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Category: Education

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: First UK survey on sensory loss begins this month

    Source: Anglia Ruskin University

    Published: 28 October 2024 at 11:36

    Project to provide robust data on vision and hearing loss starts in Cambridgeshire

    For the first time, robust data on the sensory health of the nation will be collected thanks to a study beginning this month in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

    The UK does not have an accurate set of data on vision and hearing loss, resulting in a lack of evidence to inform health policies and programmes, and is falling behind nations such as Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, USA, Nepal and Bangladesh that all have national sensory loss studies. It is estimated that 50% of all sight loss is avoidable.

    The UK National Eye Health and Hearing Study (UKNEHS) is a collaboration between sensory loss charities, Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), leading eye and hearing care professionals and the public sector to record accurate data on vision and hearing health to give confidence to the NHS and policymakers when making vital decisions that affect people’s health.

    This NHS research study has received charitable and National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) support funding to operate an initial study in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough that will see UKNEHS medical professionals visit households in randomly selected postcodes from late October this year until February 2025. The visits are first to introduce the study and then to invite those aged 50 years and older for a free local specialist eye and hearing assessment.

    The area has been chosen for its diverse population, rural and urban areas, and wide range of socio-economic factors.

    It is hoped that this initial study will lead to further funding for a UK-wide study that will, for the first time, give an accurate picture of the nation’s sensory health.

    Rupert Bourne, Professor of Ophthalmology at Anglia Ruskin University and Chief Investigator for the UKNEHS, said:

    “Hearing impairment costs the UK an estimated £30 billion each year and visual impairment, including sight loss and blindness, £28 billion.
     
    “Despite these huge costs, the datasets currently used in the UK are of limited value, due to a reliance on international data, or UK data samples that are either very small scale, or not generalisable to the population as a whole. There is subsequently no robust evidence-base upon which to design a prevention strategy or plan services for the future that meet the population’s needs”.
     
    “Our study aims to enable healthcare professionals and policy makers to understand why people are losing their sight and hearing due to preventable causes so they can target the right preventions, treatment, and public health services, providing support to people who really need it.”

    Phase one of the study has seen UKNEHS teams visit care homes in the area to survey the sensory health of residents. On one of these visits, Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Dr Nik Johnson observed teams carrying out their work.
     
    Dr Johnson said:

    “Having already seen what’s happened at local nursing homes in terms of the screening, it’s fantastic news that out and about in the near future there will be teams visiting different areas of the county, and local people in the community will have the opportunity to get involved in this study.
     
    “I’d really encourage people to take part and have their hearing and eyes checked.”

    Phase two of the study will involve the UKNEHS teams visiting 750 randomly chosen households in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Those who receive an invitation are encouraged to take part in this important national project whatever their vision or hearing status, including those who may be regularly seen by eye or hearing services. It is estimated that 1 out of every 5 people aged 50 plus have impaired eyesight or an eye disease that goes undetected.
     
    The UKNEHS has been developed by Anglia Ruskin University’s Vision and Eye Research Institute in cooperation with the College of Optometrists, the Thomas Pocklington Trust and a number of other partner organisations across the eye health and hearing sector.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why donors should ask local communities what matters to them while deciding what success looks like

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Erin K. McFee, Professor of Practice of Climate Security, National Defense University

    Members of the Leonor Cuadras cooperative sort nursery-grown oysters in La Reforma, Mexico, in December 2023. Jonathan Röders, CC BY-ND

    Have you ever asked a teacher whether something will be on an upcoming test to decide whether to closely pay attention to a particular lesson? Taken the long way back from a lunch break to get enough exercise to meet a goal monitored by a fitness app? Logged on to a virtual meeting to be seen showing up, even as you worked on other tasks?

    It’s human nature to adapt your behavior to meet evaluation criteria – even when meeting those targets comes at the expense of attaining more meaningful goals. Most donors, whether they are governments providing foreign aid, foundations making grants or individual people who give nonprofits money, expect or demand reports on what was accomplished with their funding. And what is measured for that purpose and how it’s measured tend to shape entire programs – often missing the mark on what truly matters to the communities involved.

    While spending years conducting fieldwork everywhere from Colombia to the Kenya-Uganda border as a political anthropologist and a political scientist, we’ve witnessed firsthand the absurdities of the bureaucratic hoops people must jump through to access vital aid. We’ve watched both genuine efforts to abide by the guidelines donors set and the cynical exploitation of them. We have also spent years engaged in international development efforts, both with and through nonprofits that sought to resolve some of the world’s most intractable problems.

    There’s a glaring and crucial question we’ve rarely heard asked when projects are being designed: What does success look like to the people meant to benefit from development funding?

    Promoting environmental sustainability

    We conducted an exploratory field study in La Reforma, a small coastal town located in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

    We focused on the Leonor Cuadras Oyster Aquaculture Cooperative, a locally led initiative supported by the seafood company Marine Edén and SUCEDE, a Mexican nongovernmental organization that’s dedicated to promoting individual, social and environmental well-being in La Reforma and other nearby communities.

    This particular project sought to create jobs for women in La Reforma, while promoting environmental sustainability through oyster farming. The cooperative’s objectives included empowering women, fostering collective work and contributing to local environmental restoration by improving water quality through oyster filtration. Traditional metrics for projects like this would tally labor hours, harvest size and jobs created – all important but incomplete insights into the whole story.

    Our study was unusual because it was designed as an exploratory effort to help shape future metrics in a participatory manner. We sought to understand the cooperative’s internal dynamics and challenges so we could create metrics that reflected what the cooperative members wanted and needed.

    After several weeks of fieldwork, multiple focus group discussions and eight interviews with people involved in the cooperative in the last quarter of 2023, we found that success is not solely defined by the number of oysters they produce or the dollar signs next to their names in a report submitted to donors.

    In their view, success is framed around dignity, gender equity and the well-being of their families and the environment. We also learned that their work together had increased a sense of collective commitment to the project and each other.

    Measuring success in terms that make sense to locals

    Most donors love numbers. They want to know how many people attended an event, how much money was spent, how many widgets were produced. But while such outcomes are easily measurable, they are not always meaningful.

    In La Reforma, the women who belong to the Leonor Cuadras cooperative told us that they define success differently. Their primary goal isn’t just to grow oysters. They see their co-op as a tool for social transformation, not just a source of income.

    One woman we’ll call Aurelia to protect her anonymity proudly shared that working with the cooperative has proved that “we can do things on par with men.”

    Julia, another cooperative member, put it this way: “We are not just working for ourselves – we are working for the future of our families and our community.”

    This version of success includes improving their family’s prospects and safeguarding their marine environment for future generations. As the oysters they grow naturally filter and clean the bay’s waters, so too does their collaborative work improve the social fabric of this violence-affected community in ways that won’t show up on a balance sheet.

    Finding participatory approaches

    When donors impose their own frameworks and set their own goals for the projects they fund, they usually miss what truly defines success for local communities. In La Reforma, the women are acquiring technical skills related to oyster farming, but they seem to see more value in the empowerment that comes with leading a project that reflects their realities and needs.

    If the cooperative’s donors had chosen to focus on traditional production metrics, such as the number of participants, the scale of the harvest and the hours of labor involved, they would have surely overlooked the deeper social shifts, such as women’s leadership in a male-dominated profession or a greater commitment to collective well-being.

    What if, instead of dictating outcomes from the start, donors worked collaboratively with communities to define success? The cooperative’s members want independence. They hope that someday they will run their own oyster farms or support other aquaculture initiatives. These are aspirations that don’t fit into traditional donor checkboxes. But that kind of approach is critical for the project’s sustainability.

    Some donors and development agencies are beginning to integrate this approach. For example, the International Organization for Migration consults with community members when writing performance reviews. Some donors have embraced an approach called trust-based philanthropy, which largely removes reporting burdens altogether. They focus instead on collaborative relationships with their grantees.

    What is measured matters. It can shape the goals and the limits of projects long before a single dollar is spent.

    Setting goals that are more relevant to local conditions requires a radical shift in how development projects are designed and evaluated. Rather than imposing predetermined outcomes, we believe that it is crucial to ask of the communities and individuals on the ground: What does success look like to you?

    Erin McFee is the founder and president of the Corioli Institute, which conducted this study. The research for this article was funded by the UK Research and Innovation Future Leader Fellows Program. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect official policies or positions of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U. S. government.

    Jonathan Röders is Director of Projects & Programs at the Corioli Institute, which conducted this study. His contribution to this research was funded by UK Research and Innovation.

    – ref. Why donors should ask local communities what matters to them while deciding what success looks like – https://theconversation.com/why-donors-should-ask-local-communities-what-matters-to-them-while-deciding-what-success-looks-like-241196

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: US math teachers view student performance differently based on race and gender

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, Associate Professor of Education, University of Southern California

    Teachers hold different views on why girls are good at math than they do for boys. Maskot via Getty Images

    Teachers report thinking that if girls do better in math than boys, it is probably because of their innate ability and effort. But they also report that when boys do well in math, it is more likely due to parental support and society’s higher expectations for their success.

    That’s what we discovered from 400 elementary and middle school math teachers we surveyed across the country for our new study. The purpose of the study was to learn more about how teachers explain students’ success and failure in math.

    We found that the variation in views among educators is not limited to the gender of students. Teachers also hold contrasting views about math performance when it comes to students’ race and ethnicity, our study found.

    More specifically, we found that when Black and Hispanic students outperform Asian and white students, teachers are more likely to think it’s because of effort and differences in their cognitive abilities. In contrast, when Asian and white students outperform others, teachers attribute it to the support and expectations of others, such as from parents and society as well as cultural differences that value math learning.

    To reach these conclusions, we conducted an experiment. In the experiment, teachers were first asked to help us by reviewing student responses to items on a math test we were developing. After they rated the student responses, we randomly assigned teachers to conditions telling them that one group – either boys or girls, Black and Hispanic or Asian and white – performed better on this test. Then, we asked the teachers to rate their agreement with a set of potential explanations for the disparity. These potential explanations included statements such as, “Boys often pay more attention and follow directions in class compared with girls.”

    After teachers had rated their agreement with these explanations, we asked them about their personal beliefs and experiences with gender and racial discrimination in math classrooms. We analyzed how these beliefs related to their explanations of performance differences.

    We found that teachers were more likely to attribute the success of girls and Black and Hispanic students to internal factors, such as ability and effort, whereas they were more likely to attribute boys’ and Asian and white students’ success to external factors, such as parental involvement and cultural differences.

    We also observed that teachers who reported personally experiencing racial discrimination in math classrooms when they were students were more likely to agree that ability was responsible for Black and Hispanic students’ higher performance.

    Why it matters

    How teachers explain student performance can affect their expectations of students. It can also affect how they teach and how they emotionally respond to student needs.

    For example, research has shown that when teachers attribute students’ failure to a lack of effort, they tend to maintain higher expectations of students and encourage them to expend more effort next time. When they attribute student failure to a lack of ability, however, evidence shows that teachers are more likely to lower their expectations and express more pity. Lowered expectations and feelings of pity can be internalized by students. This can in turn lead them to assume that they have low ability and expect to fail more often in the future.

    Findings from our study show that teachers tend to explain students’ failures and successes differently based on which social group performed better than another. Sometimes, these attributions were consistent with stereotypes, such as attributing the higher performance of white and Asian students to their parents and culture.

    What still isn’t known

    Our research, along with that of others, shows that implicit biases exist in math classrooms. These biases influence how teachers view students’ abilities and explain their performance. However, most existing anti-bias training interventions are not very effective.

    Researchers need to develop new types of training to combat these biases in math classrooms, which could help improve teaching and reduce cognitive and emotional burdens that students experience.

    Yasemin Copur-Gencturk receives funding from the NSF, IES, and Herman & Raseij Math Initiative.

    Ian Thacker receives funding from the Spencer Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

    Joseph Cimpian receives funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.

    – ref. US math teachers view student performance differently based on race and gender – https://theconversation.com/us-math-teachers-view-student-performance-differently-based-on-race-and-gender-241418

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why do we use gasoline for small vehicles and diesel fuel for big vehicles?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michael Leamy, Woodruff Endowed Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

    Green pump for diesel, blue for gas – but what’s the difference? Jeffrey Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

    Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

    Why do we use gasoline for small vehicles and diesel fuel for big vehicles? – Methdini, age 15, Sri Lanka

    Gasoline fuels most light-duty vehicles, such as passenger cars and pickup trucks. Heavy-duty vehicles, like buses, delivery trucks and long-haul tractor-trailers, typically run on diesel.

    Both fuel types are needed because gasoline and diesel engines have different strengths. As my automotive engineering students learn, this makes them suitable for different uses.

    Let’s start with what they have in common. Gas and diesel engines both work through a process called internal combustion.

    • First, they mix fuel with air because the fuel needs oxygen from the air to burn.

    • Next, they compress the fuel-air mixture, which makes the mixture hot enough to burn.

    • Then the engine burns the mix of fuel and air, releasing heat. This creates high pressure, which moves internal parts that make the car move.

    • Finally, the car releases spent combustion gases to the atmosphere through its tailpipe. These gases contain pollutants, such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and unburned fuel, that are harmful to human health, as well as carbon dioxide, which warms Earth’s atmosphere.

    How a gas-powered internal combustion engine converts chemical energy in gasoline into kinetic energy that makes the car move.

    Different engines for different jobs

    Gasoline and diesel fuel are both made from crude oil, a fossil-based energy source. But they have different chemical properties that require different types of engines.

    In a gas engine, a small device called a spark plug ignites the compressed fuel-air mixture. It uses hundreds of thousands of volts to create an electrical arc that can start the burn, much like striking a flint rock against another stone.

    Diesel fuel is harder to ignite and slower to burn than gasoline. But if it is compressed enough, it will ignite without a spark. And this higher compression results in higher efficiency, so vehicles powered with diesel get more miles per gallon. That’s important for transporting goods and people as economically as possible – one reason why most buses, trains and large trucks run on diesel.

    Diesel engines tend to be more expensive than gas engines, since they need sturdier parts to withstand the higher temperatures and pressures they produce. But they also last longer than gasoline engines. This is a plus for vehicles such as long-haul trucks that need to go many hundreds of thousands of miles between engine overhauls.

    So why do passenger cars use gas? One reason is that diesel engines’ higher compression and temperature make them noisier, especially at higher frequencies that humans find annoying. Diesel engines also produce higher levels of fine particle pollution, known as PM 2.5, that has been linked to many human health risks.

    These trade-offs typically lead consumers to prefer cheaper, quieter gasoline engines in cars they drive for work and pleasure. Efficient, long-lasting diesel engines are more attractive to companies hauling goods and transporting large numbers of people.

    Beyond internal combustion engines

    In the future, transportation may not use gas or diesel at all. Some cars and light trucks – models known as hybrids – already use gas or diesel together with batteries and electric motors, or run entirely on electricity. And cities across the U.S. are investing in electric school buses, which are lower-polluting and cheaper to maintain than diesel buses.

    Hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles promise to result in far fewer emissions of toxic gases and carbon dioxide – especially if they are recharged with electricity produced from renewable sources like wind and solar power. These vehicles will be quieter than gasoline and diesel models and also cheaper to maintain, since they have fewer moving parts. Gasoline and diesel vehicles will remain in use for years to come, but they no longer represent the forefront of transportation innovation.

    Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

    And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

    Michael Leamy receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, General Motors, and other government agencies and corporations.

    – ref. Why do we use gasoline for small vehicles and diesel fuel for big vehicles? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-use-gasoline-for-small-vehicles-and-diesel-fuel-for-big-vehicles-235084

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s anti-Haitian rhetoric reflects America’s long-standing racism against Haiti and its people

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Thurka Sangaramoorthy, Professor of Anthropology, American University

    Pastor Dieufort Fleurissaint denounces the hateful rhetoric aimed at Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, during a Sept. 24, 2024, rally in Boston. Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)

    Since 2021, about 15,000 Haitians have found new lives in Springfield, Ohio, after fleeing the violence of Haiti, their native country.

    But a wave of baseless rumors and hate, amplified by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, has shattered that sense of safety. Many of the city’s Haitian immigrants are left questioning whether their vision of an American dream is still possible.

    Frightened and worried, many Haitians say they are fearful of going outside and staying in Springfield.

    The morning after the presidential debate, a Haitian woman who had moved to Springfield six years ago told a newspaper reporter that “they’re attacking us in every way.”

