarded electronics, although solid waste handlers and recyclers avoid certain plastic types in pyrolysis, such as polyvinyl chloride – or PVC, which is found in pipes and roofing products – and polystyrene, used in packaging, as these can create harmful byproducts.
During pyrolysis, the plastic polymers are broken down into smaller molecules, resulting in the production of liquid oil, fuel source gases such as methane, propane and butane, and char.
Char is the solid residue left at the end of the pyrolysis process. It can be used as a carbon-rich material for various applications, including adding it to soil to make it healthier for farming, as it increases soil moisture and pH, benefiting nutrient absorption. Char also has the ability to absorb harmful carbon gases from the air, which can help prevent climate change.
The main downside of char is if it’s used too much it can increase soil alkalinity, which may hinder plant growth.
Plastic pyrolysis uses heat to break down plastic, with the intent to convert plastic waste into usable materials.
How pyrolosis works
The plastic pyrolysis process typically involves several key steps.
In the first step of pyrolysis, community recyclers collect the plastic waste and clean it to remove any contaminants. The plastic then gets shredded into smaller pieces to facilitate the pyrolysis process. Unlike traditional recycling, it needs only minimal sorting.
Chemical recyclers operating pyrolysis plants feed the shredded plastic into a pyrolysis reactor, where they heat it to temperatures ranging from 600 to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit (315 to 871 degrees Celsius). Without oxygen, plastics in the reactor don’t catch fire and emit fumes into the air. Instead, this high-temperature environment causes the plastic polymers to break down into smaller hydrocarbon molecules. These smaller molecules can be further refined.
The high temperature turns some molecules into vapors, which condense into liquid oil. Chemical companies can further refine this oil to be used as fuel or as a raw material to make other chemicals or plastics.
In addition to liquid oil, the pyrolysis process generates natural gases, such as methane, ethane, butane and propane. Pyrolysis operators then capture these gases, and they can sometimes use them as a source of energy to power the pyrolysis reactor or other industrial processes.
Plastic pyrolysis generates oil, which engineers can use to create new materials or fuels. BASF, CC BY-NC-ND
Benefits of pyrolysis
When done effectively, plastic pyrolysis offers several benefits.
By expanding recycling beyond just plastic bottles and milk jugs, pyrolysis could reduce the amount of plastic waste pollution that ends up in landfills and oceans.
Additionally, converting plastic waste into usable products could help lower the production demand for new plastics from petroleum hydrocarbons. The byproducts could get used in recycled plastics.
Some researchers are also testing pyrolysis oils to see whether they can use them instead of gasoline to fuel vehicles. The gases produced during pyrolysis can even generate energy that fuels the pyrolysis reactor, making the process more self-sustaining and reducing the need for external energy sources.
Currently, about 15% to 20% of the pyrolysis products are recycled into new propylene and ethylene, while most – about 80% to 85% – becomes diesel fuel, hydrogen, methane and other chemicals.
While plastic pyrolysis holds some promise, it also faces challenges. The cost of setting up and operating pyrolysis plants is high. How profitable the process is depends on the availability of suitable plastic waste, the market demand for the oils and gases produced, and the costs of energy and staff necessary to operate the reactor.
Another issue is quality control. Most plastic types can undergo pyrolysis, but different plastics create oils with different chemical makeups. Scientists will need to understand the composition of these oils before industry can determine which plastic types to focus on and how each oil could create new materials.
Pyrolysis oils have unique chemical compositions depending on the type of plastics used to create them. Alexander Kaplitz and Kevin A. Schug
Researchers like us at The University of Texas at Arlington and our international colleagues are studying new chromatography-based oil-separation techniques that can successfully identify some types of pyrolysis oils. Chromatography is the process of separating components in a mixture by passing them through a stiff material.
Different components in the mixture are attracted to this material to different degrees. So, they exit the chromatography system at different times, which separates them from one another.
With more research into the technique’s efficiency and technological advancements to scale up pyrolysis, this technique could be one part of a sustainable solution to plastic waste management. In the meantime, pyrolysis is being used now, with one report estimating the market for pyrolysis plants at US$40 billion in 2024 and predicting it to grow to $1.2 billion by 2033.
Kevin A. Schug receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes for Health, ExxonMobil, and Weaver Consultants Group. He is affiliated with VUV Analytics, Inc. and Infinity Water Solutions as a member of their scientific advisory boards. Lummus Technology, LLC provided the funding for research on plastic waste pyrolysis oils at UT Arlington.
Alexander Kaplitz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering –
From March 3 to 11, the qualifying round of the School Olympiad “All-Russian School TIM-Championship of SPbGASU” in the 2024/2025 academic year was held.
85 schoolchildren from grades 8–11 from 16 Russian regions took part in the selection: St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Orenburg, Pskov, Sverdlovsk, Tver, Tula regions, Khabarovsk Krai, the Republics of Bashkortostan, Mordovia, Tatarstan, Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs.
36 participants have been admitted to the final stage of the Olympiad, 11 of whom are not from St. Petersburg: they are representatives of Arzamas, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Saransk, Surgut, Udomlya and Ulyanovsk. Six of them are eleventh-graders, 14 are tenth-graders, five are in the ninth grade and 11 are in the eighth.
21 of the main stage participants represent TIM classes of SPbGASU, opened in schools of St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.
The final stage of the Olympiad will be held in a mixed format (both in-person and remote participation is possible) at our university on March 26–28.
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