    In addition to the anxiety, the woman, who asked not to be identified, said that her car windows had been broken in the middle of the night. “I’m going to have to move because this area is no longer good for me,” the woman said. “I can’t even leave my house to go to Walmart. I’m anxious and scared.”

    Trump’s inflammatory statements, which have included wrongful allegations of Haitians eating pets, are part of a broader historical pattern of racism and anti-Black xenophobia in the U.S. aimed at Haitians. Days after the debate, Trump further explained how he would start his mass deportation program in Springfield. “Illegal Haitian migrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life,” Trump said.

    The comments have not only stoked existing racial tensions but have also sparked racist discourse and violent threats against Haitians across the country.

    As a scholar of migration who has studied Haitian immigrants in the U.S. for over 25 years, I have seen how Haitians, as Black immigrants, are doubly marginalized, by not only the structural racism embedded in U.S. immigration policies but also the broader societal racism experienced by Black Americans.

    In my view, Trump’s baseless allegations reflect America’s deeply rooted history of systemic racism against Haiti and its people.

    A flawed history

    The roots of anti-Haitian racism in the U.S. can be traced to the Haitian Revolution in 1804 in which Black Haitians who were enslaved rose up and overthrew the French colonial government.

    Haiti became the first independent Black republic in the world, and the country’s independence terrified many in the U.S., especially white slaveholders. They feared the revolution might inspire slave revolts at home.

    Illustration depicting the Haitian Revolution led by Toussaint Louverture.
    Bettmann/Getty Images

    For much of the 19th century, the U.S. refused to recognize Haiti as a legitimate nation. It wasn’t until 1862, during the Civil War, that the U.S. finally established diplomatic relations with the country.

    But the U.S. continued to exploit Haiti for its own economic and military interests, occupying the country with the military from 1915 to 1934. During this period, the U.S. controlled Haiti’s government and finances, installed a pro-American president and helped establish a brutal military force.

    The occupation worsened racial and economic inequality in Haiti and further destabilized the nation.

    This history of exploitation and interference has had long-lasting effects on Haiti’s ability to develop economically and politically, a situation exacerbated by continued U.S. intervention throughout the Cold War era.

    During the nearly 30-year dictatorships of François “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier between 1957 and 1986, for example, the U.S. government provided approximately US$900 million in financial support to these repressive regimes, despite their notorious human-rights abuses.

    Anti-Black immigration policies

    All the history of U.S. involvement in Haiti set the stage for the mass migration of Haitians to the U.S. since the early 1960s.

    Over the years, about 200,000 Haitians have sought to escape violence and poverty to the U.S.

    Those with resources, such as the Haitian elite and middle class, migrated legally, settling in New York and Miami. Many of them organized ways to send aid to Haiti and brought attention to human-rights abuses being committed by the Duvalier regimes.

    Poor Haitians soon followed, arriving by crude boats.

    In September 1963, the first boatload of Haitian refugees landed in Miami. But instead of finding freedom, all 23 Haitians were denied asylum and sent back to Haiti by the U.S. immigration authorities.

    Since then, Haitians arriving by boat have faced arrest, detention, asylum denials and deportation as successive U.S. governments refused to recognize the political repression in Haiti. Instead, Haitians were labeled economic migrants who sought a better standard of living and, as such, were not eligible for asylum.

    From 1981 to 1991, for instance, 433 boats carrying approximately 25,580 Haitians were intercepted by U.S. immigration authorities. Only 28 people were allowed to pursue refugee claims.

    The Haitian experience in the US

    Often portrayed by white policymakers as disease carriers and criminals, Haitian immigrants have long suffered discrimination and dehumanization in the U.S.

    In the 1980s, during the HIV crisis, U.S. health officials wrongly labeled Haitians as high-risk carriers of the virus, reinforcing harmful racial and ethnic stereotypes.

    Despite a lack of scientific evidence, Haitians were stigmatized as a group, leading to economic and social exclusion within the U.S. Many Haitians lost jobs, housing and faced threats of violence simply because of their nationality and ethnicity.

    My research has shown this portrayal of Haitians as dangerous and undesirable persists today, as reflected in Trump’s and Vance’s recent claims. The narrative of immigrants eating pets and spreading diseases is a recycled trope in American history, used by white conservative politicians to stoke fears about foreigners to reinforce white supremacy.

    Historically, these kinds of claims have been used to justify exclusionary immigration policies and racial violence against nonwhite populations.

    A group of Haitian Americans in Springfield, Ohio, listen to area residents denounce the town’s growing Haitian population during a public meeting on Sept. 24, 2024.
    Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images /Getty Images

    The accusations against Haitians in Springfield have not only triggered immediate threats of violence but have also reinforced deep-seated, anti-Black xenophobia that continues to plague U.S. society.

    In recent years, hate speech and attacks against Black immigrants, including Haitians, have been on the rise. Black immigrants, regardless of their legal status, face higher rates of deportation and are more likely to be targeted than white immigrants by law enforcement.

    Addressing anti-Haitian racism

    The allegations made by Trump and Vance represent a dangerous escalation of rhetoric that has real-life consequences for Haitians in the U.S.

    The demonization of Haitians in Springfield is not just a political ploy – it is part of a broader strategy to uphold systems of exclusion that have historically been used to marginalize Black people, both immigrants and citizens.

    Thurka Sangaramoorthy receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.

    – ref. Trump’s anti-Haitian rhetoric reflects America’s long-standing racism against Haiti and its people – https://theconversation.com/trumps-anti-haitian-rhetoric-reflects-americas-long-standing-racism-against-haiti-and-its-people-240975

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: LGBTQ+ voters in these 4 states could swing the 2024 presidential election

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Dorian Rhea Debussy, Lecturer of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University

    LGBTQ+ voters lean heavily Democratic, and they tend to turn out in high numbers. Dani VG via Getty Images

    Victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election may come down to LGBTQ+ voters.

    Polling data shows that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are running in a near-dead heat in four states – Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And as a scholar of LGBTQ+ politics, I suspect that LGBTQ+ voters could play an outsize role in these states and the race.

    So, how might LGBTQ+ voters swing these states?

    LGBTQ+ voting behavior, explained

    In the most comprehensive political survey of LGBTQ+ Americans ever conducted, the Pew Research Center found in 2013 that the vast majority of respondents – 85% – “always” or “nearly always” voted, compared with roughly a third of the general population. Turnout in the most recent presidential election validated that finding. A 2020 post-election survey by the advocacy group GLAAD found that 81% of LGBTQ+ voters cast a ballot.

    For context, 64% of all eligible voters cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election, which was unusually high voter participation. Historically, turnout hovers around 55% for presidential elections and 35% for midterm elections.

    An LGBTQ+ delegate at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
    Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images

    The National Center for Transgender Equality, an advocacy organization, finds that voter turnout is particularly high among transgender people.

    Even in the historically low-turnout 2014 midterm election, the group’s data indicated that roughly half of transgender respondents had voted, compared with only one-third of the general population. In the 2022 midterm election, transgender voter turnout increased to nearly 75%, according to the 2024 U.S. Trans Survey.

    LGBTQ+ voters and partisanship

    LGBTQ+ voters strongly lean Democratic. Pew’s 2013 survey found that nearly 60% of all LGBTQ+ respondents were Democrats, and less than 10% were Republicans. Transgender voters are even more partisan, and nearly 80% identified as Democratic or Democratic-leaning in the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey.

    Exit poll data from the 2016 presidential election supports this conclusion. Nearly 80% of LGBTQ+ voters told researchers outside polling stations that they’d cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton. Just 14% reported that they’d backed Trump.

    Initial exit poll data from the 2020 presidential election indicated that Trump had doubled his share of LGBTQ+ voters to 28%. Later analyses contradicted that finding, however, showing that LGBTQ+ voters were actually essential to Joe Biden’s victory.

    The surprising miscalculation was likely due to COVID-19-related polling errors. Exit poll data from the 2022 midterm election put LGBTQ+ support for Republican congressional candidates back at 14%.

    LGBTQ+ voters in ‘tipping-point’ states

    Taken together, past polling data indicates that the LGBTQ+ community will likely back Harris over Trump by strong margins in four of the most likely “tipping-point” states – that is, the swing states with enough electoral votes to tip the entire election for one candidate.

    Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania all have populations of LGBTQ+ adults that are significantly larger than the margin of victory by which the winning candidate took the state in 2020.

    For instance, Biden won Georgia and its 15 electoral votes by 11,779 votes in 2020, and there are over 400,000 LGBTQ+ adults in the state. Trump’s apparent current lead in Georgia is within the margin of error, and even a slight increase in Democratic-leaning LGBTQ+ voters, compared with 2020, could hand Harris the state.

    Georgia now has 16 electoral votes following a population increase.

    The gap between the two candidates in all four tipping-point states is similarly narrow – 2% or less. That’s well within state polls’ margin of error. Together, these states have a combined 66 electoral votes. That’s nearly double Biden’s Electoral College margin of victory in 2020 and Trump’s margin in 2016.

    If higher turnout among LGBTQ+ voters in these four likely tipping-point states could deliver the 2024 race for Harris, then lower LGBTQ+ turnout could pave Trump’s path to victory.

    Trump is well within striking distance in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania and Michigan, where polling puts him in a statistical dead heat with Harris. With those slim margins that are well within the margin of error, even a moderate decrease in turnout among the states’ many thousands of LGBTQ+ voters could cause serious problems for Harris.

    For context, Biden won Pennsylvania and Michigan by 80,555 and 154,188 votes, respectively, in 2020.

    Possible X factors

    Of course, the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections are not carbon copies of each other.

    The LGBTQ+ electorate grows each year, and by 2030 1 in 7 voters are expected to identify as LGBTQ+.

    Republicans have also ramped up legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ rights since 2020, and GOP campaign ads with anti-transgender messages dominate this election cycle. Both of these factors will play a role in 2024, as will a shake-up in the North Carolina governor’s race.

    In September, CNN reported that the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, had posted controversial comments on a pornographic website between 2008 and 2012. In addition to referring to himself as a “black Nazi,” Robinson said that he enjoyed watching transgender pornography.

    For a candidate whose anti-trans rhetoric includes saying transgender women should be arrested for using women’s restrooms, this was shocking news. Robinson has denied the allegation, which has severely damaged his campaign. Two weeks ahead of the election, polling gave Robinson’s Democratic opponent, Josh Stein, a clear lead over Robinson.

    Robinson’s troubled past and embattled campaign could mobilize multiple pockets of progressive North Carolinians, including LGBTQ+ voters, against him. Boosted turnout would almost certainly eat into Trump’s vote share in North Carolina – a state he won by 1.3% in 2020.

    What to expect on election night

    Historical trends, demographic data and current affairs all point toward LGBTQ+ voters playing an important – and potentially decisive – role in tipping swing states to Harris.

    Yet, there are also signs that Harris may underperform with LGBTQ+ voters.

    A September 2024 survey by the Human Rights Campaign, a LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, reported that about 20% of LGBTQ+ respondents were undecided, planning to stay home or backing a third party. Less than 8% of LGBTQ+ respondents were leaning toward Trump, but disaffected LGBTQ+ Democrats could cause problems for Harris.

    Ultimately, there’s no way to know what LGBTQ+ voters will actually do at the ballot box. This race is in flux, and plenty can happen before election day. Other voting blocs have grown or changed since 2024, too.

    The answers will come on election night or – in a race with such narrow margins of victory – in the days and weeks of counting and recounting to follow.

    Dorian Rhea Debussy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. LGBTQ+ voters in these 4 states could swing the 2024 presidential election – https://theconversation.com/lgbtq-voters-in-these-4-states-could-swing-the-2024-presidential-election-239656

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Vampire bats – look beyond the fangs and blood to see animal friendships and unique adaptations

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Sebastian Stockmaier, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee

    Vampire bats have complex social relationships. Samuel Betkowski/Moment via Getty Images

    You can probably picture a vampire: Pale, sharply fanged undead sucker of blood, deterred only by sunlight, religious paraphernalia and garlic. They’re gnarly creatures, often favorite subjects for movies or books. Luckily, they’re only imaginary … or are they?

    There are real vampires in the world of bats. Out of over 1,400 currently described bat species, three are known to feed on blood exclusively.

    The common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus, is the most abundant. At home in the tropical forests of Central and South America, these bats feed on various animals, including tapirs, mountain lions, penguins and, most often nowadays, livestock.

    A vampire bat enjoys a blood meal at the expense of a domestic goat.
    Nicolas Reusens/Moment via Getty Images

    Feeding on a blood diet is unusual for a mammal and has led to many unique adaptations that facilitate their uncommon lifestyle. Unlike other bats, vampires are mobile on the ground, toggling between two distinct gaits to circle their sleeping prey. Heat-sensing receptors on their noses help them find warm blood under their prey’s skin. Finally, the combination of a small incision, made by potentially self-sharpening fangs, and an anticoagulant in their saliva allows these bats to feed on unsuspecting prey.

    To me, as a behavioral ecologist, who is interested in how pathogens affect social behaviors and vice versa, the most fascinating adaptations to a blood-feeding lifestyle are observable in vampire bats’ social lives.

    Vampire bats build reciprocal relationships

    Blood is not very nutritious, and vampire bats that fail to feed will starve relatively quickly. If a bat returns to the roost hungry, others may regurgitate a blood meal to get them through the night.

    Vampire bats will share their blood meal with a hungry friend.
    Gerry Carter

    Such food sharing happens between bats who are related – such as mothers and their offspring – but also unrelated individuals. This observation has puzzled evolutionary biologists for quite a while. Why help someone who is not closely related to you?

    It turns out that vampire bats keep track of who feeds them and reciprocate – or not, if the other bat has not been helpful in the past. In doing so, they form complex social relationships maintained by low-cost social investments, such as cleaning and maintaining the fur of another animal, called allogrooming, and higher-cost social investments, such as sharing food.

    These relationships are on par with what you would see in primates, and some people compare them to human friendships. Indeed, there are some parallels.

    For instance, humans will raise the stakes when forming new relationships with others. You start with social investments that don’t cost much – think sharing some of your lunch – and wait for the other person’s response. If they don’t reciprocate, the relationship may be doomed. But if the other person does reciprocate by sharing a bit of their dessert, for instance, your next investment might be larger. You gradually increase the stakes in a game of back-and-forth until the friendship eventually warrants larger social investments like going out of your way to give them a ride to work when their car breaks down.

    Vampire bats do the same. When strangers are introduced, they will start with small fur-cleaning interactions to test the waters. If both partners keep reciprocating and raising the stakes, the relationship will eventually escalate to food sharing, which is a bigger commitment.

    Relationships, in sickness and in health

    My lab studies how infections affect social behaviors and relationships. Given their vast array of social behaviors and the complexity of their social relationships, vampire bats are the ideal study system for me and my colleagues.

    How does being ill affect how vampire bats behave? How do other bats behave toward one that is sick? How does sickness affect the formation and maintenance of their social relationships?

    We simulate infections in bats in our lab by using molecules derived from pathogens to stimulate an immune response. We’ve repeatedly found a form of passive social distancing where sick individuals reduce their interaction with others, whether it’s allogrooming, social calling or just spending time near others.

    Researchers attach proximity sensors to bats. The sensors communicate with each other and exchange information about meeting time, duration and signal strength, which is a proxy for distance between two bats.
    Sherri and Brock Fenton

    Importantly, these behavioral changes haven’t necessarily evolved to minimize spreading disease to others. Rather, they are parts of the complex immune response that biologists call sickness behaviors. It’s comparable to someone infected with the flu staying at home simply because they don’t feel up to venturing out. Even if such passive social distancing may have not evolved to prevent transmission to others, simply being too sick to interact with others will still reduce the spread of germs.

    Interestingly, sickness behaviors can be suppressed. People do this all the time. So-called presenteeism is showing up at work despite illness due to various pressures. Similarly, many people have suppressed symptoms of an infection to engage in some sort of social obligation. If you have little kids, you know that when everyone in your household is coming down with something, there’s no way you can just sit back and not take care of the little ones, even if you feel quite bad yourself.

    Animals are no different. They can suppress sickness behaviors when competing needs arise, such as caring for young or defending territory. Despite their tendency to reduce social interactions with others when sick, in vampire bats, sick mothers will continue to groom their offspring and vice versa, probably because mother-daughter relationships are extra important. Mothers and daughters are often each other’s primary social relationships within groups of vampire bats.

    Despite vampire bats’ elaborate social relationships, farmers often consider them pests.
    Sherri and Brock Fenton

    Human-bat conflict centers on livestock

    Despite their many fascinating adaptations and complex social lives, vampire bats are not universally admired. In fact, in many areas in South and Central America, they are considered pests because they can transmit the deadly rabies virus to livestock, which can cause quite significant economic losses.

    Before people introduced livestock into their habitat, vampire bats probably had a harder time finding food in the form of native prey species such as tapirs. Now, livestock has become their primary food source. After all, why not feed on something that is reliably at the same place every night and quite abundant? Increases in livestock abundance come with increases in vampire bat populations, probably perpetuating the problem of rabies transmission.

    The farmers’ quarrels with vampires make sense, especially in smaller cattle herds, where losing even one cow can significantly hurt a farmer’s livelihood. Culling campaigns have used topically applied poisons called vampiricide, basically a mix of petroleum jelly and rat poison. Bats are caught, the paste is applied to the fur, and they carry it back to the roost, where others ingest the poison during social interactions. Interestingly, large-scale culling may not be very effective in reducing rabies spillover.

    Vampire bat colonies live in places like hollow trees.
    May Dixon

    Now, the focus has started to shift toward large-scale cattle vaccinations or vaccinating the vampire bats themselves. Researchers are even considering transmissible vaccines: They could genetically modify herpes viruses, which are quite common in vampire bats, to carry rabies genes and vaccinate large swaths of vampire bat populations.

    Whichever method is used to mitigate vampire bat-human conflicts, more empathy for these misunderstood animals could only help. After all, if you stick your head into a hollow tree full of vampire bats – assuming you can brave the smell of digested blood – remember: You’re looking at a complex network of individual friendships between animals that care deeply for each other.

    Some of the cited work in the article is from long-term collaborators (such as Dr. Gerald Carter at Princeton University) with whom I frequently interact and work together.

    – ref. Vampire bats – look beyond the fangs and blood to see animal friendships and unique adaptations – https://theconversation.com/vampire-bats-look-beyond-the-fangs-and-blood-to-see-animal-friendships-and-unique-adaptations-239980

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: Winnsboro native serving at U.S. Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Guantanamo Bay on the path to becoming an officer

    Source: United States Navy

    Peay graduated from Fairfield Central High School in 2006.

    The skills and values needed to succeed in the Navy are similar to those found in Winnsboro.

    “Growing up in Winnsboro, I learned the value of hard work and determination,” said Peay. “It’s a small town where everyone knows each other, and the sense of community taught me the importance of perseverance and supporting one another. That work ethic, ingrained in me from my early days, has been my guiding light throughout my Navy career. It’s the backbone of every challenge I’ve faced and every goal I’ve achieved. The lessons from Winnsboro have stayed with me, reminding me to always give my best, no matter the circumstances. It’s that unwavering commitment to hard work and community spirit that has shaped who I am today.”

    Peay joined the Navy 18 years ago. Today, Peay serves as a hospital corpsman.

    “I joined the Navy because I wanted to carve my own path and take control of my future.” said Peay “I dreamed of going to college, but I also wanted to earn that opportunity myself, to stand tall knowing I worked hard for it. The Navy offered me that chance—to learn, grow, and serve my country, all while building a foundation for my dreams. It was a decision fueled by a desire for independence and a commitment to my own potential. Every challenge I’ve faced and every lesson I’ve learned has been a step toward becoming the person I always hoped to be.”

    Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay provides health care to the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay community, which consists of approximately 4,500 military members, federal employees, U.S. and foreign national contractors and their families. The hospital also operates the only overseas military home health care facility providing care to elderly special category residents who sought asylum on the installation during the Cuban Revolution.

    With 90% of global commerce traveling by sea and access to the internet relying on the security of undersea fiber optic cables, Navy officials continue to emphasize that the prosperity of the United States is directly linked to recruiting and retaining talented people from across the rich fabric of America.

    Peay serves a Navy that operates far forward, around the world and around the clock, promoting the nation’s prosperity and security.

    “We will earn and reinforce the trust and confidence of the American people every day,” said Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations. “Together we will deliver the Navy the nation needs.”

    Peay has many opportunities to achieve accomplishments during military service.

    “My proudest accomplishment in the Navy was the moment I saw my name on the list for Medical Service Corps Officer,” said Peay. “It felt like a culmination of all the sleepless nights, relentless training, and unwavering commitment. That moment was a testament to the perseverance and dedication that fueled my journey. It wasn’t just about the rank; it was about the recognition of all the sacrifices and hard work. Knowing that I had earned this honor through sheer determination made it incredibly fulfilling. It’s a milestone continually reminding me of the power of resilience and the incredible heights we can reach when we commit fully to our goals.”

    Peay can take pride in serving America through military service.

    “Serving in the Navy means everything to me,” said Peay. “It’s about safeguarding the freedom we all cherish, ensuring the security of our nation, and creating a pathway to a better life—for myself and countless others. It’s a profound commitment to a cause greater than any individual, and it’s given me a sense of purpose and belonging. The Navy has not only provided me with a stable and secure career but also with the opportunity to grow, learn, and forge a life filled with meaning and pride. Every day I serve, I’m reminded of the incredible impact we have on the world, and that is the greatest honor of all.”

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: The MetaCampus Polytech project took first place at the PriorityFest 2024 festival

    Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –

    In Moscow, the results of the marathon of best practices of universities — participants and candidates of the Priority-2030 program — were summed up. The event concluded the large-scale festival PriorityFest 2024. The MetaCampus Polytech project took first place in the nomination of Best Campus Management Practice according to the voting results.

    The results of the large-scale festival PriorityFest 2024 have been summed up. Universities — participants and candidates of the Priority-2030 program competed for the victory. For several days, university representatives introduced their best projects to their colleagues at the MGIMO site. The winner in the nomination “Best Campus Management Practice” was the project of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University “MetaCampus Polytech”. It was presented by the project manager, director of the Civil Engineering Institute Marina Petrochenko. The winners of the best university practices marathon were awarded by Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Olga Petrova.

    I am always pleased to be at PriorityFest – it is a unique project and special energy. I am sincerely grateful to you that you are not afraid to show your practices, not afraid to share. This is very important, it helps to cross-pollinate with developed practices and move forward the entire system of higher education in our country, – noted Olga Petrova.

    85 universities proposed 211 projects to participate in the festival. They were first assessed by experts from the Sociocenter, and at the next stage by representatives of universities, partner organizations, federal and regional authorities, and the business community. 24 universities with 26 best practices reached the final. Polytechnic University won in the nomination “Best Campus Management Practice”.

    “MetaCampus Polytech” is a virtual digital ecosystem consisting of an information model of the university campus, a database and a system of services that provide strategic and operational management of the university’s business processes based on a data-driven approach, the creation and storage of SPbPU’s digital asset and the positioning of the university in the educational and scientific-technological space.

    Innovations in management always imply a serious comprehensive approach and transformation of system processes. Often, this is especially difficult at the first stages, because we are talking about creating something new, working on uncharted ground. But in the end, the integrated result has a positive effect. This is exactly what the development program of our university is aimed at. The peculiarity of “MetaCampus Polytech” is not only in infrastructure management, but also in uniting people who are not indifferent to the alma mater. This is the largest project in terms of the number of students involved from different institutes. Almost 2,000 guys made their intellectual and spiritual contribution. This would not have been possible without the faith and enthusiasm of the mentors, – noted Acting Vice-Rector for Promising Projects Maria Vrublevskaya.

    The project is designed to transform the campus and university infrastructure management system, develop services to accelerate basic processes, and form a sustainable collaboration between education, science, and business. MetaCampus Polytech is being implemented with the support of the Priority 2030 strategic academic leadership program.

    This year, students from several other SPbPU institutes joined the project. We initially planned a new campus management system, but received a project about people and for people. Thanks to it, our students and teachers develop unique competencies that allow them to significantly increase their competitiveness in the labor market. And the results of the project in the form of a system of information models of campus buildings and a system of services will contribute to the launch of transformation processes in terms of campus infrastructure management and increasing the level of its comfort and accessibility for students and university employees, – said the director of the ISI Marina Petrochenko.

    Work on the project is integrated into the university’s educational activities. Under the guidance of 15 mentor teachers, more than 2,000 students took part in the work within six academic disciplines and seven internship programs. This allows students to develop not only professional but also supra-professional competencies.

    The main result of the project will be a digital information model of the university campus, a database and a system of special services. Thus, open services will allow everyone to take a virtual walk around the campus, get acquainted with the sights and look into the laboratories and academic buildings. And closed sections will help collect and analyze analytical information on the functioning of all data and systems of campus buildings.

    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.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: First Lady Tammy Murphy Hosts 22nd Family Festival in Orange to Address Maternal and Infant Health Crisis

    Source: US State of New Jersey

    The Family Festival Series Has Now Reached 14,950 Families Across 11 Counties

    ORANGE – First Lady Tammy Murphy marked her 22nd Nurture NJ Family Festival in Orange today, gathering 1,100 attendees to receive valuable state, county and local resources for expectant and new parents, including health care, housing support, food assistance, child care and more.

    “Over the past seven years, our Family Festivals have provided support and resources to countless mothers and families across the Garden State. There are incredible resources available to New Jerseyans and – with help from our partners – we are putting them within reach in every community we visit,” said First Lady Tammy Murphy. “Communities like Orange represent the very best of New Jersey. However, we know that communities of color experience significant disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes. That is why I look forward to continuing our festival series in targeted cities as we work to make New Jersey the safest and most equitable place in the nation to have a baby and raise a family.”

    In a city like Orange, with large Black and Latino communities, the consequences of New Jersey’s maternal and infant health crisis are unmistakable. In New Jersey, a Black mother is nearly seven times more likely and Hispanic mothers are three and a half times more likely than white mothers to die of maternity-related complications. Orange ranks sixth among our cities that experience high rates of Black infant mortality.

    Launched by First Lady Tammy Murphy in 2019, Nurture NJ is a statewide initiative committed to addressing our state’s maternal and infant health crisis. Since its inception, Nurture NJ has seen over 65 pieces of maternal and infant health legislation signed by Governor Murphy. The initiative has also developed and implemented groundbreaking programs and policies, such as the first-of-its-kind in the nation Maternal and Infant Health Innovation Authority (MIHIA), which is tasked with overseeing the groundbreaking New Jersey Maternal and Infant Health Innovation Center based in Trenton, and will be the arm of government that continues the vital work of Nurture NJ past the Murphy Administration.

    Under First Lady Murphy’s leadership, Nurture NJ has made significant policy achievements including: developing the Nurture NJ Maternal and Infant Health Strategic Plan – of which over half of its more than 80 recommendations have been started or completed; becoming the second state to expand Medicaid coverage to 365 days postpartum; establishing Medicaid reimbursement for doula care; increasing all perinatal Medicaid provider reimbursements to 100 percent of Medicare rates; and launching the most robust-in-the-nation universal nurse home visitation program so that every new parent is visited by a nurse in their home for free within two weeks after bringing home a new baby. Through these innovative policies and more, Nurture NJ has positioned New Jersey as a national leader in the fight against the maternal and infant health crisis.

    The Orange Family Festival was hosted in partnership with the Office of First Lady Tammy Murphy, Nurture NJ, Senator Britnee Timberlake, Assemblywoman Carmen Morales, Assemblyman Mike Venezia, County of Essex, City of Orange, Orange Public Schools, Essex Pregnancy and Parenting, Greater Newark Health Care Coalition, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, Newark Community Health Centers, Partnership for Maternal and Child Health of Northern NJ, Perinatal Health Equity Initiative, Prevent Child Abuse NJ, Programs for Parents, RWJBarnabas Health and The Burke Foundation. 

    “Partnering with First Lady Tammy Murphy for the Family Festival in Essex County, Orange, NJ, was a true privilege. This event united families and provided invaluable resources, aligning perfectly with my legislative priorities around children and families. My gratitude goes to the First Lady, the City of Orange, and all other organizers and partners for orchestrating such an inspiring and impactful event,” said Senator Britnee Timberlake.

    “I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to First Lady Tammy Murphy for her unwavering support and dedication to our communities. I am thrilled to welcome the family festival to Orange, NJ. This investment not only enhances our community but also creates opportunities for our residents. Together, we are building a brighter future for our families and ensuring that the Oranges have all the resources and support that our families deserve,” said Assemblywoman Carmen Morales.

    “I’m proud to support First Lady Tammy Murphy’s Family Fun Day in Orange, which provides critical resources and services to our families in a warm, community-centered setting. This event exemplifies our commitment to ensuring all New Jersey families have access to the support they need to thrive,” said Assemblyman Mike Venezia.

    “If there is anything that we learned from the COVID pandemic, it’s that promoting public health and reaching out to the community to make health care more accessible are most important. Events like the Family Festival enable us to connect with underserved and hard to reach communities and provide a one-stop location where residents can begin their journey to wellness. Working with the state, health agencies and community partners, we are Putting Essex County’s Health First,” said Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr.

    “The core of family health is ensuring that every family, regardless of background or circumstance, has access to the care and resources they deserve. Through this event, we celebrate the incredible collaboration between the NJDOH, RWJBarnabas Health, and our community partners, working together to bridge the gaps in health equity and empower families across Essex County. Together, we are building a healthier, more equitable future for all,” said Maya Harlow, Essex County Health Officer/ Director.

    “With open arms we welcome First Lady Tammy Murphy and her staff as we collaborate to launch the Orange Family Festival on Saturday. This family and resource connection effort will serve as a direct pipeline to successes in Orange households, schools and community spaces by focusing on children and parents in need. We appreciate First Lady Murphy and the Governor for helping to extend our reach to every part of our community,” said Mayor Dwayne Warren of Orange.

    “The Orange School District supports opportunities for families to engage with our community partners. I am quite pleased that the City of Orange was selected to host this amazing event for our community.  I believe the powerful information must be disseminated and this event is right in line with this thinking,” said Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gerald Fitzhugh, II.

    “First Lady Tammy Murphy’s Family Festival in Orange is an inspiration to the people in these challenging times. The event clearly guides families in underserved communities to access the care and resources that are available in their community in an atmosphere of hope for a better and healthier life. The NJ Nurture program gives families, moms and children wealth in health,” said Dr Pamela Clarke, President & CEO of Newark Community Health Centers Inc.

    “Improving maternal and infant health is central to creating a healthier New Jersey and that is what the Family Festivals are all about.  Everyone deserves access to affordable healthcare no matter who they are or where they live and we are grateful for the opportunity to continue our partnership with the Governor and First Lady.  As New Jersey’s health solutions leader, Horizon is meeting our neighbors where they live and helping them achieve their best health through partnerships like this one,” said Wendy Morriarty, VP and Chief Medicaid Officer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ.

    “Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, together with RWJBarnabas Health, remains committed to providing equitable health care, helping to improve the health and well-being of our community, said Richard L. Davis, President and CEO of Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center. “We are honored to be a part of First Lady Tammy Murphy’s Family Festival, which is in alignment with our system mission to partner with our communities to build and sustain a healthier New Jersey.”

    “The Burke Foundation is proud to support the First Lady’s Nurture NJ Family Festivals which bring together families and the support they need to thrive within the communities where they live. We’re committed to improving maternal and child health in New Jersey by investing $15 million over the next five years in programs that will improve families’ health and well-being, and we’re honored to be part of today’s celebration in Orange,” said Atiya Weiss, Executive Director of the Burke Foundation.

    “The Greater Newark Health Care Coalition is proud to partner with First Lady Tammy Murphy and our local and state partners to bring so many resources and programs to the Orange community and its neighbors. Having access to many critical resources under one roof in the community helps eliminate accessibility barriers that prevent our families from benefiting from great programs. We thank First Lady Tammy Murphy, Nurture NJ, and the sponsors for their vision and commitment to improve maternal and child health in NJ,” said Andrea Martinez-Mejia, Executive Director, Greater Newark Health Care Coalition.

    “The Family Festival brings communities together and provides important resources to strengthen and empower families.  We are thrilled to be part of this event which supports children and families and exemplifies prevention in partnership in New Jersey,” said Gina Hernandez, CEO and Executive Director, Prevent Child Abuse-New Jersey and Essex Pregnancy and Parenting.

    “We are thrilled to participate in the First Lady of New Jersey’s Family Festival, where we can stand alongside families and community partners dedicated to a future with equitable healthcare. Our participation in This event reflects our unwavering commitment to addressing disparities in Black infant and maternal health, and we look forward to empowering and supporting families with the resources, knowledge, and compassion they deserve,” said Dr. Nastassia Harris, Founder of Perinatal Health Equity Initiative.

    “We are excited to be part of the festival, so we can meet Essex County parents to share information about the New Jersey Child Care Assistance Program, how to find quality child care and talk, generally, with them about their child care needs,” said Nayibe Capellan, CEO Programs for Parents.

    “We are thrilled to support the First Lady’s Family Festival.  These events not only provide vital health resources for the residents of Orange, but they bring together the community for a day of fun,” said Mariekarl Vilceus-Talty, President & CEO, Partnership for Maternal and Child Health of Northern New Jersey.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What you need to know about clonazepam, the drug found in Liam Payne’s hotel room

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael Cole, Professor of Forensic Science, Anglia Ruskin University

    Early toxicology reports suggest that former One Direction singer Liam Payne had several drugs in his system when he fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These include pink cocaine (which comprises several drugs), cocaine, benzodiazepine and crack.

    While the type of benzodiazepine wasn’t mentioned in the toxicology report, it is known that the police found a blister pack of clonazepam in the singer’s hotel room.

    Although there has been a general fall in the use of benzodiazepines, clonazepam has bucked that trend. The reason for this is unclear, but it could be the drug’s potency. It is not without reason that on the street it is sometimes referred to as “super Valium”.

    Clonazepam was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1975. It is used to treat a range of conditions, including epileptic seizures, muscle spasms, anxiety and panic disorders. Doses range from 0.5mg to 2mg in tablet or liquid forms. (By comparison, a teaspoon of sugar weighs about 5,000mg.) It is also 20 times more potent than diazepam (Valium), with 0.5mg of clonazepam being equivalent to 10mg diazepam.

    The onset time for clonazepam – that is, the time to have an effect – is an hour or more. Xanax, also a benzodiazepine, starts to act within ten minutes, while Valium takes between 15 and 60 minutes.

    Although slower to start acting, the effects of clonazepam are longer lasting than many benzodiazepines. For example, the half-life (the time taken for the body to reduce the amount of drug in the body by 50%) of Xanax is six to 25 hours, of Valium 48 hours and clonazepam up to 54 hours.

    In recreational use, tablets are powdered and then snorted. The drug enters the bloodstream through the membranes in the nose. Taken this way the drug is faster to act and more is available in the bloodstream to have an effect.

    The drug is thought to work by enhancing the activity of a brain chemical (neurotransmitter) called Gaba. It dampens brain activity by blocking the signals between neurons. Boosting Gaba is known to reduce anxiety, promote relaxation and help with sleep.

    Steady rise

    Recently there has been a rise in the use and misuse of clonazepam in the UK. Prescriptions for the drug increased by 12% in 2023. The UK Rehab website states: “The rise in clonazepam addiction reflects a larger trend in the misuse of prescription medications, a public health crisis that has escalated into epidemic proportions in some regions.”

    Google searches for clonazepam have increased, with a particular interest in the drug in parts of the US. There are also reports of new polydrug mixtures containing clonazepam, such as karkoubi, which has been reported in Algeria and Morocco, mixing clonazepam with cannabis and tobacco.

    Taking clonazepam is not without dangers. Even under medical supervision, people can develop tolerance to it and become dependent.

    Doctors tend to prescribe low doses and then gradually increase the dose until the desired therapeutic effect is achieved. However, if the drug is taken over long periods (four weeks is often cited) people can become dependent. Withdrawal symptoms – such as tremors, sweating and nausea – are then experienced when the patient stops taking the drug.

    Clonazepam also causes side-effects that can include trouble speaking, feeling sleepy, a slower heartbeat and excitability. Although rarer, some people hallucinate.

    When mixed with other drugs or alcohol, the problems are compounded. For example, mixing with opiates and opioids (for example, codeine, methadone, morphine, oxycodone and tramadol) or alcohol can lead to sedation, slower breathing and heart rate, coma and even death.

    Taking drugs in combination is known to be extremely dangerous. More than 93% of drug deaths in Scotland in 2021 involved more than one drug.

    With these potential dangers, clonazepam is tightly controlled internationally. In the UK, it is a class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Other class C drugs include GHB, tramadol, cathinone and anabolic steroids.

    But tough laws alone will not stop drugs from being misused. So when people choose to take drugs, including clonazepam, it is important that they understand what the drug might do and what the risks might be.

    Michael Cole receives funding and “in kind” support from the European Union and a number police forces and forensic science organisations around the world to carry out research.

    – ref. What you need to know about clonazepam, the drug found in Liam Payne’s hotel room – https://theconversation.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-clonazepam-the-drug-found-in-liam-paynes-hotel-room-241853

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Kamala Harris is being called ‘Jezebel’ – a Biblical expert explains why it’s a menacing slur

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By M.J.C. Warren, Senior Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies, University of Sheffield

    lev radin/Shutterstock

    Jezebel has long been used as a slur against women who are considered too self-confident, too independent or too close to power – particularly when they happen to be Black. From Beyonce to Nikki Minaj, US vice-president and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is only the latest in a long line of women of colour to be on the receiving end of the slur.

    But beneath the use of Jezebel’s name as a way to paint powerful women as promiscuous lies something even more sinister: the threat of sexual violence for those who will not submit to white patriarchal control.

    An increasing number of Christian nationalist personalities have taken to claiming that the vice-president is a Jezebel spirit. Notably, televangelist Lance Wallnau appears in multiple videos on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that: “with Kamala you have a Jezebel spirit, a characteristic in the Bible, that is a Jezebel spirit. The personification of intimidation, seduction, domination and manipulation”.

    Nor is Wallnau shy about connecting his use of Jezebel to Harris’s race: according to his video, the fact that Harris is Black makes her even more of a seductive Jezebel than Hillary Clinton: “the spirit of Jezebel in a way that will be even more ominous than Hillary [Clinton] because she’ll bring a racial component, and she’s younger”.

    Jezebels old and new

    Different versions of Jezebel are found in the Old and New Testaments, but both are associated with power, independence and sexuality. In 1 Kings, Jezebel is a queen from Sidon (present-day Lebanon). She ruled along with her husband Ahab and refuses to worship the biblical God; she continued her traditional worship of Ba’al.

    Her authority in her marriage and in politics attracted the prophet Elijah’s negative attention. Elijah utters a prophecy that: “The dogs shall eat Jezebel” (1 Kings 21:23), and indeed, 2 Kings 9:32-37 says that the prophecy is fulfilled.

    Knowing her life is in danger, Jezebel puts on her make up and does her hair to prepare to meet her enemy.

    As religious studies academic Jennifer L. Koosed writes, while her self-beautification is used to sexualise Jezebel, “these acts are those of a proud and powerful queen” who boldly meets the man who is about to have her thrown from a window. Jezebel’s bloodied body is trampled by horses and her corpse utterly destroyed.

    Her violent death and the desecration of her body, which is consumed by dogs, dehumanises Jezebel. The Bible presents this as apt punishment for a woman who was so bold as to defy her husband’s traditions and maintain her independence.

    When we meet another Jezebel in the New Testament, the process begins again. In Revelation 2, Jezebel is a prophet, a rival of John the Seer, who travels to different early Christian communities and teaches them. John, the author of the Book of Revelation, imagines Jesus writing to the community who allow themselves to be taught by her. In that letter, the voice of Jesus declares that the punishment for this woman, who dares to be a leader, is rape. John uses vitriolic language to paint Jezebel as sexually immoral, but his complaint is with her authority.

    Long and damaging history

    The Bible frequently paints female characters as unacceptably sexual, or threatens them with sexual violence, in order to maintain its patriarchal hierarchy.

    Definition of the word Jezebel in a religious dictionary.
    Shutterstock

    For example, as biblical scholars such as Renita J. Weems have pointed out, Hosea 1-3 uses the metaphor of God as (abusive) husband and the people of Israel as their (abused) adulterous wife in order to convince the Israelites to worship God again.

    The infamous figure of the “Whore of Babylon” in Revelation 17-18 echoes that divine threat: her control over the kings of the world, her opulence and her sexuality all make her God’s enemy – and her punishment is sexual humiliation and violence.

    Kamala Harris has been labelled Jezebel since at least as early as 2021 when pastor Steve Swofford as “Jezebel Harris” and pastor Tom Buck tweeted: “I can’t imagine any truly God-fearing Israelite who would’ve wanted their daughters to view Jezebel as an inspirational role model because she was a woman in power.”

    Buck doubled down on his comments the next day, saying, “For those torn up over my tweet, I stand by it 100%. My problem is her godless character. She not only is the most radical pro-abortion VP ever, but also most radical LGBT advocate. She performed one of the first Lesbian ‘marriages.’ Pray for her, but don’t praise her!”

    Understood in the context of the attack on women’s rights by Christian nationalists and their allies, giving Harris the name Jezebel connects the biblical threats with the move to criminalise abortion access and even divorce – to take power away from women and restore it to the patriarchal Christian structure.

    While Jezebel is a clearly misogynist term, it has long been used in particular to dehumanise Black women. Racist stereotypes about Black women as hypersexual Jezebels were used by slavers to justify their rape of enslaved women. Even after the end of slavery, this use of the name persisted, as did the racist stereotype about Black women’s sexual availability to justify sexual violence. And Black women continue to experience sexual harassment and abuse at much higher levels than white women.

    So, when Christian nationalists urge their followers to “confront this Jezebel spirit” we can’t forget that confronting Jezebel is violent – in the Bible confronting Jezebel means her death or her rape. These veiled threats should not be taken lightly.

    Femicide is an ongoing crisis. A woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK and three women are killed by men every day in North America. Sexual violence against women is also rampant and is a weapon in the patriarchal arsenal for subduing independent women.

    Calling a powerful woman like Harris a Jezebel, then, isn’t just an offensive slur – it carries with it the persistent threat of racist violence and sexual assault.

    M.J.C. Warren does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Kamala Harris is being called ‘Jezebel’ – a Biblical expert explains why it’s a menacing slur – https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-is-being-called-jezebel-a-biblical-expert-explains-why-its-a-menacing-slur-241746

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Is targeting UN peacekeepers in Lebanon a war crime? Here’s what international law says

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Giacomo Biggio, Lecturer in Law, University of Bristol Law School, University of Bristol

    Recent incidents involving the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (Unifil) have raised an important question. Can Israel lawfully target UN peacekeepers and premises in Lebanon, or would that constitute a war crime? To answer that question, it’s worth looking at the rules of International Humanitarian Law and how they relate to these apparent attacks by the IDF.

    First though, some background. Since Israeli troops entered Lebanon on October 1, there have been a number of incidents where IDF units have apparently targeted Unifil positions in southern Lebanon. This happened most recently on October 20, when the UN reported that “an IDF bulldozer deliberately demolished an observation tower and perimeter fence of a UN position” in Marwahin, near Lebanon’s border with Israel.

    Israel has repeatedly called for Unifil units to withdraw from the area. But, according to a UN statement of October 22: “Despite the pressure being exerted on the mission and our troop-contributing countries, peacekeepers remain in all positions.” The UN statement added that: “breaching a UN position and damaging UN assets is a flagrant violation of international law and Security Council resolution 1701. It also endangers the safety and security of our peacekeepers in violation of international humanitarian law.”

    Getting to grips with the legal position involved here begins by looking at the principle of “distinction”. This requires a party to the conflict to distinguish at all times between civilian and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives.

    A combatant is everyone who is a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict, with the exception of medical and religious personnel. In turn, the notion of armed forces comprises all organised armed forces, groups and units which are under a command responsible to that party for the conduct of its subordinates. Everyone who falls outside this category is considered a civilian.

    It’s a fundamentally important distinction. Combatants can be killed unless they are hors de combat (captured, trying to surrender or incapacitated). Civilians, meanwhile, enjoy absolute protection from attack and cannot intentionally be targeted unless they take a direct part in hostilities.

    Civilians or combatants?

    So, are Unifil peacekeepers combatants or civilians? Despite Unifil being armed and under military command, it is a peacekeeping force and not a party to the conflict. Unifil is mandated by UN security council resolution 1701. It operates with the consent of its host state, Lebanon, and in accordance with the principles of neutrality, impartiality and limited use of force.

    Since the war between Israel and Hezbollah ended in 2006, its job has been to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon, ensure that the government of Lebanon exercises effective authority in the area and prevent the entry of weapons into the region. Crucially, Unifil is not engaged in hostilities with either the IDF or Hezbollah. So it is not a party to the conflict.

    From this it follows that Unifil peacekeepers must be considered civilians and enjoy protection from attack. So they cannot be intentionally attacked by the IDF unless they engage in conduct amounting to “direct participation in hostilities” (DPH).

    The state of the conflict in southern Lebanon, October 22 2024.
    Institute for the Study of War

    For conduct to qualify as DPH, it must either kill or injure a party to an armed conflict, or destroy or damage a protected object. This must be deliberate, intentional and result directly from the action of the person accused.

    In practice, this means that a peacekeeper would be committing DPH by, for example, shooting on IDF soldiers with the intent of affecting their military operations. If that was the case, a peacekeeper would lose protection from attack, but only for the time they engage in the conduct amounting to DPH. After this conduct has ended, they would regain protection from attack.

    Crucially, Unifil peacekeepers have never fired on IDF soldiers. If they did perhaps return fire from IDF soldiers, they would acting in self defence, rather than with the intention of affecting the IDF’s military operations. So their actions would not be sufficient for them to be regarded as combatants and they’d still be protected as civilians.

    What is a legitimate military target?

    The same conclusion can be reached with regards to IDF attacks on Unifil’s premises. These qualify as civilian objects and are protected from direct attack. Only military objectives are legitimate targets because, according to IHL, they make “an effective contribution to military action” and their capture, destruction or neutralisation offers a definite military advantage.

    Clearly, that is not the case for Unifil posts. So attacking Unifil peacekeepers and premises would violate the principle of distinction and qualify as a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. So, intentionally demolishing a Unifil watchtower with an IDF bulldozer, as happened recently, appears to qualify as a war crime, despite the claim that there was a Hezbollah weapons cache near the watchtower.

    It’s worth adding that peacekeepers and their premises must be the intended target of the attack for it to be a violation of the principle of distinction. If the IDF’s target was – as claimed – a nearby Hezbollah weapons cache, which clearly qualifies as a military objective, any resulting damage to peacekeepers or their premises must be evaluated under the principle of “proportionality” and must not exceed the military advantage anticipated from the attack. Once again, launching an attack with the knowledge it would cause excessive incidental damage would amount to a war crime.

    In the confusion of an IDF offensive in southern Lebanon it’s impossible to ascertain all the details beyond reasonable doubt. Knowing what actually happened is one thing. But once the fog of war lifts and the details become clear, so will the judgment of international law.

    Giacomo Biggio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Is targeting UN peacekeepers in Lebanon a war crime? Here’s what international law says – https://theconversation.com/is-targeting-un-peacekeepers-in-lebanon-a-war-crime-heres-what-international-law-says-241849

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Is Tim Burton an outsider auteur or a global megastar? The Design Museum thinks it has the answer

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Catherine Spooner, Professor of Literature and Culture, Lancaster University

    “Like walking around in a weird, beautiful funhouse.” That’s how Tim Burton described his private viewing of The World of Tim Burton at the exhibition’s opening at London’s Design Museum.

    A travelling circus that initially took shape at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2009 and has since visited 14 cities in 11 countries, the exhibition now reaches its grand finale in expanded, remixed form in Burton’s adopted hometown. At the press conference, he admitted to feeling somewhat anxious about it. This points to one of the underlying tensions of the exhibition itself – the contrast between laying bare an intensely personal creative process, and Burton’s global megastar status.

    The exhibition’s collaboration with the Design Museum has enabled its re-framing as an exploration of Burton’s “design practice” (in curator Maria McClintock’s words). It traces the complex path from Burton’s initial sketches to their realisation on screen.

    In this respect, the exhibition is successful. Visitors get a sense of the holistic development of Burton’s ideas from preliminary drawings to their realisation by puppet-makers and set and costume designers. Unrealised film projects and personal artworks are also included. This provides a unique insight into the director’s creative process.

    The work itself, moreover, is joyous – a riot of colour and fizzing line. The Burton that emerges is restlessly inventive. We see not only his prolific sketches in pen and ink and watercolour but also his experiments across media with collage, pastels, oils, acrylics on velvet, home movies, photography, children’s picture books and comic verse.

    Some of the most thrilling items are the most personal – teen fan art, scribbles on table napkins, university lecture notes. These offer an impression of intimacy, of unadulterated creativity bubbling up from some hidden wellspring of the subconscious. The staging of the exhibition enhances this impression. Skewed doorways and chequerboard floors suggest that the art is spilling out of the frame into the space of the gallery, evoking the “funhouse” feel that Burton commented on.

    The exhibition is invested in the notion of Burton as auteur, supported by a loyal team of creatives, many of whom are showcased here. One highlight is rows of Jack Skellington heads with different facial expressions, devised by stop-motion animators Mackinnon and Saunders for The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Elsewhere, there is a genuine frisson in seeing Bob Ringwood and Mary Vogt’s iconic costume for Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992), now so fragile that it can only be laid flat, and looking uncannily like shed skin.

    The indisputable star among Burton’s collaborators, however, is costume designer Colleen Atwood. Her spectacular ensembles for Edward Scissorhands (1990), Mars Attacks! (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Wednesday (2022) dominate the central room of the exhibition. Someone please give her a show of her own.

    Missed opportunities

    Where the exhibition is less successful is in its attempts to place Burton in a wider cultural framework. Burton’s influences are covered patchily and explained poorly. Vincent Price is conflated with Hammer Horror (he never made a film with Hammer Studios) and the theoretical concept of the carnivalesque is misunderstood.

    A more thorough exploration of the horror traditions on which Burton draws – particularly German expressionism and Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations – would have been welcome. The focus on Burton’s drawings also begs closer attention to the illustrative traditions he is indebted to, from Ralph Steadman to Charles Addams and Edward Gorey. To neglect this is to diminish Burton’s skill as an artist who consciously reworks the American gothic tradition into a distinctive new form.

    The final room, “Burtonesque”, has the potential to be the most interesting. It explores the way that Burton’s aesthetic has become distinctive enough to be recognisable in the work of other artists.

    Ultimately, however, it shies away from asking searching questions about stylistic transferability and influence. Rather, it looks at Burton’s collaborations with artists in other media, whether fashion designer Alexander McQueen, photographer Tim Walker, or rock band The Killers.

    These are interesting in their own right but crucially, Burton is still involved in this process. The traditional exit through the gift shop reveals another side to Burton, in which his highly recognisable aesthetic has lent itself to merchandise with varying degrees of connection to the original source. The director has been vocal about the exploitation of his work by AI. But is this, in today’s culture, the logical end-point of the “Burtonesque”?

    The exhibition avoids any kind of investigation of the Burton brand, or even of Burton’s influence on a new generation of creators. In doing so, it misses what is one of the most fascinating paradoxes about Burton: that an artist who is so preoccupied with the figure of the outsider has been so widely embraced, with such immense commercial success.

    Burton’s work raises serious questions about the role and popularity of gothic imagery in 21st-century culture, but this exhibition is content to stick with the funhouse thrills.

    The World of Tim Burton is on at the Design Museum, London, until April 21 2025.


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

    Catherine Spooner has previously received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a related project.

    – ref. Is Tim Burton an outsider auteur or a global megastar? The Design Museum thinks it has the answer – https://theconversation.com/is-tim-burton-an-outsider-auteur-or-a-global-megastar-the-design-museum-thinks-it-has-the-answer-242172

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Class identity: why fancy freebies are a bigger political problem for this Labour government than its Tory predecessors

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vladimir Bortun, Lecturer in Politics, University of Oxford

    While much of the intense media coverage of the UK government’s freebies scandal might be attributable to overzealous scrutiny by a predominantly right-of-centre printed press, there is at least one important issue at the heart of all this.

    It should be acknowledged that the gifts are in line with existing regulations – and also arguably less controversial than some of the donations received by members of former Conservative governments. But this Labour government sold itself as something different.

    Several frontbench figures, including prime minister Keir Starmer and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner focused heavily on their working-class credentials ahead of the election. They were doing so to reinforce the message that they are infinitely more in tune with regular people than the Tories.

    Several Labour ministers have accepted donations and freebies from big business and wealthy individuals. Lord Alli lent Starmer his £18m London flat and a New York property to Rayner for a holiday. Several Labour MPs were given tickets to Taylor Swift concerts, and perhaps more importantly, £4 million was donated to the Labour party by Quadrature – a tax-haven-based hedge fund with shares in the arms manufacturing, private healthcare and fossil fuel industries.

    Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.

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    The obvious question is why these companies and wealthy individuals have made these donations and what they expect in return. People don’t make political donations out of the kindness of their hearts. They often expect something in return, whether in the form of a seat in the House of Lords or a lucrative state contract.

    Even in cases where there is no reciprocity, there are deeper questions of professional and political ethics that arise from donations. And fair or not, those questions are more pressing for a Labour government.

    There is, first of all, a matter of perception during a cost of living crisis. Labour MPs have just voted to keep the two-child benefit cap and remove universal winter fuel payments. Against this backdrop, it’s not a stretch to suggest accepting glamorous gifts creates a distance between lawmakers and the people they govern.

    But beyond that perception is the fact that living a privileged life may have a material effect on an MP’s outlook. There is a significant body of evidence showing that upward social mobility leads people towards more rightwing views on the economy.

    That may be particularly true of politicians. For this group, the trajectory is the most extreme. If you start from a working-class position in society and end up being part of the group that effectively leads that society, your vantage point could not be more different. You are less likely to try to change the status quo that is now the source of your own social and financial benefits.

    To be fair, research my colleagues and I conducted shows that working-class origins have a lingering effect on an MP’s outlook when they enter parliament. They are more likely to take an interest in issues that are important to working-class voters, for example.

    But this effect is diluted by party discipline, such as when MPs are whipped to vote in a certain way (such as on benefits). Social mobility, and in particular a simmering angst about falling back down the social ladder, also shapes these MPs’ decisions.

    Closing the experience gap

    It doesn’t have to be this way. In the 1980s, one of the most leftwing and working-class Labour MPs at the time, Terry Fields, ran and won an election on the slogan “a worker’s MP on a worker’s wage” – pledging to only draw a salary equivalent to a fireman’s and to donate the remainder.

    While this could be dismissed as performative populism from a politician looking to prove that he’s a “man of the people”, there is a deeper rationale at work here. Arguably, you can’t truly represent the interests of working-class people if you live in considerably better material conditions, cut off from the daily experience and living standards of those people.

    How can you fully understand what working-class people and communities go through and, thereby, what kind of policies they need, if you live in a parallel reality to theirs?



    Read more:
    What does class mean today in Britain? Podcast

    This is not to argue that MPs should give up their salaries or that they’re incapable of empathy, but it does show why freebies are such a glaring problem for a new government.

    Working-class people have, themselves, indicated that this experience gap matters to them. Their political alienation over the past few decades has been fuelled by their sense that they do not recognise themselves in the current political elite and the inequality-enhancing policies the elite have been enacting.

    The last election recorded one of the highest abstention rates (and according to at least one estimate, actually the highest) since the introduction of universal suffrage.

    And should a political party remain unmoved by those statistics, there is the small matter of electoral survival. Taken more cynically, working-class communities have become the electoral battlegrounds of the modern era.

    There are not many promising signs so far that the new Labour government is up to the task of representing the working class once again – even the recent workers’ rights legislation has been criticised as falling short by some of the trade unions. And while there’s a long way to go before we know if the freebies scandal will end up costing Labour support at the next election, it certainly won’t be counted as a bonus.

    Vladimir Bortun does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Class identity: why fancy freebies are a bigger political problem for this Labour government than its Tory predecessors – https://theconversation.com/class-identity-why-fancy-freebies-are-a-bigger-political-problem-for-this-labour-government-than-its-tory-predecessors-241619

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: I’m Not Okay: emo is alive and kicking at Barbican retrospective

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Francesca Sobande, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Studies, Cardiff University

    An emo music retrospective has been a long time coming. There has been extensive work before now to archive and celebrate the cultural memory of this 2004-09 scene, whose name is short for emotional hardcore, but rarely has it been the sole focus of a public exhibition in the UK.

    Located at the Barbican Music Library in London, I’m Not Okay: An Emo Retrospective by the Museum of Youth Culture offers an inviting mix of nostalgia and dynamic documentation.

    The exhibition claims to focus on “a pivotal era when [US] bands like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Finch sparked a transatlantic exchange, fuelling a distinct UK movement led by acts such as Funeral for a Friend”. Indeed the exhibition’s title is borrowed from a My Chemical Romance song of the same name. These are all bands that, to my delight as an emo fan, toured the UK in recent years, reflecting the ongoing appreciation and demand for such music.

    Much more than just spotlighting bands and musicians, the Museum of Youth Culture’s exhibition takes visitors on a trip down memory lane. It allows you to revisit digital culture from the days of file-sharing software like Limewire and the blogging and social media sites Myspace, LiveJournal and Xanga.

    The retrospective is a snapshot of the world of emo around 20 years ago, shaped by people’s recollections of their bedrooms, youth and digital culture, in addition to depictions of emo gigs and gatherings.

    I’m Not Okay, the 2004 song by My Chemical Romance that the exhibition is named for.

    The exhibition charts key points in emo’s 2000s era, from its origins in Washington DC’s post-hardcore scene in the mid-1980s. By bringing together people’s memories of emo from various parts of the world, the exhibition also tracks the ways that the internet, fandom and globalisation were experienced then.

    This is captured by the opening line of text displayed at the beginning of the retrospective: “I’m Not Okay is a rallying cry from a generation whose identity was spread across virtual infinities against the uncertain futures of a new millennium.”

    No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

    Read more from Quarter Life:

    In the exhibition, excerpts from people who embraced emo in the 2000s (and beyond) paint a picture of digital culture as being key to the genre’s beating heart. The importance of early social media sites such as MySpace and Bebo is mentioned several times.

    Despite its relatively small scale, the Barbican show covers lots of different dimensions of emo between 2004 and 2009. It touches on matters as diverse as the rise of smartphones, the messiness of MSN messenger and online forums, and the specifics of being Black and emo.

    Emo at home and abroad

    Many of the memories documented in the exhibition point to the way that music and popular culture from North America had, and continues to have, a significant impact on youth culture and music in the UK. But the retrospective also makes clear that there was and is no absence of homegrown talent, spirit and scenes. These subcultures are firmly rooted in the realities of local life in the UK.

    In the 2000s, emo emerged and developed in distinctly regional as well as national ways. Stories about its uniqueness in certain towns, cities and states, sit alongside memories of learning about and yearning to experience its idiosyncrasies in different countries.

    Paramore were one of the few female-fronted emo bands of the 2000s.

    Statements adorning the exhibition walls include people’s recollections of growing up in rural areas, where they were one of few emo kids. Again, what ties those thoughts together is the role of the internet in connecting people to and through emo, as well as the meaningfulness of trips to nearby bigger places with more of an underground scene.

    Within such retrospective reflections are memories of young people’s experiences of a third place. Places that are not home and not a place of study or work, such as public squares, skate parks and club nights, that have increasingly diminished, been unfunded, or become more policed since the 2000s. Through these reflections, the show examines how places and spaces – both online and offline – have changed since the 2000s, in ways that impact young people and music today.

    I’m Not Okay: An Emo Retrospective takes seriously the significance and brilliance of emo. Illuminating elements of youth culture, digital culture and the layered history of emo music and subcultures, this retrospective is a reminder that while the internet of the past is long gone, emo remains alive and kicking.

    I’m Not Okay: An Emo Retrospective is on at the Barbican Music Library until January 15 2025.


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

    Francesca Sobande received Impact Acceleration funding from UKRI in 2024, towards a project that involves collaborating with the Museum of Youth Culture.

    – ref. I’m Not Okay: emo is alive and kicking at Barbican retrospective – https://theconversation.com/im-not-okay-emo-is-alive-and-kicking-at-barbican-retrospective-241870

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Marat Khusnullin: Almost 5.5 million schoolchildren took part in the fifth All-Russian online Olympiad “Safe Roads”

    Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    The All-Russian online Olympiad “Safe Roads” is held with the support of the national project “Safe High-Quality Roads”. Schoolchildren in grades 1–9 test their knowledge of road safety rules in a game format. From September 24 to October 27, almost 5.5 million schoolchildren took part in the Olympiad, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin reported.

    “Reducing road accidents is a task that is included in the national goal “Comfortable and safe living environment”. And a special priority of our work is child safety. In the context of growing traffic flow and expansion of the country’s road network, knowledge of traffic rules is becoming extremely important. The All-Russian online Olympiad “Safe Roads”, which is held with the support of the national project “Safe High-Quality Roads”, has proven itself as an effective tool for educational work. The online competition helps students in grades 1-9 test their level of road literacy and deepen their knowledge. The event received a great response from children and parents. This year, almost 5.5 million schoolchildren took part in it, which is 10% more than last year. And over five years, the total audience has exceeded 20.8 million participants,” said Marat Khusnullin.

    The Deputy Prime Minister added that the leaders in the number of students who took part in the Olympiad were the Ivanovo, Tambov, Belgorod, Tula regions, as well as the Republic of Mordovia.

    Using real road situations as an example, the Olympiad participants analyzed how to behave correctly as a pedestrian and a passenger, as well as behind the wheel of bicycles and personal mobility devices (PMD). The most difficult tasks during the Olympiad were those about bicycles and PMDs, including electric scooters. Only a fifth of the Olympiad participants coped with them. The schoolchildren coped best with the tasks on safe behavior in a car and public transport vehicles – 81% and 61%, respectively.

    “Work to instill in children and teenagers the skills of safe behavior on the road is not only talks in schools and at home, lectures and street events held by the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate. It is also a very effective format in terms of assimilation of information, an Olympiad in which schoolchildren of different ages from all over Russia participate. It is easier to get acquainted with the rules of the road in the format of tasks and specific answers due to the clear structure of the material presentation. I am sure that everyone who has at least once passed the tests of the All-Russian online Olympiad “Safe Roads”, transfers theoretical knowledge to real road conditions, turning into very responsible pedestrians, and in the future, drivers,” said the head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Police Lieutenant General Mikhail Chernikov.

    Not only knowledge of traffic rules, but also good roads help to improve road safety. Work at sites is usually carried out in a comprehensive manner: specialists not only update the road surface, but also equip elements of the road infrastructure – pedestrian crossings, traffic lights, barriers, road signs, markings, photo and video recording cameras.

    “Every day, children go to school, attend extracurricular activities, and one of our priorities is to make these routes safer. Over the past six years, more than 5,000 road sections leading to children’s educational and leisure institutions have been repaired in Russian regions under the national project “Safe High-Quality Roads”. These are streets in populated areas, as well as sections of regional and inter-municipal roads on which school buses travel,” commented Roman Novikov, head of the Federal Road Agency.

    The organizers of the Olympiad are the Ministry of Transport, the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the National Priorities ANO with the support of the Ministry of Education.

    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.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI: Ascend Learning Appoints Proven Healthcare Technology Leader Dr. Lissy Hu as Chief Executive Officer

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Greg Sebasky to Retire, Transition to Role of Chairman of the Ascend Board of Managers in January 2025

    Positions Company to Execute on Strategic Healthcare Focus to Deliver
    Innovative Learning and Workforce Development Solutions

    BURLINGTON, Mass., Oct. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Ascend Learning, LLC (“Ascend” or “the Company”), a leading learning technology company, today announced the appointment of Dr. Lissy Hu as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Hu succeeds Greg Sebasky, who is retiring after 10 years as CEO and will transition to the role of Chairman of the Ascend Board of Managers in January 2025.

    Dr. Hu has deep experience building and leading transformational healthcare technology companies. She was previously the CEO of CarePort Health, a care coordination technology company she founded in 2012 to improve patient transitions by connecting hospitals and post-acute care providers. In 2020, CarePort Health was acquired by WellSky, where Dr. Hu most recently served as President, Connected Networks, working with providers and payers to optimize post-acute care outcomes across 2,500 hospitals, physician groups, risk-bearing entities and 130,000 post-acute, home and community-based providers.

    Ascend Learning has been delivering critical learning solutions to the healthcare industry since 2008. The Company’s offerings, educational content, software, simulation, and analytics, serve students, healthcare and educational institutions, and employers in all 50 states. Each year, Ascend Learning’s products, from testing to certification, enable more than 60% of U.S. nursing school programs and are used by over 300,000 nursing students, more than 245,000 allied health professionals, 100,000 medical students, 145,000 fitness professionals and over 150,000 first responders.

    “Over the last 10 years, we have grown the Ascend family of brands thoughtfully, building a market-leading provider of data-driven online learning tools,” said Mr. Sebasky. “As we sharpen our focus on developing and delivering tailored solutions across the healthcare ecosystem, Lissy’s wealth of market experience and track record of driving positive outcomes through leading-edge technology makes her the perfect fit to lead Ascend forward. With Lissy at the helm, I am confident that Ascend will continue to grow, innovate and find new and better ways to help make communities across the U.S. healthier. I look forward to working with her and continuing to support the Ascend team and mission in my role as Chairman beginning in January.”

    As communities across the U.S. face shortages of healthcare professionals, aging populations, and rising healthcare costs, Ascend is committed to delivering next-generation technology, content and analytics to train, develop and retain healthcare teams empowered to address these challenges.

    “Fundamental to improving patient care is investing in our healthcare teams, and I am excited to further drive Ascend’s success in enabling clients to achieve elevated learner and educator outcomes and to support workers as they progress through their careers,” said Dr. Hu. “Ascend’s innovative learning solutions are needed now more than ever before, and I am honored to join a best-in-class organization and team that have such a significant, positive impact on the entire lifecycle of learning. I look forward to leading Ascend’s next chapter of scalable growth.

    “Under Greg’s leadership, Ascend has solidified its position as a clear leader in the tech-enabled learning services market. I thank him for his strategic vision and invaluable contributions, and I look forward to working with him, our clients, our leaders, our employees and the Board to continue accelerating learning and professional success across the country,” continued Dr. Hu.

    Dr. Hu earned a Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School, a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in pre-medical studies and sociology from Columbia University.

    About Ascend Learning
    Ascend Learning is a leading provider of educational content and software tools for students, educational institutions, and employers. With products that span the learning continuum, Ascend Learning focuses on high-growth careers in a range of industries, with a special focus on healthcare and other licensure-driven occupations. Ascend Learning products, from testing to certification, are used by physicians, emergency medical professionals, nurses, certified personal trainers, financial advisors, skilled trades professionals and insurance brokers. Learn more at www.ascendlearning.com.

    Media Contact
    V2 Communications for Ascend Learning
    ascend@v2comms.com

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/61335701-5169-4263-8b05-17ec38fc5749

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: SalesHood Launches Interactive Mutual Action Plans in Digital Sales Rooms to Scale Repeatable B2B Sales Execution

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    San Francisco, California, Oct. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — SalesHood, a leading revenue enablement platform provider, is excited to announce the launch of Mutual Action Plans (MAPs) in its Digital Sales Rooms. This new offering  fosters stronger collaboration between sales teams and their buyers, driving more predictable and successful sales outcomes. Based on Q3 2024 customer feedback, SalesHood’s Digital Sales Rooms have driven win rate increases ranging from 57% to as much as 200%.

    The newly released interactive sales tool empowers sales and customer success teams to co-create Mutual Action Plans with their buyers, outlining the key milestones, responsibilities, and timelines required to deliver value to a customer and close a deal. 

    As per the 2024 Gartner® ’s Market Guide for Digital Sales Rooms, one of the key findings includes: “Improved buyer-seller engagement leads to higher-quality deals, which is what chief sales officers (CSOs) are searching for to drive high-quality purchases that lead to improved long-term revenue results.”

    SalesHood’s MAPs are a collaborative resource ensuring that buyers and sellers are aligned, reducing friction and accelerating the sales process. SalesHood’s MAPs feature is seamlessly integrated into its existing platform, making it easy for sales teams to adopt and use. 

    Elay Cohen, CEO and Co-founder of SalesHood, stated, “We’re thrilled to bring Mutual Action Plans to our customers. This new feature underscores our commitment to empowering sales teams with the tools they need to succeed in today’s competitive market. By enabling stronger collaboration between sales teams and their buyers, we believe that MAPs will be a game-changer for our customers.”

    With the introduction of MAPs, SalesHood continues to set the standard for sales enablement and revenue acceleration. This new feature aligns with the company’s mission to help sales organizations close more deals faster and with greater predictability.

    New Mutual Action Plans capabilities:

    • Milestone Tracking: Empower buyers and sellers to co-create, align and track shared timelines, decision-making milestones and compelling events, driving joint accountability throughout the buyer’s journey.
    • Tasks and Notifications: Assign milestones to decision team members, complete with due dates and ownership. Automatic notifications for overdue tasks create urgency and ensure progress.
    • AI-Powered Recap Summaries: Leverage generative GenAI to summarize key call points and generate actionable next steps, ensuring clarity and efficient follow-up.
    • Salesforce Integration: Seamlessly sync buyer engagement data and sales activities with Salesforce for enhanced pipeline management and streamlined CRM updates.
    • Embedded Collaboration in Digital Sales Rooms: Mutual Action Plans are seamlessly embedded into Digital Sales Rooms, enabling real-time collaboration on timelines, tasks, next steps, and shared resources in a unified digital workspace.

    For more information about SalesHood’s Digital Sales Rooms and Mutual Action Plans, please visit https://saleshood.com. 

    You can also take a self-guided tour https://saleshood.com/digital-sales-rooms/guided-tour. 

    Gartner Disclaimer:
    Gartner, Market Guide for Digital Sales Rooms,  Melissa Hilbert ,  Varun Agarwal , et al., 26 February 2024
    GARTNER is registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

    About SalesHood

    SalesHood is a global leader in revenue enablement on a mission to empower salespeople to sell better. SalesHood’s comprehensive and award winning Revenue Enablement Platform powers repeatable sales execution, guiding sellers on what to do and what to share. SalesHood AI delivers highly personalized training, coaching and selling experiences across the customer journey. Trusted by high-growth, high-performing companies, SalesHood is purpose-built to deliver fast revenue results. Companies like Copado, Ewing-Foley, Frontline Education, Olo, Sage, SmartRecruiters, and Planview use SalesHood to realize increase sales productivity and win-rates. For more information, please visit https://saleshood.com/

    Contact
    media@saleshood.com

    Attachments

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: NAVFAC MIDLANT Environmental, Chesapeake Bay Program volunteers support 2024 NAS Oceana STEM Lab for nearly 8,000 Students

    Source: United States Navy

    The free event, which has been held nearly every year since 2016, allows 5th graders from Virginia Beach City and Chesapeake Public Schools to receive an exclusive sneak peek of the Air Show performances, including the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels and the F-22 Raptor Demonstration Team; vendor booths and activities; and numerous STEM Laboratory exhibits. It’s estimated nearly 8,000 students and more than 1,500 teachers/chaperones were in attendance this year.

    Students were able to engage in a multitude of environment-based activities to learn how to become better stewards of the environment, such as play a Jeopardy-style trivia game to test their knowledge of the Chesapeake Bay, recycling, and watersheds; and compete in a head-to-head recycling relay to determine if discarded items were recyclable or trash. Additionally, many of the questions asked were derived from the Virginia Standards of Learning curriculum to help reinforce state education, and meet stewardship and literacy goals embodied in the EPA Executive Order 13508 for Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration outreach commitments.

    “It was fun to engage with students on topics so close to where we all live – seeing what they know, and share information to help protect the Chesapeake Bay,” said Vincent Orazi, Natural Resource Management Specialist. “It was good experience.”

    An interactive watershed model further showed students how pollutants, such as pet waste, oil, fertilizer, and detergents can adversely impact water quality by entering our waterways, pollute stormwater, and impact outside activities like swimming and fishing.

    “It’s great to see the students captivated by our hands-on demonstration,” said Dawn Friedrichs, PWD Oceana EV Drinking Water and Environmental Management System Program Manager, noting students used oil absorbent fabric to cleanup oil spills in aquatic and marine environments in the display. “Interaction and visualization go a long way in helping them retain what they’ve learned.”

    Students also learned the importance of recycling, proper waste disposal, natural resource conservation, and how to prevent household and industrial pollutants, trash, and yard debris from entering our waterways.

    “I’ve been participating in the NAS Oceana Air Show STEM Lab since 2017, and I’m amazed every year by the great questions asked by these students,” said Tara Fisher, PWD Oceana EV Water, Tanks, and Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants (POL) Program Manager. “We really enjoy interacting with them, and we hope our message of stormwater pollution prevention sticks with them throughout their lives.”

    NAVFAC MIDLANT provides facilities engineering, public works and environmental products and services across an area of responsibility that spans from South Carolina to Maine, as far west as Illinois, and down to Indiana. As an integral member of the Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic team, NAVFAC MIDLANT provides leadership through the Regional Engineer organization to ensure the region’s facilities and infrastructure are managed efficiently and effectively.

    For additional information about NAVFAC MIDLANT on social media, follow our activities on Facebook at www.facebook.com/navfacmidatlantic and on Instagram @navfacmidatlantic.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: New Exhibits at the National Cryptologic Museum: Unlock your Curiosity!

    Source: National Security Agency NSA

    From psychics to extraterrestrial communication, new temporary and permanent exhibits at the National Cryptologic Museum will have you scratching your head.

    With exhibit labels like “Mind over Matter” and “What the What?”—museum visitors will go from, “What in the world?” to “What if?” The exhibits explore the extraordinary practice of using psychics to gain information from the enemy.

    New Temporary Exhibits

    Project Star Gate was used by the U.S. Government during the Cold War. Many of the psychic spies were at Ft. Meade, tasked with collecting intelligence, locating enemy agents and determining American vulnerabilities by using “remote viewing.” Remote viewing is mentally viewing a distant location they have never visited to gather insights on a person, site, or specific information. As outrageous as it sounds, the secret program was very successful and was in use until 1995.

    A standout in the remote viewing field, Agent 001 of Project Star Gate Joe McMoneagle has been involved in over 200 intelligence missions utilizing his unique set of skills. His distinct collection of drawings (as a result of his remote viewing missions) were used to assist in combat and are a part of the current exhibit.

    The exhibit even explores the brief moments in history that the U.S and Russia’s relationship wasn’t quite as contentious. See astounding sketches and the landscapes they match up to!

    Plus, see the machine, altered by the mind to change its output! Don’t believe us? Come see for yourself, only at the NCM!

    Psychics aren’t the only twilight zoneish content this fall.

    SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) also makes its debut at the NCM. The museum created a theatre room for guests to watch a video about the search for alien life and how researchers go under the sea to make connections.

    Using anticryptography methods (a cryptographic message that is easy to decipher), the scientists detail their use of radio signals in their search for intelligent life in the universe. See a circuit board that digitized cosmic signals and more in the quest to communicate with alien life.

    Be sure to plan your next visit soon as these temporary exhibits will only be on display through mid-December!

    New Permanent Exhibits

     

    The Museum has also added several permanent new exhibits as well.

    The Language Whiteboard is a linguists’ delight!  It’s a compilation of all the languages we make use of at the agency. It came from the National Cryptologic University’s College of Language and Area Studies, where instructors created the artwork to use a teaching tool. It hung in a language classroom for many years before being “retired” to the National Cryptologic Museum.

    While the museum has had several pieces of the Berlin Wall in its collection, the “You Are Leaving the American Sector” sign is a new addition. It was acquired by an American after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The iconic symbol of the Cold War is on display now.

    The National Cryptologic Museum is open Mon-Sat from 10am-4pm. Admission is free, reservations are not required.  For more information on scheduling a visit or a field trip visit nsa.gov/museum/

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Become a school crossing patrol hero

    Source: City of Wolverhampton

    City of Wolverhampton Council is seeking dedicated and responsible individuals to join its team of school crossing patrol wardens.

    Better known as a lollipop man or lady, wardens can stop traffic to help children and other people cross the road. The council provides these patrols as part of its efforts to improve road safety.

    The current vacancies are for static school crossing patrol wardens at various sites around the city listed on WM Jobs. 

    Applications can be made via WM Jobs.  The deadline for applications is 5 November, 2024.

    Wardens are on duty twice each day, this is usually for 30 to 40 minutes before the start of the school day and after the end of the school day.

    Training is provided to a high standard and wardens receive regular visits from their supervisors.

    By becoming a school crossing patrol warden, you will be working between 6 and 8 hours a week for a static position, earning a good hourly rate plus holiday pay.

    More information about becoming a warden can be found by visiting Crossing Patrol Wardens. 

    Alternatively contact the school crossing patrol team on 01902 555726 or email schoolcrossingpatrol@wolverhampton.gov.uk

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: The correspondence stage of the main stage of the All-Russian TIM-Championship of SPbGASU has started

    Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering –

    On October 28, the correspondence stage of the main stage of the All-Russian TIM-Championship of SPbGASU started.

    The goal of the championship is to involve students, the university professional community, and representatives of Russian and international organizations in the process of mastering information modeling in construction and improving the level of training of future specialists.

    The general partners of the championship are the National Association of Surveyors and Designers (NOPRIZ) and the Metropolis company.

    The participants of the championship in 2024 are students of the following universities from various regions of Russia:

    Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (SPbGASU); Tomsk State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (TSUACE); Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (NRU MGSU); Far Eastern State Transport University (FESU); Vyatka State University (VyatSU); Ivanovo State Polytechnical University (IVGPU); South Ural State University (SUSU (NRU)); Nizhny Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (NNGASU); Tomsk State University (TSU); Samara State Technical University (SamSTU); Tyumen Industrial University (TIU); Perm National Research Polytechnic University (PNRPU).

    According to the competition specifications, the design object in 2024 is a cinema building in St. Petersburg.

    The correspondence stage will last until November 11, 2024. The on-site stage, during which teams from all participating universities will come to SPbGASU, will be held from November 20 to November 25, 2024. Project defense and award ceremony – November 27, 2024.

    More detailed information is available on the championship website

    For questions about participating in the project defense and the award ceremony (as observers), please contact educational center of digital competencies of SPbGASU

    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.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Coloured South Africans are all but erased from history textbooks – I asked learners how that makes them feel

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Natasha Robinson, PhD Candidate and research consultant, University of Oxford

    South African Grammy winner Tyla is proud of her Coloured identity. Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

    South African singer-songwriter Tyla made history in February 2024 when she won the inaugural Grammy for Best African Music Performance.

    Her win was celebrated at home. But the 22-year-old sparked controversy in the US by referring to herself as “Coloured”. There, the word is a slur dating back to the Jim Crow era, when state and local laws enforced racial discrimination against African Americans. In South Africa it has a very different meaning – and, by claiming her Coloured identity, Tyla has become an inspiration for many Coloured people who have long felt underrepresented in public life.

    In South Africa, Coloured people are typically understood to be a group that encompasses geographically diverse ancestries. The Coloured community was positioned between white and Black in apartheid’s racial hierarchy of privilege.

    During the 1970s and onwards, in an effort to unify anti-apartheid resistance, activists like Steve Biko sought to collapse any distinctions between oppressed groups. They encouraged anyone who was not white to identify as “Black”.

    In recent years many people have reclaimed the term “Coloured” to discuss their identity and culture. The latest South African census indicated that there are more than 5 million people across the country who identify as Coloured.

    Tyla’s comments are just one example of how “Colouredness” has, in the past few years, found a new voice in South African society. The electoral success of the Patriotic Alliance, which claims to be “born in the heart of the Coloured community”, is another. The highly acclaimed 2023 book Coloured by Lynsey Ebony Chutel and Tessa Dooms also brought conversations about Coloured identity to the fore.

    I research the relationship between history and identity in societies that have experienced conflict. I wanted to know how society’s increasingly positive perceptions of the term “Coloured” are playing out in South Africa’s school history curriculum.

    My resulting research presents a worrying picture. The way that Coloured identity is discussed in textbooks and curricula is leading young self-described Coloured people to believe that their history – and therefore their identity – is shameful.

    The research

    My research involved 10 months of ethnographic observation in two predominantly Coloured schools in Cape Town. I also analysed the history curricula and textbooks used in these schools, as well as repeatedly interviewing five grade 9 students, aged 14 and 15, and their history teachers from each school to understand their views on apartheid history and racial identity.

    There is no mention of the word “Coloured” in the grade 9 South African curriculum assessment policy statements for History. In contrast, the racial terms “white”, “Black” and “Indian” are mentioned 11, 44, and nine times respectively. In my analysis of the four most commonly used grade 9 history textbooks, Coloured identity is referred to, but infrequently. The Pearson textbook, for example, explains that “when we refer to ‘black’ South Africans in this topic [apartheid], it refers to African people, ‘Coloured’ people and Indian people”. It continues:

    The apartheid government found it hard to define race, especially when it came to what they called ‘Coloured’ people. The word ‘Coloured’ is controversial and possibly insulting, so here we have used it in inverted commas. (2013, p. 175)

    Subsuming Coloured identity into Black identity, and referring to the term “Coloured” as “insulting”, makes it difficult to learn about the lives and contributions of those who identified as Coloured.

    For example, all four textbooks contain photographs of Sophia Williams (later Sophia Williams-De Bruyn) and list her as one of the organisers of the 1956 Women’s March, during which 20,000 women marched to the government buildings to protest against racist laws.

    But all four textbooks fail to mention that Williams was classified in terms of apartheid laws as Coloured, identified as Coloured, was a full-time organiser for the Coloured People’s Congress in Johannesburg, and was assigned by the Coloured People’s Congress to work on issues relating to the 1950 Population Registration Act.

    So a student using these textbooks might learn about Williams – but still believe that Coloured people made no contribution to ending apartheid.

    Shame and lack of interest

    This denial of Coloured identity continued in the schools where I conducted ethnographic fieldwork. Teachers in a school on the Cape Flats – with a student population that overwhelmingly identified as Coloured – still referred to the school as a “Black school” by virtue of its involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle.

    The grade 9 history teacher, for example, taught that “the apartheid government gave us labels”, and that “if we didn’t cooperate [by uniting under a Black identity] then South Africa would be a failure”. This statement positioned the students’ distinct Coloured identity as being in opposition to South Africa’s success.

    When the teacher spoke about anti-apartheid struggle heroes, his students frequently complained that life was better under apartheid, and when he espoused ideas of non-racialism, they shook their heads. All of this suggested that the students were actively resisting South Africa’s founding narrative: that brave South Africans united to overcome the darkness of apartheid, and to found a democratic rainbow nation.

    My interviews with students from this school suggested that they felt no connection to South Africa’s history. When I asked about his family’s experiences during apartheid, Lester (aged 14) replied that “they were just a normal Coloured family. Nothing interesting.”

    In another school, a slim majority of students identified as Coloured. Again, Coloured history was not explicitly taught. Students felt alienated from Coloured history in different ways. Bahir (aged 15), for example, felt shame and discomfort about his Coloured identity. When I asked him whether he wished he could study more Coloured history, he declined:

    I actually wouldn’t want to like hear such a thing as slavery … I don’t actually like to hear that my family was put into that like category or something.

    The only Coloured history Bahir could consider was one of enslavement.

    Deborah (aged 14), meanwhile, suspected that there might be a proud Coloured history of anti-apartheid resistance, but assumed it hadn’t been written yet. She attributed the lack of Coloured pride among her classmates to a lack of historical scholarship.

    If I had a reason for why people do not want to be Coloureds, it’s because they don’t have a status, and they don’t have history that’s jotted down also.

    Catching up

    One thing was clear from my research: the absence of Coloured identity in history curriculum, textbooks, or lesson plans did not stop students from identifying as Coloured. However, they felt confused, ashamed or alienated from their history and South Africa’s history.

    Tyla and others are proudly, loudly defending their right to identify as Coloured. It’s time for South Africa’s history curriculum to catch up.

    Natasha Robinson receives funding from the ESRC and the British Academy.

    – ref. Coloured South Africans are all but erased from history textbooks – I asked learners how that makes them feel – https://theconversation.com/coloured-south-africans-are-all-but-erased-from-history-textbooks-i-asked-learners-how-that-makes-them-feel-234832

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: expert reaction to ONS data on fertility and live birth rates in England and Wales in 2023

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Scientists comment on data released by the ONS which suggests birth rates are at a record low. 

    Prof Bassel H.Al Wattar, Associate Professor of Reproductive Medicine and Medical Director of the Clinical Trials Unit, Anglia Ruskin University.

    “The new data from the ONS reflect a worrying yet persistent downward trend of fertility and birth rates in England and Wales. This may be explained by the recent cost of living crisis and financial strain that could be dissuading couples from having more than two children per household. This is also compounded by the progressive reduction in available NHS funding for fertility treatments like IVF which is further contributing to the low fertility and birth rates in the UK as a whole. Many high income countries are seeing a similar worrying trend like Japan and South Korea which has a direct negative impact on the country’s GPD and productivity. The fertility replacement rate should stay close to 2.1 children per woman and the government could implement immediate interventions to help reverse trends such as offering longer paid parental leave, more funding for childcare for working parents, and more funding for fertility treatments in the NHS”

    Prof Melinda Mills, Professor of Demography and Population Health and Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, University of Oxford, said:

    “England and Wales continues the trend of a drop in the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) and postponing children until after age 30. Countries such as Italy and Spain reached even lower levels (around 1.24-1.29) previously and South Korea currently has the lowest TRF in the world of 0.72 in 2022.

    “Falling TFRs and postponement in having children to later ages is not surprising given recent trends. People are actively postponing or forgoing children due to issues related to difficulties in finding a partner, housing, economic uncertainty, remaining longer in education and particularly women entering and staying in the labour force. Some individuals also actively make the choice to remain childfree. However, there is evidence that postponing having children to later ages when the partners are less able to conceive results in increases in involuntarily childlessness as well. Linking the medical records from birth of those who were childless in millions of people in Finland and Sweden1, we found that the large increase in those countries was related to mental health and substance use for men and metabolic disorders linked to obesity for women.

    “The structures such as economic security, housing and affordable childcare are essential for allowing people to have the number of children they would like, when they like. Pronatalist policies such as those recently enacted in Hungary with loans or tax incentives are not only expensive but have limited evidence that they will raise the overall fertility rate.”

    Prof Brienna Perelli-Harris, Professor of Demography, The University of Southampton said:

    “The recent decline in fertility in England and Wales is quite surprising, but it is also in line with fertility declines in other countries which until recently had relatively high fertility. The Nordic countries and the United States have also experienced record-breaking lows in the past few years.

    “We are unsure whether the recent declines are due to postponement of childbearing, which can distort the total fertility rate, or an increase in childlessness.

    “Our recent analysis of the Generation and Gender Survey2 suggests that young people are less likely to intend to have a child in the future. The proportion of 18-to 25-year-olds in the GSS who said they definitely do not intend to have a child approximately doubled compared to the same age group back in 2005-2007 (around 7% then compared to 15% today).

    “The low fertility rates observed by the ONS may continue for some time into the future.”

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2023

    1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01763-x
    2. https://www.cpc.ac.uk/docs/PB72_Intending_to__remain_childless_are_concerns_about_climate_change_and_overpopulation_the_cause.pdf

     

    Declared interests

    Prof Bassel H.Al Wattar “No conflicts of interests to declare”

    Prof Melinda Mills “I am a Trustee of the UK Biobank, on the Scientific Advisory Board of Our Future Health and Health and Retirement Survey US and Lifelines Biobank Netherlands. I do not see a conflict of this with this subject matter but provide it just in case.”

    Prof Brienna Perelli-Harris “Funding for the GGS came from the ESRC (UKRI), so no industry links.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Coloured South Africans are all but erased from history textbooks – I asked learners how that makes them feel

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Natasha Robinson, PhD Candidate and research consultant, University of Oxford

    South African singer-songwriter Tyla made history in February 2024 when she won the inaugural Grammy for Best African Music Performance.

    Her win was celebrated at home. But the 22-year-old sparked controversy in the US by referring to herself as “Coloured”. There, the word is a slur dating back to the Jim Crow era, when state and local laws enforced racial discrimination against African Americans. In South Africa it has a very different meaning – and, by claiming her Coloured identity, Tyla has become an inspiration for many Coloured people who have long felt underrepresented in public life.

    In South Africa, Coloured people are typically understood to be a group that encompasses geographically diverse ancestries. The Coloured community was positioned between white and Black in apartheid’s racial hierarchy of privilege.

    During the 1970s and onwards, in an effort to unify anti-apartheid resistance, activists like Steve Biko sought to collapse any distinctions between oppressed groups. They encouraged anyone who was not white to identify as “Black”.

    In recent years many people have reclaimed the term “Coloured” to discuss their identity and culture. The latest South African census indicated that there are more than 5 million people across the country who identify as Coloured.

    Tyla’s comments are just one example of how “Colouredness” has, in the past few years, found a new voice in South African society. The electoral success of the Patriotic Alliance, which claims to be “born in the heart of the Coloured community”, is another. The highly acclaimed 2023 book Coloured by Lynsey Ebony Chutel and Tessa Dooms also brought conversations about Coloured identity to the fore.

    I research the relationship between history and identity in societies that have experienced conflict. I wanted to know how society’s increasingly positive perceptions of the term “Coloured” are playing out in South Africa’s school history curriculum.

    My resulting research presents a worrying picture. The way that Coloured identity is discussed in textbooks and curricula is leading young self-described Coloured people to believe that their history – and therefore their identity – is shameful.

    The research

    My research involved 10 months of ethnographic observation in two predominantly Coloured schools in Cape Town. I also analysed the history curricula and textbooks used in these schools, as well as repeatedly interviewing five grade 9 students, aged 14 and 15, and their history teachers from each school to understand their views on apartheid history and racial identity.

    There is no mention of the word “Coloured” in the grade 9 South African curriculum assessment policy statements for History. In contrast, the racial terms “white”, “Black” and “Indian” are mentioned 11, 44, and nine times respectively. In my analysis of the four most commonly used grade 9 history textbooks, Coloured identity is referred to, but infrequently. The Pearson textbook, for example, explains that “when we refer to ‘black’ South Africans in this topic [apartheid], it refers to African people, ‘Coloured’ people and Indian people”. It continues:

    The apartheid government found it hard to define race, especially when it came to what they called ‘Coloured’ people. The word ‘Coloured’ is controversial and possibly insulting, so here we have used it in inverted commas. (2013, p. 175)

    Subsuming Coloured identity into Black identity, and referring to the term “Coloured” as “insulting”, makes it difficult to learn about the lives and contributions of those who identified as Coloured.

    For example, all four textbooks contain photographs of Sophia Williams (later Sophia Williams-De Bruyn) and list her as one of the organisers of the 1956 Women’s March, during which 20,000 women marched to the government buildings to protest against racist laws.

    But all four textbooks fail to mention that Williams was classified in terms of apartheid laws as Coloured, identified as Coloured, was a full-time organiser for the Coloured People’s Congress in Johannesburg, and was assigned by the Coloured People’s Congress to work on issues relating to the 1950 Population Registration Act.

    So a student using these textbooks might learn about Williams – but still believe that Coloured people made no contribution to ending apartheid.

    Shame and lack of interest

    This denial of Coloured identity continued in the schools where I conducted ethnographic fieldwork. Teachers in a school on the Cape Flats – with a student population that overwhelmingly identified as Coloured – still referred to the school as a “Black school” by virtue of its involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle.

    The grade 9 history teacher, for example, taught that “the apartheid government gave us labels”, and that “if we didn’t cooperate [by uniting under a Black identity] then South Africa would be a failure”. This statement positioned the students’ distinct Coloured identity as being in opposition to South Africa’s success.

    When the teacher spoke about anti-apartheid struggle heroes, his students frequently complained that life was better under apartheid, and when he espoused ideas of non-racialism, they shook their heads. All of this suggested that the students were actively resisting South Africa’s founding narrative: that brave South Africans united to overcome the darkness of apartheid, and to found a democratic rainbow nation.

    My interviews with students from this school suggested that they felt no connection to South Africa’s history. When I asked about his family’s experiences during apartheid, Lester (aged 14) replied that “they were just a normal Coloured family. Nothing interesting.”

    In another school, a slim majority of students identified as Coloured. Again, Coloured history was not explicitly taught. Students felt alienated from Coloured history in different ways. Bahir (aged 15), for example, felt shame and discomfort about his Coloured identity. When I asked him whether he wished he could study more Coloured history, he declined:

    I actually wouldn’t want to like hear such a thing as slavery … I don’t actually like to hear that my family was put into that like category or something.

    The only Coloured history Bahir could consider was one of enslavement.

    Deborah (aged 14), meanwhile, suspected that there might be a proud Coloured history of anti-apartheid resistance, but assumed it hadn’t been written yet. She attributed the lack of Coloured pride among her classmates to a lack of historical scholarship.

    If I had a reason for why people do not want to be Coloureds, it’s because they don’t have a status, and they don’t have history that’s jotted down also.

    Catching up

    One thing was clear from my research: the absence of Coloured identity in history curriculum, textbooks, or lesson plans did not stop students from identifying as Coloured. However, they felt confused, ashamed or alienated from their history and South Africa’s history.

    Tyla and others are proudly, loudly defending their right to identify as Coloured. It’s time for South Africa’s history curriculum to catch up.

    – Coloured South Africans are all but erased from history textbooks – I asked learners how that makes them feel
    – https://theconversation.com/coloured-south-africans-are-all-but-erased-from-history-textbooks-i-asked-learners-how-that-makes-them-feel-234832

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Missouri Schools Receive State-Funded “Grow Your Own” Grants to Recruit Local Educators

    Source: US State of Missouri

    For the second year, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) was able to award Grow Your Own (GYO) grants to 125 local education agencies (LEAs). Review the list of LEA grant recipients here. DESE’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget includes $2.5 million to support one-time grants of $10,000 to LEAs to create or strengthen their local Grow Your Own program, designed to increase recruitment of quality teachers in LEAs across the state.

    “Investing in Missouri students and their achievement means investing in our educator workforce — both the teachers serving classrooms today and those that will join the profession in the coming years,” said Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger. “Grow Your Own programs are an important part of continuing to address the statewide teacher shortage, so we are thrilled to be able to provide a second round of funding to support this work at the local level.”

    Grow Your Own programs work to attract local students as well as non-certified school staff, such as paraprofessionals and substitute teachers, to the teaching profession. Many programs also support those future teachers through their post-secondary education and path to certification. Funding is used to support a variety of activities, including dual credit courses, scholarships for high school students, student internships, and opportunities for other non-teaching adults to pursue programs that will allow them to become certified teachers.

    “Our Grow Your Own program demonstrates sustainability through our Spark! Teaching and Learning Program that began in 2016,” Dr. Keith Marty, Superintendent at the Parkway C-2 School District, wrote in the LEA’s application. “We served 58 students from 2016-2021. By the close of the 2024-25 school year, Spark! Teaching and Learning will have served 120 students since 2021. This grant will help continue to strengthen our GYO Program!”

    “Students in our GYO program benefit from real-world education settings both within and outside of our school boundaries,” wrote Northwest R-I School District Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Hecktor. “This exposure helps them understand the diversity within their learning environment and prepares them for future roles in education. We are committed to promoting the field of education to our students and the broader stakeholder community.”

    LEAs applied to DESE through a competitive grant application process. Grant funds must be obligated and reimbursement requested by May 31, 2025.

    Funding was also provided to award Grow Your Own grants to 15 educator preparation programs and five community colleges. Review the list of educator preparation program and community college grant recipients here. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Murphy Announces Departure of Chief Counsel Parimal Garg

    Source: US State of New Jersey

    TRENTON – Governor Phil Murphy today announced that his longtime Chief Counsel Parimal Garg will depart the administration next month to work in private practice.

    “Parimal Garg has been by my side for the last eight years, from the early days of my first campaign through nearly seven years in the Governor’s Office,” said Governor Murphy. “I relied heavily on Parimal’s advice and counsel on issues from managing a once-in-a-century pandemic to selecting four Supreme Court Justices, and everything in between. No matter the complexity of the challenge, Parimal always thought through every angle of the issue, identified goals, and formulated strategies for achieving them. I am grateful for Parimal’s many years of service and his unwavering friendship, and I know he will excel in this next chapter of his legal career.”

    “When I decided to work for Phil Murphy in 2016, I did it with a belief that regardless of his political odds, he was the right person to put New Jersey back on track,” said outgoing Chief Counsel Parimal Garg. “Over the last eight years, he rose to every challenge, whether that meant repairing New Jersey’s finances, taking decisive action to protect public health, or skillfully navigating different federal administrations to advance New Jersey’s interests. I am forever grateful to Governor Murphy for the opportunity to help lead his team, and for his trust and confidence during my four years as Chief Counsel. I know that the Governor, the First Lady, and the entire Murphy administration will spend the next year cementing a record of achievement that is unparalleled in our state’s history.”

    Having served as Chief Counsel since October 2020, Garg is the longest serving Chief Counsel to the Governor in New Jersey history. From January 2018 to October 2020, Garg served as Deputy Chief Counsel to the Governor, after having worked as a senior policy advisor on Murphy’s gubernatorial campaign beginning in the summer of 2016.

    Previously, Garg served as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in Washington, D.C., and as a law clerk to New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University, magna cum laude, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, cum laude.

    Originally from Lawrenceville, Garg now resides in Montclair.

    Garg will depart the Governor’s Office in mid-November. An announcement on his successor will be made prior to his departure.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: FACT SHEET: One Month Following Hurricane Helene, Biden-⁠ Harris Administration Spearheads Ongoing Recovery Efforts and Support for  Survivors

    US Senate News:

    Source: The White House
    Since Hurricane Helene’s destructive landfall one month ago, the Biden-Harris Administration has mobilized a Federal response that has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in financial assistance to survivors, substantial debris removal and power restoration, and a sustained commitment to long-term recovery efforts. As President Biden and Vice President Harris have said, their Administration will be with the people across the Southeast and Appalachia no matter how long it takes.
    Thus far, the Administration has approved over $2.1 billion in Federal assistance for those affected by Hurricane Helene, as well as Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida shortly after Helene.
    This includes over $1 billion in assistance for individuals and families to help pay for housing repairs, personal property replacement, and other recovery efforts. To date, the Administration has also approved over $1.1 billion in Public Assistance funding to support local and state governments. This funding is primarily being used to support debris removal, as well to pay for emergency protective measures like surging first responders and providing shelter, food, and water during and after the storms.
    President Biden, Vice President Harris, and senior leaders across the Administration have spoken with and coordinated closely with Governors, Senators, Representatives, Mayors, and other state and local elected officials in impacted states before, during, and after the storms. The President, Vice President, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, and multiple cabinet members and other Administration leaders have been in impacted states to meet with state and local counterparts, survey damage, assess what additional Federal support should be prioritized, and meet with first responders and survivors. 
    On October 26, White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall traveled to North Carolina to coordinate recovery efforts with Governor Roy Cooper, FEMA, and philanthropic partners on the ground. She underscored the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to innovative partnerships that can speed recovery and rebuilding — through collaboration with state and local officials, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and philanthropic donors—for as long as it takes.
    Nearly 5,000 Federal personnel remain deployed to North Carolina and Florida, working side-by-side with state and local officials, to help survivors get what they need to accelerate their recovery.
    For communities affected by Helene, FEMA has delivered over 11 million meals and 9.6 million liters of water. FEMA now has 65 Disaster Recovery Centers open throughout all of the affected communities to provide survivors with in-person assistance with more opening each day. As of October 27, there will be 21 Disaster Recovery Centers open in North Carolina. Power and cellular service are restored for 99 percent of customers in impacted areas.
    As communities begin their road to rebuilding, the Administration continues to provide support and resources, including:
    Defense Personnel Supporting On-The-Ground Recovery
    Throughout Hurricane Helene response operations, the National Guard and Department of Defense have been engaged in the whole-of-government response efforts across the impacted areas. Members of the North Carolina National Guard, together with active duty servicemembers and guardsmen from 15 other states, have conducted more than 1,200 ground missions and more than 400 air missions in coordination with the state of North Carolina, and under the direction of the Dual Status Commander. 
    These efforts delivered more than 13,500 tons of humanitarian aid overland, and nearly another 2,000 tons through the air. This includes 614,881 gallons of bulk water, 4,331 pallets of bottles of water, and 3,108 pallets of food. Service members were active in route clearance – clearing hundreds of miles of roads, which enabled increased access to some of the hardest hit areas of the state.
    From the onset of this mission, the primary goal of active-duty Department of Defense Title 10 personnel and equipment was to provide immediate, short-term assistance to aid the most urgent response efforts. As of last week, Governor Cooper determined that the active-duty troops were no longer needed for this phase, and active-duty service members transitioned their mission to the National Guard and returned to their home bases. The National Guard, working with FEMA, and other Federal, state, and local partners, will remain actively engaged to address ongoing needs, rebuild infrastructure, and aid communities in long term recovery.
    The National Guard has roughly 2,000 Guardsmen, 65 high-water vehicles, and 7 helicopters still mobilized across seven states for the response to Hurricane Helene.
    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has more than 450 personnel engaged in missions across six states – supporting debris removal, temporary power, infrastructure assessments, , and safe waterways assessments. 
    Supporting and Protecting Public Health
    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is taking action to support providers and suppliers impacted by Hurricane Helene. These providers and suppliers may face significant cash flow issues from the unusual circumstances impacting facilities’ operations, preventing facilities from submitting claims and receiving Medicare claims payments. As a result of the presidential disaster declaration, and HHS public health emergencies declared in the wake of Hurricane Helene, CMS made available accelerated payments to Medicare Part A providers and advance payments to Medicare Part B suppliers affected by Hurricane Helene beginning October 2, 2024. CMS has also made available certain flexibilities related to provider and supplier fee-for-service Medicare debt.
    Following storm damage from Hurricane Helene at Baxter International Inc.’s North Cove facility in North Carolina, the Biden-Harris Administration continues taking action to support access to IV fluids, including ensuring restoration of key production sites, protecting products, and opening imports, in partnership with manufacturers, distributors, hospitals, and other stakeholders. As a result of these steps, Baxter anticipates restarting the highest-throughput IV solutions manufacturing line within the next week. The Biden-Harris Administration also moved quickly to open up imports from six facilities around the world and made it easier for hospitals to produce their own IV fluid during the shortage.
    Supporting Students and Student Loan Borrowers
    The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is partnering with disaster-declared states to determine the extent of impacts to educational communities; identify gaps in resources for response and recovery; and share critical resources to help restore learning conditions. These resources include Project SERV, which provides funding for local educational agencies and institutions of higher education that have experienced a traumatic crisis, including weather-related natural disasters, to assist in restoring a safe learning environment. 
    ED is ensuring affected borrowers in areas impacted by the hurricanes can focus on their critical needs without having to worry about missing their student loan payments. Direct Loan borrowers and federally-serviced Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) borrowers in the affected area who miss their payments will be automatically placed into a natural disaster forbearance. During forbearance, payments are temporarily postponed or reduced, and interest is still charged. Thanks to regulations issued by the Biden-Harris Administration, months in this forbearance will count toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income Driven Repayment forgiveness. Direct Loan and federally serviced FFEL borrowers are not required to take an action, but have the option to call their servicer if they wish to enroll in the forbearance proactively. Perkins loan borrowers should contact their loan holder to request natural disaster forbearance. 
    ED continues to monitor impacts to schools in the affected states, including school closures, damage to school buildings including ongoing utility outages, schools being used as shelters, and the number of displaced students and staff. ED is sending an assessment team to North Carolina this coming week to evaluate damages and work with the state to develop a plan to get students back into classrooms as quickly as possible. In parallel, ED is closely communicating with the leadership of 531 Title IV-participating institutions, across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia due to impacts associated with Hurricane Helene. ED has also posted electronic announcements, reminding impacted institutions of available regulatory flexibilities, and providing guidance on managing Title IV student aid during disaster situations. 
    Supporting Farmers, Agriculture, and Consumers
    The Department of Agriculture (USDA), in coordination with approved insurance providers, announced more than $233 million to help farmers recover from hurricane damage during the fall harvest season. Currently, Hurricane Helene indemnities are estimated to be nearly $208 million for Georgia, nearly $13 million for Florida, $5 million for Alabama, and more than $4 million each for North and South Carolina.  
    To date, USDA has approved Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP) benefits to help eligible residents cover the cost of groceries in 112 counties in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee. D-SNAP is a program focused on getting food assistance to those in need for people in communities affected by disasters, who may not otherwise be eligible.
    Supporting Infrastructure and Transportation Recovery
    Since Hurricane Helene made landfall, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been committed to helping water utilities and health departments in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and North Carolina as they work around the clock to bring clean, safe drinking water back to communities impacted by the storm. EPA and its state and local partners have made significant progress restoring drinking water and wastewater services in a vast majority of communities. In Western North Carolina, EPA has deployed two mobile water testing labs. EPA has received and analyzed approximately 700 samples, giving residents clear data about the safety of their drinking water. In addition to water testing, EPA has collected approximately 1,000 containers with oil, hazardous materials, or propane since clean-up efforts began in North Carolina.  
    The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) continues to support response and recovery efforts in impacted communities in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) worked with partners in affected areas to ensure the national airspace quickly returned to normal operations. The FAA deployed personnel to conduct vital infrastructure assessments and restore communications to impacted towers and airports, including Asheville Regional Airport in North Carolina and ongoing work at Valdosta Regional Airport in Georgia, among others. Approximately 133 personnel from Technical Operations and the communications support team remain on the ground supporting a range of response and restoration activities.
    The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sent $144 million in “Quick Release” Emergency Relief funding to North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. These funds represent a ‘down payment’ to help with the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. Additional funding will be flowing to affected communities from the Emergency Relief program pending availability of funds. FHWA also worked closely with all impacted states and other federal agencies to help support their assessments of infrastructure damage.
    Providing Financial Flexibilities to Homeowners, Renters and Taxpayers
    The Department of Housing and Urban Development is providing a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures of mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) as well as foreclosures of mortgages to Native American borrowers guaranteed under the Section 184 Indian Home Loan Guarantee program. The moratorium and extension are effective as of the President’s disaster declaration date in each state. When homes are destroyed or damaged to an extent that reconstruction or complete replacement is necessary, HUD’s Section 203(h) program provides FHA insurance to disaster victims, including renters. Borrowers from participating FHA approved lenders are eligible for 100 percent financing including closing costs. HUD’s Section 203(k) loan program enables individuals to finance the purchase or refinance of a house, along with its repair, through a single mortgage. Homeowners can also finance the rehabilitation of their existing homes if damaged. FHA is coordinating and collaborating with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Agriculture to ensure consistent messaging and policies for single family loans regarding foreclosure moratoriums and repayment/arrearage agreements. Additionally, affected homeowners that have mortgages through Government-Sponsored Enterprises – including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and the FHA are eligible to suspend their mortgage payments through a forbearance plan for up to 12 months.
    The Internal Revenue Service announced disaster tax relief for all individuals and businesses affected by Hurricane Helene, including the entire states of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina and parts of Florida, Tennessee and Virginia. Taxpayers in these areas now have until May 1, 2025, to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments. In addition, the Internal Revenue Service provided more than 1,000 employees to help with FEMA disaster relief call lines and intake initial information to help disaster victims get federal relief. IRS Criminal Investigation agents were also on the ground in devastated areas to help with search and rescue efforts and other relief work – including assisting with door-to-door search efforts.
    Supporting Workers and Worker Safety
    Working alongside the Department of Labor, the States of Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee have all announced that eligible workers can receive federal Disaster Unemployment Assistance to compensate for income lost directly resulting from Hurricane Helene. And, through the Department of Labor’s innovative partnership with the U.S. Postal Service, displaced workers from North Carolina and South Carolina can now go to the post office in any other state and verify their ID for purposes of getting their benefits quickly.
    Additional Response and Recovery Efforts
    The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has offered over $51 million in tentatively approved disaster loan funding to survivors of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. The SBA also has hundreds of staff working on the ground supporting communities in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia in disaster recovery centers, as well as in loan processing and customer service centers that are fielding around 15,000 calls a day with an average wait time of 15 seconds. The SBA is continuing to process disaster loan applications while it awaits Congressional action to replenish their disaster loan funds.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: My family lived the horrors of Native American boarding schools – why Biden’s apology doesn’t go far enough

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rosalyn R. LaPier, Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    A photograph archived at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque shows a group of Indigenous students who attended the Ramona Industrial School in Santa Fe. AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan

    I am a direct descendant of family members that were forced as children to attend either a U.S. government-operated or church-run Indian boarding school. They include my mother, all four of my grandparents and the majority of my great-grandparents.

    On Oct. 25, 2024, Joe Biden, the first U.S. president to formally apologize for the policy of sending Native American children to Indian boarding schools, called it one of the most “horrific chapters” in U.S. history and “a mark of shame.” But he did not call it a genocide.

    Yet, over the past 10 years, many historians and Indigenous scholars have said that what happened at the Indian boarding schools “meets the definition of genocide.”

    From the 19th to 20th century, children were physically removed from their homes and separated from their families and communities, often without the consent of their parents. The purpose of these schools was to strip Native American children of their Indigenous names, languages, religions and cultural practices.

    The U.S. government operated the boarding schools directly or paid Christian churches to run them. Historians and scholars have written about the history of Indian boarding schools for decades. But, as Biden noted, “most Americans don’t know about this history.”

    As an Indigenous scholar who studies Indigenous history and the descendant of Indian boarding school survivors, I know about the “horrific” history of Indian boarding schools from both survivors and scholars who contend they were places of genocide.

    Was it genocide?

    The United Nations defines “genocide” as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Scholars have researched different cases of genocide of Indigenous peoples in the United States.

    Historian Jeffery Ostler, in his 2019 book “Surviving Genocide,” argues that the unlawful annexation of Indigenous lands, the deportation of Indigenous peoples and the numerous deaths of children and adults that occurred as they walked hundreds of miles from their homelands in the 19th century constitute genocide.

    The mass killings of Indigenous peoples after gold was found in the 19th century in what is now California also constitutes genocide, writes historian Benjamin Madley in his 2017 book “An American Genocide.” At the time, a large migration of new settlers to California to mine gold brought with it the killing and displacement of Indigenous peoples.

    Other scholars have focused on the forced assimilation of children at Indian boarding schools. Sociologist Andrew Woolford argues that scholars need to start calling what happened at Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th century “genocide” because of the “sheer destructiveness of these institutions.”

    Woolford, a former president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, explains in his 2015 book “This Benevolent Experiment” that the goal of Indian boarding schools was the “forcible transformation of multiple Indigenous peoples so that they would no longer exist as an obstacle (real or perceived) to settler colonial domination on the continent.”

    First- and second-grade students sit in a classroom at the former Genoa Indian Industrial School in Genoa, Neb. Researchers are now trying to locate the bodies of more than 80 Native American children buried near the school.
    National Archives/AP

    Indigenous writers have explained how this transformation at Indian boarding schools occurred. “Federal agents beat Native children in such schools for speaking Native languages, held them in unsanitary conditions, and forced them into manual and dangerous forms of labor,” writes Indigenous law professor Maggie Blackhawk.

    What my grandmother witnessed

    Secretary of the Interior Debra Anne Haaland has stated that every Native American family has been impacted by the “trauma and terror” of Indian boarding schools. And my family is no different.

    One of the more horrific stories that my maternal grandmother shared with her grandchildren was that she witnessed the death of another student. They were both under the age of 10. The student died of poisoning after lye soap was put in her mouth as a punishment for speaking her Indigenous language.

    We know that similar punishments happened and children died at Indian boarding schools. The Department of Interior reported in 2024 that 973 children died at Indian boarding schools.

    Tribes are increasingly seeking the return of the remains of children who died and are buried at Indian boarding schools.

    A worker digs for the suspected remains of children who once attended the Genoa Indian Industrial School, on July 11, 2023, in Genoa, Neb.
    AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

    Lasting legacy

    The U.S. government is beginning to encourage survivors to tell their stories of their Indian boarding school experiences. The Department of the Interior is in the process of recording and documenting their stories on digital video, and they will be placed in a government repository.

    At 84 years old, my mother is the only living Indian boarding school survivor in our family. She shared her story with the Department of the Interior this past summer, as did dozens of other survivors.

    Haaland stated these “first person narratives” can be used in the future to learn about the history of Indian boarding schools, and to “ensure that no one will ever forget.”

    “For too long, this nation sought to silence the voices of generations of Native children,” Biden added at the apology ceremony, “but now your voices are being heard.”

    As a descendant of Indian boarding school survivors, I appreciate President Biden’s apology and his effort to break the silence. But, I am also convinced that what my mother, grandmother and other survivors experienced was genocide.

    Rosalyn R. LaPier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. My family lived the horrors of Native American boarding schools – why Biden’s apology doesn’t go far enough – https://theconversation.com/my-family-lived-the-horrors-of-native-american-boarding-schools-why-bidens-apology-doesnt-go-far-enough-242249

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –