Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Ian Murray welcomes recommendations by Joseph Rowntree Foundation and vows to work with Scottish Government to tackle associated issues and break down barriers
Scottish Secretary Ian Murray spoke at the launch of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s (JRF) annual report into poverty in Scotland this week [7 October].
The report, summarised here, found that one million people in Scotland are living in poverty and that one in four of them are children. Recommendations were made to overhaul the social security system to tackle the problem and, in particular, for the UK and Scottish Governments to work together to make the process smoother in terms of reserved and devolved policy areas.
An excerpt follows from the remarks made by the Scottish Secretary at the event:
I want to outline some of the steps that the new UK Government is taking to reduce poverty in Scotland and across the whole of the UK.
We are committed to working together with the Scottish Government, and to reset the relationship between our two governments. Because, as this latest report highlights, it is vital that we can deliver on behalf of the people of Scotland.
I’ve spent a lot of time with organisations such as Poverty Alliance to understand fully the complexities of what’s happening.
Having one million people in poverty – a quarter of those children – is really sobering. But I think the most sobering thing is that none of us are surprised, and that really should be the thing that we need to tackle in terms of policy.
We are only 95 days into this new government and we’ve already done a lot of engagement to make sure we can develop these policies, whether it be in social security or regarding the underlying parts of poverty.
With the Budget coming up on 30 October, the Chancellor has been clear on two things. One is the economic inheritance that we’ve got to try and deal with and that those with the broadest shoulders will carry the majority of what needs to be done to grow the economy for all parts of our country.
Reducing poverty across all sections of society, particularly child poverty, is in our DNA. We did it before. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to do it again.
We will be publishing our Employment Rights Bill this week to fundamentally transform work and pay. It will ban exploitative zero-hour contracts, outlaw fire and rehire and will make sure that the National Minimum Wage becomes a genuine living wage.
It’s still sobering that two-thirds of children in poverty are in households where one or both adults are working full time, and that means that there’s a big problem with pay. We hope that our New Deal for Working People will start to resolve some of those issues.
I think it’s also important to highlight our Universal Credit review, which will look at everything from the two-child cap to housing allowances.
We’ve also launched our Child Poverty Task Force, chaired jointly by the Secretaries of State for Education and the Department of Work and Pensions. It looks at all the other big issues that are around in terms of poverty.
Yes, it’s about the social security system, Universal Credit, but it’s also about housing, educational attainment, health inequalities, pay in the workplace, progression and skills. It’s about those underlying causes of poverty that are inherent in our society that we need to find a way to resolve once and for all.
Having grown up on a council estate, I know that having that security of tenure of a house was the bedrock in which the family was built, and without that it’s difficult to see how you can get yourself out of poverty.
Housing is devolved, but both governments are working very closely together to make sure that we can resolve the housing emergency that’s been declared across a lot of our local authorities.
We’ve made a good start over the last 95 days. There will be bumps in the road, because these are fundamental challenges, but the whole culture of the new government is to try and resolve these issues.
We want to make sure the system can work better, and joint working is really important in this area. There’s no reason why Social Security Scotland and the DWP can’t work jointly in terms of the delivery of social security, to make sure that we get the best out of both systems for the benefit of everyone who needs to access that system.
Regarding the low update of benefits by ethnic minorities, I think that’s a huge challenge for us. Not just finding those individuals and families, but actually being able to engage with them and get them what they deserve to be claiming. That’s a huge battle for us all to try to work together and resolve.
We’ve got four big priorities as a new government and as a Scotland Office. Growth is the number one priority, but that also feeds into our green agenda, which is our second priority. Our third one is Brand Scotland to try and increase our exports, to improve our businesses and create more jobs. And the fourth one, which attached the first three, is the eradication of poverty.
That’s something that myself and Ministerial colleague Kirsty McNeill are fundamentally committed to doing. We can only do that by all of us – devolved governments, the UK Government and organisations like JRF working together. We must find ways we can not only make the system better, but make sure that those who require access to the system, get access to that system and get the funds and support they deserve.
There’s a huge amount of work to be done and this report gives us that very sobering starting point.
Globular cluster NGC 2005. ESA/Hubble & Nasa, F. Niederhofer, L. Girardi, CC BY-SA
As I finished my PhD in 1992, the universe was full of mystery – we didn’t even know exactly what it is made of. One could argue that cosmologists had made little progress in our understanding of these basic facts since the discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow of the Big Bang, in the 1960s.
I left the UK after my doctoral studies to begin a research career in the US, where I was lucky to be recruited to work on a new experiment called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This new survey embraced advances in digital technologies with the ambition of measuring the “redshifts” (how light becomes more red if a source appears to move away from you) of a million galaxies.
These redshifts were then used to measure distances, and allowed cosmologists to map the three-dimensional structure of the universe.
One cosmic puzzle in the 1980s, based on the pioneering CfA Redshift Survey of Margaret Geller and John Huchra, was the significant lumpiness of galaxies, and therefore matter, in our cosmic neighbourhood. Galaxies were clustered together across a wide range of scales, with evidence for coherent “superclusters” of galaxies spanning over 30 million light years in length.
This article is part of our series Cosmology in crisis? which uncovers the greatest problems facing cosmologists today – and discusses the implications of solving them.
It was important to know how such superclusters could have formed from the smooth CMB, as it would tell us the total amount of matter in the universe and, more intriguingly, what that matter was made of. That was assuming the only force in play was gravity.
By the end of the first phase of the SDSS, we had achieved our goal of a million redshifts. This data was used to discover many superclusters across the universe, including the amazing “Sloan Great Wall”, which remains one of the largest known coherent structures in the universe, over a billion light years in length.
Type 1A supernova remnant. Nasa/CXC/U.Texas
I am lucky to have lived through this amazing era of cosmic discovery around the turn of the century. Surveys like SDSS, combined with new observations of the CMB and searches for distant exploding stars known as Type Ia Supernovae (SNeIa), coincided to deliver an emphatic answer to the question: “What is the universe made of?”
The discovery of dark energy
From 1999 to 2004, the cosmological community came together to agree that the universe was 5% normal (baryonic) matter, 25% dark matter (unknown, invisible matter), and 70% “dark energy” (an expansive force) – essentially a cosmological constant, which was first postulated by Einstein. The discovery that the universe was dominated by this constant energy shocked everyone, especially as Einstein had called the cosmological constant his “biggest blunder”.
Today, cosmologists still agree this is the most likely make-up of our universe. But observational cosmologists like me have refined our measurements of these cosmic variables significantly – reducing the errors on these quantities.
The latest numbers from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) indicate that 31.5% of the universe is matter (a combination of dark and normal), with the remainder being dark energy assuming a cosmological constant. The error on this measurement is just 3%.
Knowing these numbers to higher precision will hopefully help cosmologists understand why the universe is like this. Why would we expect to have 70% of the universe today as “dark” (can’t be seen via electromagnetic radiation) and not associated with “matter” like everything else in the universe?
The origin of this dark energy remains the biggest challenge to physics, even after 20 years of intense study.
Intriguing measurements
Like me, a few cosmologists have become distracted by other problems over the last two decades. However, 2024 could be the start of a new era of discovery. This year, cosmologists published new results based on two of our best cosmological probes.
The first probe consists of exploding stars dubbed “SNeIa”. As these stars have a narrow range of masses, their explosions can be well calibrated, giving cosmologists a predictable brightness that can be seen far away. By comparing the known brightness of these SNeIa to their redshifts, we can determine the expansion history of the universe. These objects were, in fact, critical for discovering that the expansion of our universe is accelerating.
The second probe works by looking at Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) – relics of predictable sound waves in the plasma (charged gas) of the early universe, before the CMB. These are now frozen into the large-scale structure of galaxies around us. Like SNeIa, their predictable size can be compared with their observed size today to measure the expansion history of the universe.
Recently, DES reported its final SNeIa results from over a decade of work, detecting and characterising many thousands of supernova events. While these SNeIa results are consistent with the orthodox view that the universe is dominated by a cosmological constant, they do leave open the tantalising possibility of new physics – namely, that the dark energy could be varying with cosmic time.
That said, scientists are trained to be sceptical, and there are many reasons to distrust a single experiment, single observation, or even a single set of cosmologists!
Cosmologists now go to extraordinary lengths to “blind” their results from themselves during analysis of the data, only revealing the answer at the last moment. This blinding is done to avoid unconscious human biases affecting the work, which could possibly encourage people to get the answer they believe they should see.
This is why repeatability of results is at the heart of all science. In cosmology, we cherish the need for multiple experiments checking and challenging each other.
The second result to turn heads was the first BAO measurements from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), successor to the SDSS. The first DESI map of the cosmos is deeper and denser than the original SDSS. Its first BAO results are intriguing – the data alone is still consistent with a cosmological constant, but with hints of a possible time-varying dark energy when combined with other data sources.
DESI in the dome of the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. wikipedia, CC BY-SA
In particular, when DESI analyses the combination of its BAO results with the final DES SNeIa data, the significance of a time-varying dark energy increases to 3.9 sigma (a measure of how unusual a set of data is if a hypothesis is true) – only 0.6% chance of being a statistical fluke.
Most of us would take such odds, but scientists have been hurt before by systematic errors within their data that can mimic such statistical certainty. Particle physicists therefore demand a discovery standard of 5 sigma for any claims of new physics – or less than a one in a million chance of being wrong!
As scientists will say: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Mindboggling implications
Are we entering a new era of cosmological discovery? If so, what would it mean?
The answer to my first question is probably yes. The next few years will be fun for cosmologists, with new data and results due from the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission. Launched last year, it is already scanning the sky with unprecedented accuracy.
Likewise, DESI will get more and better data, while the European Southern Observatory starts its own massive redshift survey in 2025. Then you have the Rubin Observatory in Chile coming online soon. Combining these datasets should prove beyond doubt if dark energy varies with cosmic time.
If it does, it implies there is less dark energy now than in the past. This could be caused by many things but, interestingly, it could signify the end of a present, accelerated phase of the expansion of the universe.
It also implies that dark energy is probably not a cosmological constant thought to be due to the background energy associated with empty space. According to quantum mechanics, empty space isn’t really empty, with particles popping in and out of existence creating something we call “vacuum energy”. Ironically, predictions of this vacuum energy do not agree with our cosmological observations by many orders of magnitude.
So, if we did discover that dark energy varies over time, it might explain why observations are at odds with quantum mechanics, which is an extremely well-tested theory. This would suggest the assumption in the standard model of cosmology, that dark energy is constant, needs a rethink. Such a realisation may help solve other mysteries about the universe – or pose new ones.
In short, the new cosmological observations coming this decade will stimulate a new era of physical thinking. Congratulations to my younger cosmologists: it is your era to have fun.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Alan Jenn, Associate Professional Researcher in Transportation, University of California, Davis
A Nissan Leaf charges at a station in Pasadena, Calif., on Sept. 23, 2024.Mario Tama/Getty Images
The Biden administration is using tax credits, regulations and federal investments to shift drivers toward electric vehicles. But drivers will make the switch only if they are confident they can find reliable charging when and where they need it.
Over the past four years, the number of public charging ports across the U.S. has doubled. As of August 2024, the nation had 192,000 publicly available charging ports and was adding about 1,000 public chargers weekly. Infrastructure rarely expands at such a fast rate.
Agencies are allocating billions of dollars authorized through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for building charging infrastructure. This expansion is making long-distance EV travel more practical. It also makes EV ownership more feasible for people who can’t charge at home, such as some apartment dwellers.
Charging technology is also improving. Speeds are now reaching up to 350 kilowatts – fast enough to charge a standard electric car in less than 10 minutes. The industry has also begun to shift to a standard called ISO 15118, which governs the interface between EVs and the power grid.
This standard enables a plug-and-charge system: Just plug in the charger and you’re done, without contending with apps or multiple payment systems. Many existing chargers can be retrofitted to it, rather than needing to install totally new chargers.
Although EV charging infrastructure has improved in the past several years, reliability is still a critical issue. For example, a 2022 study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that nearly 30% of public non-Tesla fast chargers in the Bay Area didn’t work. A national study in 2023 that used artificial intelligence models to analyze driver reviews of EV charging stations reached a similar result.
These findings highlight the need for more robust maintenance and monitoring systems across charging networks. Federal guidelines require that chargers must have an average annual “uptime,” or functional time, greater than 97%, but this metric is not always as clear-cut as it sounds. While many charging-point operators report high uptime percentages, their figures often exclude factors such as slow charging speeds or incomplete charges that degrade users’ experience.
Cars waiting to charge at a center in San Diego. Gil Tal, CC BY-ND
Many drivers complain about throttling – chargers that dispense electricity at less than the maximum rate the car is capable of accepting, so the car charges more slowly than expected. Sometimes this is normal: Cars will charge more slowly as their battery gets closer to full in order to avoid damaging the battery. Other factors can include weather conditions and the number of other vehicles simultaneously using the charging station.
Drivers’ issues with chargers involve more than just uptime. Technical barriers, such as payment processing and vehicle-charger communication, sometimes can prevent a charge from starting or completing.
To ensure that all EVs can charge smoothly at any network, groups such as the National Charging Experience Consortium and CharIN are bringing automakers, charging providers and national laboratories together to address these issues.
Other obstacles are more local, such as long lines at charging stations and chargers that are blocked by parked cars, snowbanks or other obstacles. Finding vehicles with internal combustion engines parked in EV charger spots is common enough that it has a name: getting ICEd. There’s a clear need for more comprehensive solutions to help the charging experience keep pace with demand for EVs.
A Wall Street Journal tech columnist finds abundant chargers – with abundant challenges – in Los Angeles.
A street-level view
At the University of California, Davis, we are working with the California Energy Commission to understand the range of charging obstacles that EV drivers face. As part of a three-year study, we are sending undergraduate students out to test thousands of chargers across the entire state of California.
So far, our results show that just over 70% of charge attempts have succeeded. Many issues have caused failed charges, including traffic congestion at charging stations, damaged or offline chargers, difficulty using navigation apps to find charging stations, and malfunctioning chargers.
Quantity and quality both matter
As federal investments continue to pour money into EV charging, our findings indicate that it’s important to use these resources not only to expand the network but also to improve the user experience at every step.
Areas for improvement include stricter oversight of charger maintenance; more robust uptime requirements that reflect real-world performance; and better collaboration between automakers, charging-point operators and software providers to ensure that vehicles and chargers can work together seamlessly.
The future of EV adoption depends not just on how many chargers are available, but on how reliable and easy they are to use. By addressing specific pain points that drivers face, policymakers and industry leaders can create a charging ecosystem that truly supports the needs of all EV drivers. Reliability is key to unlocking widespread confidence in the EV charging infrastructure and ensuring that it can keep pace with the growing number of electric vehicles on the road.
Alan Jenn receives funding from the California Energy Commission and is a participant in the National Charging Experience Consortium (ChargeX)
The 67 million Americans eligible for Medicare make an important decision every October: Should they make changes in their Medicare health insurance plans for the next calendar year?
The decision is complicated. Medicare has an enormous variety of coverage options, with large and varying implications for people’s health and finances, both as beneficiaries and taxpayers. And the decision is consequential – some choices lock beneficiaries out of traditional Medicare.
Beneficiaries choose an insurance plan when they turn 65 or become eligible based on qualifying chronic conditions or disabilities. After the initial sign-up, most beneficiaries can make changes only during the open enrollment period each fall.
The 2024 open enrollment period, which runs from Oct. 14 to Dec. 7, marks an opportunity to reassess options. Given the complicated nature of Medicare and the scarcity of unbiased advisers, however, finding reliable information and understanding the options available can be challenging.
We are health carepolicy experts who study Medicare, and even we find it complicated. One of us recently helped a relative enroll in Medicare for the first time. She’s healthy, has access to health insurance through her employer and doesn’t regularly take prescription drugs. Even in this straightforward scenario, the number of choices were overwhelming.
The stakes of these choices are even higher for people managing multiple chronic conditions. There is help available for beneficiaries, but we have found that there is considerable room for improvement – especially in making help available for everyone who needs it.
The choice is complex, especially when you are signing up for the first time and if you are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. Insurers often engage in aggressive and sometimes deceptive advertising and outreach through brokers and agents. Choose unbiased resources to guide you through the process, like http://www.shiphelp.org. Make sure to start before your 65th birthday for initial sign-up, look out for yearly plan changes, and start well before the Dec. 7 deadline for any plan changes.
2 paths with many decisions
Within Medicare, beneficiaries have a choice between two very different programs. They can enroll in either traditional Medicare, which is administered by the government, or one of the Medicare Advantage plans offered by private insurance companies.
Within each program are dozens of further choices.
Traditional Medicare is a nationally uniform cost-sharing plan for medical services that allows people to choose their providers for most types of medical care, usually without prior authorization. Deductibles for 2024 are US$1,632 for hospital costs and $240 for outpatient and medical costs. Patients also have to chip in starting on Day 61 for a hospital stay and Day 21 for a skilled nursing facility stay. This percentage is known as coinsurance. After the yearly deductible, Medicare pays 80% of outpatient and medical costs, leaving the person with a 20% copayment. Traditional Medicare’s basic plan, known as Part A and Part B, also has no out-of-pocket maximum.
People enrolled in traditional Medicare can also purchase supplemental coverage from a private insurance company, known as Part D, for drugs. And they can purchase supplemental coverage, known as Medigap, to lower or eliminate their deductibles, coinsurance and copayments, cap costs for Parts A and B, and add an emergency foreign travel benefit.
The Medicare Advantage program allows private insurers to bundle everything together and offers many enrollment options. Compared with traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans typically offer lower out-of-pocket costs. They often bundle supplemental coverage for hearing, vision and dental, which is not part of traditional Medicare.
Understanding the tradeoffs between premiums, health care access and out-of-pocket health care costs can be overwhelming.
Turning 65 begins the process of taking one of two major paths, which each have a thicket of health care choices. Rika Kanaoka/USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics
Different Medicare Advantage plans have varying and large impacts on enrollee health, including dramatic differences in mortality rates. Researchers found a 16% difference per year between the best and worst Medicare Advantage plans, meaning that for every 100 people in the worst plans who die within a year, they would expect only 84 people to die within that year if all had been enrolled in the best plans instead. They also found plans that cost more had lower mortality rates, but plans that had higher federal quality ratings – known as “star ratings” – did not necessarily have lower mortality rates.
While many Medicare Advantage plans boast about their supplemental benefits , such as vision and dental coverage, it’s often difficult to understand how generous this supplemental coverage is. For instance, while most Medicare Advantage plans offer supplemental dental benefits, cost-sharing and coverage can vary. Some plans don’t cover services such as extractions and endodontics, which includes root canals. Most plans that cover these more extensive dental services require some combination of coinsurance, copayments and annual limits.
Even when information is fully available, mistakes are likely.
At 65, when most beneficiaries first enroll in Medicare, federal regulations guarantee that anyone can get Medigap coverage. During this initial sign-up, beneficiaries can’t be charged a higher premium based on their health.
Older Americans who enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan but then want to switch back to traditional Medicare after more than a year has passed lose that guarantee. This can effectively lock them out of enrolling in supplemental Medigap insurance, making the initial decision a one-way street.
For the initial sign-up, Medigap plans are “guaranteed issue,” meaning the plan must cover preexisting health conditions without a waiting period and must allow anyone to enroll, regardless of health. They also must be “community rated,” meaning that the cost of a plan can’t rise because of age or illness, although it can go up due to other factors such as inflation.
People who enroll in traditional Medicare and a supplemental Medigap plan at 65 can expect to continue paying community-rated premiums as long as they remain enrolled, regardless of what happens to their health.
In most states, however, people who switch from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare don’t have as many protections. Most state regulations permit plans to deny coverage, impose waiting periods or charge higher Medigap premiums based on their expected health costs. Only Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New York guarantee that people can get Medigap plans after the initial sign-up period.
Deceptive advertising
Information about Medicare coverage and assistance choosing a plan is available but varies in quality and completeness. Older Americans are bombarded with ads for Medicare Advantage plans that they may not be eligible for and that include misleading statements about benefits.
A November 2022 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance found deceptive and aggressive sales and marketing tactics, including mailed brochures that implied government endorsement, telemarketers who called up to 20 times a day, and salespeople who approached older adults in the grocery store to ask about their insurance coverage.
The Department of Health and Human Services tightened rules for 2024, requiring third-party marketers to include federal resources about Medicare, including the website and toll-free phone number, and limiting the number of contacts from marketers.
Although the government has the authority to review marketing materials, enforcement is partially dependent on whether complaints are filed. Complaints can be filed with the federal government’s Senior Medicare Patrol, a federally funded program that prevents and addresses unethical Medicare activities.
Nearly one-third of Medicare beneficiaries seek information from an insurance broker. Brokers sell health insurance plans from multiple companies. However, because they receive payment from plans in exchange for sales, and because they are unlikely to sell every option, a plan recommended by a broker may not meet a person’s needs.
Help is out there − but falls short
An alternative source of information is the federal government. It offers three sources of information to assist people with choosing one of these plans: 1-800-Medicare, medicare.gov and the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, also known as SHIP.
Telephone SHIP services are available nationally, but one of us and our colleagues have found that in-person SHIP services are not available in some areas. We tabulated areas by ZIP code in 27 states and found that although more than half of the locations had a SHIP site within the county, areas without a SHIP site included a larger proportion of people with low incomes.
Virtual services are an option that’s particularly useful in rural areas and for people with limited mobility or little access to transportation, but they require online access. Virtual and in-person services, where both a beneficiary and a counselor can look at the same computer screen, are especially useful for looking through complex coverage options.
As one SHIP coordinator noted, many people are not aware of all their coverage options. For instance, one beneficiary told a coordinator, “I’ve been on Medicaid and I’m aging out of Medicaid. And I don’t have a lot of money. And now I have to pay for my insurance?” As it turned out, the beneficiary was eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare because of their income, and so had to pay less than they thought.
The interviews made clear that many people are not aware that Medicare Advantage ads and insurance brokers may be biased. One counselor said, “There’s a lot of backing (beneficiaries) off the ledge, if you will, thanks to those TV commercials.”
Many SHIP staff counselors said they would benefit from additional training on coverage options, including for people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. The SHIP program relies heavily on volunteers, and there is often greater demand for services than the available volunteers can offer. Additional counselors would help meet needs for complex coverage decisions.
The key to making a good Medicare coverage decision is to use the help available and weigh your costs, access to health providers, current health and medication needs, and also consider how your health and medication needs might change as time goes on.
This article is part of an occasional series examining the U.S. Medicare system.
Grace McCormack receives funding from the Commonwealth Fund and Arnold Ventures.
Melissa Garrido receives funding from Commonwealth Fund, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health for Medicare-related research, including research discussed in this piece.
Donald Trump accuses others of acts he has done at an Oct. 3, 2024, rally in Michigan.AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
Donald Trump has a particular formula he uses to convey messages to his supporters and opponents alike: He highlights others’ wrongdoings even though he has committed similar acts himself.
On Oct. 3, 2024, Trump accused the Biden administration of spending Federal Emergency Management Agency funds – money meant for disaster relief – on services for immigrants. Biden did no such thing, but Trump did during his time in the White House, including to pay for additional detention space.
This is not the first time he has accused someone of something he had done or would do in the future. In 2016, Trump criticized opponent Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured personal email server while secretary of state as “extreme carelessness with classified material.” But once he was elected, Trump continued to use his unsecured personal cellphone while in office. And he has been criminally charged with illegally keeping classified government documents after he left office and storing them in his bedroom, bathroom and other places at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
After complaining about how Hillary Clinton handled classified documents, Donald Trump stored national secrets in a bathroom. Justice Department via AP
More recently, the Secret Service arrested a man with a rifle who was allegedly planning to shoot Trump during a round of golf. In the wake of this event, Trump accused Democrats of using “inflammatory language” that stokes the fires of political violence. Meanwhile, Trump himself has a long history of making inflammatory remarks that could potentially incite violence.
As a scholar of both politics and psychology, I’m familiar with the psychological strategies candidates use to persuade the public to support them and to cast their rivals in a negative light. This strategy Trump has used repeatedly is called “projection.” It’s a tactic people use to lessen their own faults by calling out these faults in others.
Projection abounds
There are plenty of examples. During his Sept. 10, 2024, debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump claimed that Democrats were responsible for the July 13 assassination attempt against him. “I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,” he declared.
Earlier in the debate he had falsely accused immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, of eating other people’s pets – a statement that sparked bomb threats and prompted the city’s mayor to declare a state of emergency.
Trump isn’t the only politician who uses projection. His running mate, JD Vance, claimed “the rejection of the American family is perhaps the most pernicious and the most evil thing the left has done in this country.” Critics quickly pointed out that his own family has a history of dysfunction and drug addiction.
Projection happens on both sides of the political aisle. In reference to Trump’s proposed 10% tariff on all imported goods, the Harris campaign launched social media efforts to condemn the so-called “Trump tequila tax.” While Harris frames this proposal as a sales tax that would devastate middle-class families, she deflects from the fact that inflation has made middle-class life more expensive since she and President Joe Biden took office.
How it works
Projection is one example of unconscious psychological processes called defense mechanisms. Some people find it hard to accept criticism or believe information that they wish were not true. So they seek – and then provide – another explanation for the difference between what’s happening in the world and what’s happening in their minds.
In general, this is called “motivated reasoning,” which is an umbrella phrase used to describe the array of mental gymnastics people use to reconcile their views with reality.
Some examples include seeking out information that confirms their beliefs, dismissing factual claims or creating alternate explanations. For example, a smoker might downplay or simply avoid information related to the link between smoking and lung cancer, or perhaps tell themselves that they don’t smoke as much as they actually do.
Motivated reasoning is not unique to politics. It can be a challenging concept to consider because people tend to think they are fully in control of their decision-making abilities and that they are capable of objectively processing political information. The evidence is clear, however, that there are unconscious thought processes at work, too.
Influencing the audience
Audiences are also susceptible to unconscious psychological dynamics. Research has found that over time, people’s minds subconsciously attach emotions to concepts, names or phrases. So someone might have a particular emotional reaction to the words “gun control,” “Ron DeSantis” or “tax relief.”
And people’s minds also unconsciously create defenses for those seemingly automatic emotions. When a person’s emotions and defenses are questioned, a phenomenon called the “backfire effect” can occur, in which the process of controlling, correcting or counteracting mistaken beliefs ends up reinforcing the person’s beliefs rather than changing them.
For instance, some people may find it hard to believe that the candidate they prefer – whom they believe to be the best person for the job – truly lost an election. So they seek another explanation and accept explanations that justify their beliefs. Perhaps they choose to believe, even in the absence of evidence, that the race was rigged or that many fraudulent votes were cast. And when evidence to the contrary is offered, they insist their views are correct.
Vice President Kamala Harris has campaigned with Liz Cheney, right, a prominent Republican who formerly served in Congress. AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
A way out
Fortunately, research shows specific ways to reduce people’s reliance on these automatic psychological processes, including reiterating and providing details of objective facts and – importantly – attempting to correct untruths via a trusted source from the same political party.
For instance, challenges to Democrats’ belief that the Trump-affiliated conservative agenda called Project 2025 is “dangerous” would be more effective coming from a Democrat than from a Republican.
Similarly, a counter to Trump’s claim that the international community is headed toward World War III with Democrats in the White House would be stronger coming from one of Trump’s fellow Republicans. And certainly, statements that Trump “can never be trusted with power again” carries more weight when it comes from the lips of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney than from any member of the Democratic Party.
Critiques from within a candidate’s own party are not out of the question. But they are certainly improbable given the hotly charged climate that is election season 2024.
April Johnson 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.
The Republican Party and Democratic Party offer voters starkly different visions of LGBTQ rights in America.Douglas Rissing via Getty Images
Polls show that LGBTQ rights will likely factor into most Americans’ pick for president this November as they choose between former Republican President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat.
A March 2024 survey by independent pollster PRRI found that 68% of voters will take LGBTQ rights into consideration at the polls. Fully 30% stated that they would vote only for a candidate who shares their views on the issue.
It is no coincidence, then, that LGBTQ rights issues feature prominently in the party platforms.
The Republican Party’s electoral promises include cutting existing federal funding for gender-affirming care and restricting transgender students’ participation in sports. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party platform proposes to outlaw discrimination against LGBTQ people, including passing the Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, health care and public accommodations.
As a legal scholar who has written extensively on the history of LGBTQ rights, I have seen that the clearest indication of how a politician will act once in office is not what they promise on the campaign trail. Instead, it’s what they have done in the past.
Let’s examine their records.
Trump restricted some LGBTQ rights
Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, are both relatively new to politics, so their records on LGBTQ rights issues are slim.
Trump enacted two policies restricting LGBTQ rights early in his one term in office. The first was his 2017 executive order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, which reinforced that federal law must respect conscience-based objections to comply with the First Amendment. This order indirectly imperiled LGBTQ rights because many LGBTQ rights battles are fought over whether conservative Christian businesses run afoul of anti-discrimination laws when they refuse to serve same-sex couples.
A few months later, Trump banned transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. armed forces. He ultimately revoked the directive, implementing instead a new policy that allowed existing transgender soldiers to remain in the military but barred new transgender recruits from enlisting.
Vance has opposed trans rights
Vance, a one-term senator, has accrued a record of trying to roll back the rights of transgender Americans during his short time in public office.
Between 2023 and 2024, Vance introduced or sponsored five bills opposing trans rights. One seeks to restrict gender-affirming care for minors by imposing criminal sanctions on doctors who perform such surgeries; another aims to do the same by exposing physicians to civil liability for either prescribing gender affirming hormones or performing surgeries.
Harris and her vice presidential pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have both made LGBTQ rights a legislative priority throughout their long political careers.
Harris initially took public office in 2003 as San Francisco’s district attorney. In that role, she established a hate crimes unit that prosecuted violence against LGBTQ youth in schools. She also trained prosecutors nationwide to counter the “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses in court, which is when lawyers attempt to justify violence as a fear-based reaction to the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Since 2021, President Joe Biden has issued multiple executive orders to combat discrimination against the LGBTQ community, including by eliminating the Trump-era restrictions on transgender military service. Biden also signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, which changed the federal definition of marriage from “a man and a woman” to “two individuals.” The statute ensures that the federal government would continue to recognize same-sex unions if the Supreme Court ever reversed its decision to legalize marriage equality.
Walz: Ally in the statehouse
Harris’ vice-presidential pick has a similarly extensive record backing LGBTQ rights.
As a U.S. representative from 2007 to 2019, Walz supported efforts to grant federal benefits to same-sex couples before marriage equality became federal law. He also co-sponsored many of the House versions of the same bills as Harris.
As citizens head to the polls in November, they can be confident that, on this topic at least, the candidates mean what they say.
Marie-Amelie George does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Molly Yanity, Professor and Director of Sports media and Communication, University of Rhode Island
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, right, scrambles for a loose ball against Connecticut Sun guard DiJonai Carrington during a game on Aug. 28, 2024.Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Clark, however, didn’t get a chance to compete for a league title.
The Connecticut Sun eliminated Clark’s team, the Indiana Fever, in the first round of the playoffs with a two-game sweep, ending her record rookie-of-the-year campaign.
And it may be just the latest chapter in a complicated saga steeped in race.
During the next day’s media availability, USA Today columnist Christine Brennan recorded and posted an exchange between herself and Carrington.
In the brief clip, the veteran sports writer asks Carrington, who is Black, if she purposely hit Clark in the eye during the previous night’s game. Though Carrington insisted she didn’t intentionally hit Clark, Brennan persisted, asking the guard if she and a teammate had laughed about the incident. The questions sparked social media outrage, statements from the players union and the league, media personalities weighing in and more.
But Brennan’s questions were not asked in a vacuum. The emergence of a young, white superstar from the heartland has caused many new WNBA fans to pick sides that fall along racial lines. Brennan’s critics claim she was pushing a line of questioning that has dogged Black athletes for decades: that they are aggressive and undisciplined.
Because of that, her defense of her questions – and her unwillingness to acknowledge the complexities – has left this professor disappointed in one of her journalistic heroes.
Brennan and much of the mainstream sports media, particularly those who cover professional women’s basketball, still seem to have a racial blind spot.
The emergence of a Black, queer league
When the WNBA launched in 1997 in the wake of the success of the 1996 Olympic gold-medal-winning U.S. women’s basketball team, it did so under the watch of the NBA.
While the league experienced fits and starts in attendance and TV ratings over its lifetime, the demographic makeup of its players is undeniable: The WNBA is, by and large, a Black, queer league.
In 2020, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association reported that 83% of its members were people of color, with 67% self-reporting as “Black/African-American.” While gender and sexual identity hasn’t been officially reported, a “substantial proportion,” the WNBPA reported, identify as LBGTQ+.
In 2020, the league’s diversity was celebrated as players competed in a “bubble” in Bradenton, Florida, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They protested racial injustice, helped unseat a U.S. senator who also owned Atlanta’s WNBA franchise, and urged voters to oust former President Donald Trump from the White House.
Racial tensions bubble to the surface
In the middle of it all, the WNBA has more eyeballs on it than ever before. And, without mincing words, the fan base has “gotten whiter” since Clark’s debut this past summer, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out in July. Those white viewers of college women’s basketball have emphatically turned their attention to the pro game, in large part due to Clark’s popularity at the University of Iowa.
While the rising tide following Clark’s transition to the WNBA is certainly lifting all boats, it is also bringing detritus to the surface in the form of racist jeers from the stands and on social media.
After the Sun dispatched the Fever, All-WNBA forward Alyssa Thomas, who seldom speaks beyond soundbites, said in a postgame news conference: “I think in my 11-year career I’ve never experienced the racial comments from the Indiana Fever fan base. … I’ve never been called the things that I’ve been called on social media, and there’s no place for it.”
Echoes of Bird and Magic
In “Manufacturing Consent,” a seminal work about the U.S. news business, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky argued that media in capitalist environments do not exist to impartially report the news, but to reinforce dominant narratives of the time, even if they are false. Most journalists, they theorized, work to support the status quo.
In sports, you sometimes see that come to light through what media scholars call “the stereotypical narrative” – a style of reporting and writing that relies on old tropes.
In Brennan’s coverage of the Carrington-Clark incident, there appear to be echoes of the way the media covered Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson and Boston Celtics forward Larry Bird in the 1980s.
The battles between two of the sport’s greatest players – one Black, the other white – was a windfall for the NBA, lifting the league into financial sustainability.
But to many reporters who leaned on the dominant narrative of the time, the two stars also served as stand-ins for the racial tensions of the post-civil rights era. During the 1980s, Bird and Magic didn’t simply hoop; they were the “embodiments of their races and living symbols of how blacks and whites lived in America,” as scholars Patrick Ferrucci and Earnest Perry wrote.
The media gatekeepers of the Magic-Bird era often relied on racial stereotypes that ultimately distorted both athletes.
For example, early in their careers, Bird and Johnson received different journalistic treatment. In Ferrucci and Perry’s article, they explain how coverage of Bird “fit the dominant narrative of the time perfectly … exhibiting a hardworking and intelligent game that succeeded despite a lack of athletic prowess.” When the “flashy” Lakers and Johnson won, they wrote, it was because of “superior skill.”
When they lost to Bird’s Celtics, they were “outworked.”
Framing matters
Let’s go back to Brennan.
Few have done more for young women in the sports media industry than Brennan. In time, energy and money, she has mentored and supported young women trying to break into the field. She has used her platform to expand the coverage of women’s sports.
“I think [critics are] missing the fact of what I’m trying to do, what I am doing, what I understand clearly as a journalist, asking questions and putting things out there so that athletes can then have an opportunity to answer issues that are being discussed or out there.”
I don’t think Brennan asking Carrington about the foul was problematic. Persisting with the narrative was.
Leaning into racial stereotypes is not simply about the language used anymore. Brennan’s video of her persistent line of questioning pitted Carrington against Clark. It could be argued that it used the stereotype of the overly physical, aggressive Black athlete, as well.
At best, Brennan has a blind spot to the strain racism is putting on Black athletes today – particularly in the WNBA. At worst, she is digging in on that tired trope.
A blind spot can be addressed and seen. An unacknowledged racist narrative, however, will persist.
Molly Yanity 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.
The 2024 Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry have given us a glimpse of the future of science. Artificial intelligence (AI) was central to the discoveries honoured by both awards. You have to wonder what Alfred Nobel, who founded the prizes, would think of it all.
We are certain to see many more Nobel medals handed to researchers who made use of AI tools. As this happens, we may find the scientific methods honoured by the Nobel committee depart from straightforward categories like “physics”, “chemistry” and “physiology or medicine”.
We may also see the scientific backgrounds of recipients retain a looser connection with these categories. This year’s physics prize was awarded to the American John Hopfield, at Princeton University, and British-born Geoffrey Hinton, from the University of Toronto. While Hopfield is a physicist, Hinton studied experimental psychology before gravitating to AI.
The chemistry prize was shared between biochemist David Baker, from the University of Washington, and the computer scientists Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who are both at Google DeepMind in the UK.
There is a close connection between the AI-based advances honoured in the physics and chemistry categories. Hinton helped develop an approach used by DeepMind to make its breakthrough in predicting the shapes of proteins.
The physics laureates, Hinton in particular, laid the foundations of the powerful field known as machine learning. This is a subset of AI that’s concerned with algorithms, sets of rules for performing specific computational tasks.
Hopfield’s work is not particularly in use today, but the backpropagation algorithm (co-invented by Hinton) has had a tremendous impact on many different sciences and technologies. This is concerned with neural networks, a model of computing that mimics the human brain’s structure and function to process data. Backpropagation allows scientists to “train” enormous neural networks. While the Nobel committee did its best to connect this influential algorithm to physics, it’s fair to say that the link is not a direct one.
Training a machine-learning system involves exposing it to vast amounts of data, often from the internet. Hinton’s advance ultimately enabled the training of systems such as GPT (the technology behind ChatGPT), and the AI algorithms AlphaGo and AlphaFold, developed by Google DeepMind. So, backpropagation’s impact has been enormous.
DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2 solved a 50-year-old problem: predicting the complex structures of proteins from their molecular building blocks, amino acids.
Every two years, since 1994, scientists have been holding a contest to find the best ways to predict protein structures and shapes from the sequences of their amino acids. The competition is called Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (CASP).
For the past few contests, CASP winners have used some version of DeepMind’s AlphaFold. There is, therefore, a direct line to be drawn from Hinton’s backpropagation to Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2 breakthrough.
David Baker used a computer program called Rosetta to achieve the difficult feat of building new kinds of proteins. Both Baker’s and DeepMind’s approaches hold enormous potential for future applications.
Attributing credit has always been controversial aspect of the Nobel prizes. A maximum of three researchers can share a Nobel. But big advances in science are collaborative. Scientific papers may have 10, 20, 30 authors or more. More than one team might contribute to the discoveries honoured by the Nobel committee.
This year we may have further discussions about the attribution of the research on backpropagation algorithm, which has been claimed by various researchers, as well as for the general attribution of a discovery to a field like physics.
We now have a new dimension to the attribution problem. It’s increasingly unclear whether we will always be able to distinguish between the contributions of human scientists and those of their artificial collaborators – the AI tools that are already helping push forward the boundaries of our knowledge.
In the future, could we see machines take the place of scientists, with humans being consigned to a supporting role? If so, perhaps the AI tool will get the main Nobel prize with humans needing their own category.
Nello Cristianini is affiliated with the University of Bath, and the author of two books that cover the topics of this article, The Shortcut (CRC Press, 2023) and Machina Sapiens (Mulino, 2024).
Globular cluster NGC 2005. ESA/Hubble & Nasa, F. Niederhofer, L. Girardi, CC BY-SA
As I finished my PhD in 1992, the universe was full of mystery – we didn’t even know exactly what it is made of. One could argue that cosmologists had made little progress in our understanding of these basic facts since the discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow of the Big Bang, in the 1960s.
I left the UK after my doctoral studies to begin a research career in the US, where I was lucky to be recruited to work on a new experiment called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This new survey embraced advances in digital technologies with the ambition of measuring the “redshifts” (how light becomes more red if a source appears to move away from you) of a million galaxies.
These redshifts were then used to measure distances, and allowed cosmologists to map the three-dimensional structure of the universe.
One cosmic puzzle in the 1980s, based on the pioneering CfA Redshift Survey of Margaret Geller and John Huchra, was the significant lumpiness of galaxies, and therefore matter, in our cosmic neighbourhood. Galaxies were clustered together across a wide range of scales, with evidence for coherent “superclusters” of galaxies spanning over 30 million light years in length.
This article is part of our series Cosmology in crisis? which uncovers the greatest problems facing cosmologists today – and discusses the implications of solving them.
It was important to know how such superclusters could have formed from the smooth CMB, as it would tell us the total amount of matter in the universe and, more intriguingly, what that matter was made of. That was assuming the only force in play was gravity.
By the end of the first phase of the SDSS, we had achieved our goal of a million redshifts. This data was used to discover many superclusters across the universe, including the amazing “Sloan Great Wall”, which remains one of the largest known coherent structures in the universe, over a billion light years in length.
Type 1A supernova remnant. Nasa/CXC/U.Texas
I am lucky to have lived through this amazing era of cosmic discovery around the turn of the century. Surveys like SDSS, combined with new observations of the CMB and searches for distant exploding stars known as Type Ia Supernovae (SNeIa), coincided to deliver an emphatic answer to the question: “What is the universe made of?”
The discovery of dark energy
From 1999 to 2004, the cosmological community came together to agree that the universe was 5% normal (baryonic) matter, 25% dark matter (unknown, invisible matter), and 70% “dark energy” (an expansive force) – essentially a cosmological constant, which was first postulated by Einstein. The discovery that the universe was dominated by this constant energy shocked everyone, especially as Einstein had called the cosmological constant his “biggest blunder”.
Today, cosmologists still agree this is the most likely make-up of our universe. But observational cosmologists like me have refined our measurements of these cosmic variables significantly – reducing the errors on these quantities.
The latest numbers from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) indicate that 31.5% of the universe is matter (a combination of dark and normal), with the remainder being dark energy assuming a cosmological constant. The error on this measurement is just 3%.
Knowing these numbers to higher precision will hopefully help cosmologists understand why the universe is like this. Why would we expect to have 70% of the universe today as “dark” (can’t be seen via electromagnetic radiation) and not associated with “matter” like everything else in the universe?
The origin of this dark energy remains the biggest challenge to physics, even after 20 years of intense study.
Intriguing measurements
Like me, a few cosmologists have become distracted by other problems over the last two decades. However, 2024 could be the start of a new era of discovery. This year, cosmologists published new results based on two of our best cosmological probes.
The first probe consists of exploding stars dubbed “SNeIa”. As these stars have a narrow range of masses, their explosions can be well calibrated, giving cosmologists a predictable brightness that can be seen far away. By comparing the known brightness of these SNeIa to their redshifts, we can determine the expansion history of the universe. These objects were, in fact, critical for discovering that the expansion of our universe is accelerating.
The second probe works by looking at Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) – relics of predictable sound waves in the plasma (charged gas) of the early universe, before the CMB. These are now frozen into the large-scale structure of galaxies around us. Like SNeIa, their predictable size can be compared with their observed size today to measure the expansion history of the universe.
Recently, DES reported its final SNeIa results from over a decade of work, detecting and characterising many thousands of supernova events. While these SNeIa results are consistent with the orthodox view that the universe is dominated by a cosmological constant, they do leave open the tantalising possibility of new physics – namely, that the dark energy could be varying with cosmic time.
That said, scientists are trained to be sceptical, and there are many reasons to distrust a single experiment, single observation, or even a single set of cosmologists!
Cosmologists now go to extraordinary lengths to “blind” their results from themselves during analysis of the data, only revealing the answer at the last moment. This blinding is done to avoid unconscious human biases affecting the work, which could possibly encourage people to get the answer they believe they should see.
This is why repeatability of results is at the heart of all science. In cosmology, we cherish the need for multiple experiments checking and challenging each other.
The second result to turn heads was the first BAO measurements from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), successor to the SDSS. The first DESI map of the cosmos is deeper and denser than the original SDSS. Its first BAO results are intriguing – the data alone is still consistent with a cosmological constant, but with hints of a possible time-varying dark energy when combined with other data sources.
DESI in the dome of the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. wikipedia, CC BY-SA
In particular, when DESI analyses the combination of its BAO results with the final DES SNeIa data, the significance of a time-varying dark energy increases to 3.9 sigma (a measure of how unusual a set of data is if a hypothesis is true) – only 0.6% chance of being a statistical fluke.
Most of us would take such odds, but scientists have been hurt before by systematic errors within their data that can mimic such statistical certainty. Particle physicists therefore demand a discovery standard of 5 sigma for any claims of new physics – or less than a one in a million chance of being wrong!
As scientists will say: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Mindboggling implications
Are we entering a new era of cosmological discovery? If so, what would it mean?
The answer to my first question is probably yes. The next few years will be fun for cosmologists, with new data and results due from the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission. Launched last year, it is already scanning the sky with unprecedented accuracy.
Likewise, DESI will get more and better data, while the European Southern Observatory starts its own massive redshift survey in 2025. Then you have the Rubin Observatory in Chile coming online soon. Combining these datasets should prove beyond doubt if dark energy varies with cosmic time.
If it does, it implies there is less dark energy now than in the past. This could be caused by many things but, interestingly, it could signify the end of a present, accelerated phase of the expansion of the universe.
It also implies that dark energy is probably not a cosmological constant thought to be due to the background energy associated with empty space. According to quantum mechanics, empty space isn’t really empty, with particles popping in and out of existence creating something we call “vacuum energy”. Ironically, predictions of this vacuum energy do not agree with our cosmological observations by many orders of magnitude.
So, if we did discover that dark energy varies over time, it might explain why observations are at odds with quantum mechanics, which is an extremely well-tested theory. This would suggest the assumption in the standard model of cosmology, that dark energy is constant, needs a rethink. Such a realisation may help solve other mysteries about the universe – or pose new ones.
In short, the new cosmological observations coming this decade will stimulate a new era of physical thinking. Congratulations to my younger cosmologists: it is your era to have fun.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Heather Ewart, Postdoctoral Researcher, Evolutionary Biology, University of Manchester
Conservation biologist Rebecca Cliffe fits an accelerometer backpack to a wild three-fingered sloth to measure its movement.The Sloth Conservation Foundation, CC BY-NC-ND
Sloths are more vulnerable to the rising temperatures associated with climate change than other mammals, due to their unique physiology.
In a new study, my colleagues and I found that sloths’ ability to adapt to warming temperatures varies between the cooler, high-altitude and warmer, low-altitude forests of Costa Rica.
Unlike most mammals, sloths do not actively regulate their body temperature. Like reptiles, they rely heavily on ambient temperature to do so. This affects all aspects of their survival, including digestion, metabolism and movement. Combined with their extremely low-calorie, relatively inflexible leaf-based diet, these traits mean sloths have much less energy at their disposal than most other mammals.
As sloth body temperatures become hotter with rising temperatures, their metabolic rate increases. But those with sharply increasing metabolic rates are at risk of lower survival rates when temperatures rise, compared with other sloths.
The author, Heather Ewart, returns a wild three-fingered sloth back to its point of capture following the application of a GPS tracking collar and accelerometer. Heather Ewart, CC BY-NC-ND
Together with colleagues, including the founder of UK-based Sloth Conservation Foundation Rebecca Cliffe, I found that their degree of vulnerability depends on the altitude of the forests where each sloth originates from.
We calculated the metabolic rates of high- and low-altitude sloths across a range of temperatures using a method called respirometery. This involves putting a sloth in a large, closed box (comfortably) to measure how much oxygen it consumes at each temperature within an allotted time period.
Lowland sloths were able to slow their metabolic rate when temperatures became too hot. This is an important survival mechanism that may benefit these populations as climate change continues.
Highland sloths were unable to slow their metabolic rate, which increased with temperature and became critical above 32°C. Highland sloths are at another disadvantage – cooler, high-altitude forests tend to be smaller due to the slower growth rate of trees at higher elevations coupled with habitat loss. Highland sloths are therefore much less able to migrate and are more restricted than lowland sloths.
Sloths can’t adapt their metabolism quickly so are at risk from rising temperatures. Rebecca Cliffe, CC BY-NC-ND
Sloths with higher metabolic rates use more energy, so they need to eat more food to produce more energy. However, due to their extremely slow rates of food intake and digestion, sloths take much longer to process food into energy than other mammals. Essentially, sloths cannot simply eat more food to match their energy requirements or achieve “energy balance” – the state where calories consumed equals calories burnt through physical activity.
Combined with inflexible migration options, the restricted metabolism of highland sloths makes them especially vulnerable to climate change. However, while lowland sloths appear to have more flexible metabolic responses to warming temperatures, they won’t be able to escape the effects of climate change if temperature increases are too extreme, putting their survival at risk as well.
There is a considerable lack of data on the current status and abundance of sloths. No comprehensive, long-term population monitoring has been conducted at a scale that reflects the true challenges sloths face.
Conserving cooler microclimates
My team of ecologists, who have been studying sloth behaviour and abundance across Costa Rica for 15 years, are concerned about how sloths are being affected by climate change. Areas once highly populated are now devoid of sloths, driven primarily by habitat loss and fragmentation resulting from extensive destruction of rainforests.
Costa Rica has transformed into a predominantly urban society over the past 40 years, with its urban footprint increasing by 112%. In the Talamanca province, where our team currently tracks wild sloths, urban sprawl has increased substantially with an estimated 3,000 sloths lost annually. Electrocution is one of the leading causes of admissions to wild animal sanctuaries in Costa Rica, partly because sloths use power lines to cross between fragmented forests in certain places.
A two-fingered sloth uses power lines over a busy road to move between trees. Heather Ewart, CC BY-NC-ND
Both native sloth species of Costa Rica are now listed as conservation concerns. Globally, an estimated 40% of all sloth species are threatened with extinction. Climate change poses a serious threat – and sloth conservation efforts need to take this into account. We predict that rising temperatures will have devastating consequences for sloths’ ability to maintain their energy balance and survive.
Sloth conservation is crucial, as they play a vital role in keeping the rainforest ecosystem healthy. Sloths are herbivores (plant eaters) that help regulate plant growth and recycle nutrients. They are an integral part of the food web, hosting a diverse ecosystem of unique organisms in their fur and serving as prey for other animals, such as ocelots and jaguars.
Protecting sloths is an incredibly complex challenge. Right now, natural habitats must be preserved and restored to support cooler microclimates. Particularly in vulnerable high-altitude regions, remaining forest fragments should be reconnected by building wildlife corridors – strips of natural habitat that connect fragmented areas and allow animals to move more easily.
Sloth conservation can only be achieved by addressing the root issue: climate change. A global, coordinated effort is required, with strict adherence to international climate accords such as the Paris agreement to limit global warming to below 1.5°C and prevent irreversible damage to rainforests.
If climate change continues unchecked, sloths won’t be able to migrate like other species. Once their environment becomes too hot, their survival is unlikely. Sloth conservation is directly linked to the actions humanity now takes to preserve our planet.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Heather Ewart 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.
Thank you for the kind introduction, Jennet.1 Let me start by saying my thoughts are with all the people in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia who have felt the force of Helene’s and Milton’s impact. I am saddened by the tragic loss of life and widespread disruption in this region. The Federal Reserve Board and other federal and state financial regulatory agencies are working with banks and credit unions in the affected area. As we normally do in these unfortunate situations, we are encouraging institutions operating in the affected areas to meet the needs of their communities.2 It is an honor to stand before you and speak to this group of audacious, innovative women. I am also very happy to be back in Charleston. I grew up in Milledgeville, Georgia, just about 250 miles down the road. Some of my fondest childhood memories of traveling in the South, especially as a Girl Scout, include South Carolina. Today I would like to talk with you about the important role startups, new businesses, and entrepreneurship play in our economy from the perspective of a Federal Reserve policymaker. I also want to share a bit of my story. Just like many of you—including those who have started a business or those who dream of doing that someday—I have faced and overcome hurdles along a winding path. My StoryI was born and raised in Milledgeville, where my mother, Professor Mary Murray Cook, was a faculty member in the Nursing Department of Georgia College and State University. She was the first tenured African American faculty member at that university. My father, Rev. Payton B. Cook, was a chaplain and then in senior leadership at the hospital there. My family lived through the events that brought Milledgeville out of a deeply segregated South. My sisters and I were among the first African American students to desegregate the schools we attended. I drew strength from the example set by my family, others in the Civil Rights Movement, and the village that raised me and from their conviction in the hope and promise of a world that could and would continually improve. While I had an interest in economics even before I entered high school, that was not the initial field of study I pursued. I entered Spelman College in Atlanta as a physics and philosophy major. After graduation, I had the honor of studying at the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar. After Oxford, I continued my education at the University of Dakar in Senegal in West Africa. However, at the end of my year in Africa, it was the chance to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in East Africa where I discovered my love of economics. I hiked alongside a British economist, and, by the end of the trek, he convinced me that studying economics would provide me with the tools to address some big and important questions I had pondered for a long time. I went on to earn my Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Entering the economics profession came with its usual challenges, and, for women, a few more challenges existed. To this day, women are still underrepresented in economics. Women earned just 34 percent of bachelor’s degrees in economics and 36 percent of Ph.D.’s in economics in 2022, the most recent available data from the U.S. Department of Education. The share of women earning those degrees rose only modestly from 1999, when women earned about 32 percent of economics bachelor’s degrees and 27 percent of Ph.D.’s. The data stand in sharp contrast to all science and engineering degrees, including in social science fields, where women earned roughly half of degrees granted in 2022.3 Education was paramount in my family and was construed as a means of realizing the promise of the Civil Rights Movement and continual improvement of our society and economy. Of course, economics, like physics, is a field where math skills are vitally important. Between my mother, my aunts, and my extended family, I had essentially understood STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-related jobs to be women’s work. I was grateful to have these role models in my orbit to give me the confidence to undertake study in a STEM field. Access and encouragement for girls to pursue study in math and science are a significant concern. Economist Dania V. Francis’s research shows that Black girls are disproportionately under-recommended for Advanced Placement calculus.4 The course is often a gateway for economics, for STEM classes, and for college preparation, in general.5 My mentors and role models encouraged careful study, teaching, and scholarship and helped me block out the voices saying I did not belong at each juncture. They encouraged my work and have been champions for me. As a result, I have been committed to serving as a mentor, as well. For several years, I was the director of and taught in the American Economic Association’s Summer Program, an important training ground for disadvantaged students considering economics careers. Each year, the share of students who are women oscillated between 41 percent and 67 percent, much higher than the enrollment in undergraduate economics courses nationally.6 I told those students—and continue to tell them as they make their way through graduate programs in economics and through the economics profession—”You belong here. Your insights are unique, and the profession will benefit from them.” In my career as an economist, I studied, researched, and taught in roles at universities and worked in the private sector and in government before I was nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to become a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 2022. I am honored and humbled to serve in this role and proud to be the first African American woman and first woman of color to serve on the Board of Governors. As Fed policymakers, we make decisions affecting the entire economy and the well-being of every American by focusing on the dual mandate given to us by Congress: maximum employment and stable prices. Entrepreneurs’ Vital Role in the EconomyIn my years of conducting research and while at the Board, I have met many inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs who made important contributions to the economy. Many of them happened to be women who were very knowledgeable, creative, and inspiring. So I want to discuss the vital role entrepreneurship and new business creation play in our economy. You might ask what interest I have in this subject, as a monetary policymaker focused closely on the dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices. Well, this topic has interested me for a long time, and I conducted a fair amount of research on entrepreneurship and innovation before joining the Board. But the topic is also important precisely because of our dual mandate. To convince you of this, I will explain a few of the ways in which economists think about entrepreneurship, and how they relate to the dual mandate. The first is the most basic: For many people—many millions, in fact—entrepreneurship or self-employment is a career choice.7 It is their preferred way of participating in the labor market and obtaining income for themselves and their families. They prefer to be their own bosses, with all the benefits and risks that entails.8 But whether they end up hiring others or not, self-employed individuals support the labor market by providing a job for themselves. A second way economists think about entrepreneurship is a little broader: New business creation is a large contributor to overall job growth. In fact, new businesses punch above their weight. For example, during the handful of years before the pandemic, in a typical year only about 8 percent of all employer firms were new entrants, but these new entrants accounted for about 15 percent of annual gross job creation.9 And research has found that this job creation effect is long lasting. Even though many new firms do not survive, those that do survive tend to grow rapidly over 5 to 10 years, largely offsetting the job losses from those firms that shut down.10 A third way economists think about entrepreneurship, which I have explored in my own research, is that a small but critical subset of new firms are innovators—they introduce new products or business processes that change how we consume or produce.11 As such, they make large contributions to overall productivity growth over time. That is, innovative entrepreneurs help enable us to do more with less—and even more so if access to innovation participation is equitable.12 It is important that everyone, including women, historically underrepresented groups, people from certain geographic regions, and other diverse representative groups, can participate in the entrepreneurship and innovation economy. In my research, I have found that investors underrate the prospects of Black-founded, or simply outsider-founded, startups in early funding stages. Better assessment of the early stages of invention and innovation could broaden the range of new entrants and the ideas they contribute to their local communities and the broader economy. Consider the Dual MandateSo let’s return to the dual mandate. You can now understand that self-employment and entrepreneurial job creation are relevant for our employment mandate. Indeed, one could argue that entrepreneurs are critical to Fed policymakers’ efforts to promote maximum employment. And the productivity gains we reap from entrepreneurship are like productivity growth from any other source. When the pace of productivity growth increases, it allows for economic activity and wage growth to be robust while also being consistent with price stability. The importance of business startups to our dual mandate objectives is why I have watched closely as various measures of new business formation have surged since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications for new businesses jumped to a record pace shortly after the pandemic struck the U.S.13 The pace of applications has remained elevated above pre-pandemic norms all the way from the summer of 2020 to the most recent data, even though the pace appears to be cooling some this year.14 At first, it might have seemed like these business applications were mainly being submitted by people who lost their jobs, or perhaps by an increase in “gig economy” work. There was doubtless some of that going on, but research and data since then have painted a more optimistic picture. When researchers look across areas of the country, the pandemic business applications had only a weak connection with layoffs. The surge in applications persisted long after overall layoffs fell to the subdued pace we have seen since early 2021. The applications did have a strong relationship with workers voluntarily leaving their jobs. Some quitting workers may have chosen to join these new businesses as founders or early employees. And surging business applications were soon followed by new businesses hiring workers and expanding. Over the last two years of available data, new firms created 1.9 million jobs per year, a pace not seen since the eve of the Global Financial Crisis.15 The industry patterns of this surge reflect shifts in consumer and business needs resulting from the pandemic and its aftermath. For example, in large metro areas, new business creation shifted from city centers to the suburbs, perhaps because of the increase in remote work. Suddenly, people wanted to eat lunch or go to the gym closer to their home, rather than close to their downtown office. Likewise, consumer and business tastes for more online purchases, with the shipping requirements that entails, are evident in the surge of business entry in the online retail and transportation sectors. But this is not only about moving restaurants closer to workers or changing patterns of goods consumption. There was also a particularly strong entry into high-tech industries, such as data processing and hosting, as well as research and development services.16 That may have more to do with developments like artificial intelligence than with the pandemic specifically, as I discussed in a speech in Atlanta last week.17 Economists will spend years debating the various causes of the surge in business creation during and soon after the pandemic. Perhaps strong monetary and fiscal policy backstopping aggregate demand played some role, or pandemic social safety net policies, or simply the accommodative financial conditions of 2020 and 2021.18 Indeed, more research is needed and will be the subject of many dissertations in the near future. I do think a large part of the story is ultimately a case of resourceful and determined American entrepreneurs, perhaps including some of you, responding to the tumultuous shocks of the pandemic. They, like some of you, stepped in to meet the rapidly changing needs of households and businesses. This points to a fourth way economists like to think about entrepreneurship, which is that entrepreneurship plays a big role in helping the economy adapt to change. Research suggests that entrepreneurs and the businesses they create are highly responsive to big economic shocks, and the COVID-19 pandemic was certainly a seismic shock.19 To be sure, the future is uncertain. It is unclear what the productivity effects of the pandemic surge of new businesses, particularly in high tech, will be.20 And whether that surge will continue is an open question; after all, the pre-pandemic period was a period of declining rates of new business creation, and the pandemic surge itself does appear to be cooling off recently.21 ConclusionFor now, let me say that I am grateful that entrepreneurs continue to give us a hand in meeting our employment mandate, and whatever productivity gains we may reap in coming years as a result may help ease tradeoffs with inflation as well. Finally, I will share one last story about why South Carolina will always hold a special place in my and my sisters’ hearts. Every summer and at Thanksgiving, we would travel through the Palmetto State to our grandparents’ house in Winston-Salem. Sitting in the back seat of the station wagon, we were entranced by the many colorful signs along Interstate 95 advertising what I, as a child, viewed as South Carolina’s number one attraction: the South of the Border roadside amusement park. We begged our parents to stop every time. It was an epic struggle that went on for more than a decade. Once or twice they did relent, a sweet childhood victory! And here is the funny thing about travels—paths can cross. The timing is such that my sisters and I may have even been helped by a waiter named Ben, a young man from Dillon, South Carolina, who would go on to be Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke! 22 Perhaps it was the world’s way of foreshadowing. Thank you for having me here in Charleston. It is inspiring to meet this group of bold, entrepreneurial women in South Carolina, and I look forward to continuing our conversation.
1. The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee. Return to text 2. See Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve Board, National Credit Union Administration, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and State Financial Regulators (2024), “Federal and State Financial Regulatory Agencies Issue Interagency Statement on Supervisory Practices regarding Financial Institutions Affected by Hurricane Helene,” joint press release, October 2. Return to text 3. See U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, Completions Survey, available on the NCES website at https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/survey-components/7. Return to text 4. See Dania V. Francis, Angela C.M. de Oliveira, and Carey Dimmitt (2019), “Do School Counselors Exhibit Bias in Recommending Students for Advanced Coursework?” B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, vol. 19 (July), pp. 1–17. Return to text 5. See Lisa D. Cook and Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman (2019), “‘It Was a Mistake for Me to Choose This Field,’” New York Times, September 30. Return to text 6. See Lisa D. Cook and Christine Moser (2024), “Lessons for Expanding the Share of Disadvantaged Students in Economics from the AEA Summer Program at Michigan State University,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 38 (Summer), pp. 191–208. Return to text 7. There is no single way to measure the number of self-employed individuals and related businesses, but it certainly numbers in the millions. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey indicates there are roughly 10 million unincorporated and 7 million incorporated self-employed individuals. Separate data on businesses from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that, as of 2021, there were about 25 million nonemployer and 800,000 employer sole proprietorships (Nonemployer Statistics; Statistics of U.S. Businesses). For analysis of inconsistencies between self-employment data sources, see Katharine G. Abraham, John C. Haltiwanger, Claire Hou, Kristin Sandusky, and James R. Spletzer (2021), “Reconciling Survey and Administrative Measures of Self-Employment,” Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 39 (October), pp. 825–60. Return to text 8. See Erik Hurst and Benjamin Wild Pugsley (2011), “What Do Small Businesses Do? (PDF)” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall, pp. 73–142; and Erik G. Hurst and Benjamin W. Pugsley (2017), “Wealth, Tastes, and Entrepreneurial Choice,” in John Haltiwanger, Erik Hurst, Javier Miranda, and Antoinette Schoar, eds., Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Return to text 9. Gross job creation refers to all jobs created by entering and expanding establishments. Data are from the Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics, averaged for 2015–19. New firms’ share of net job creation is much higher, but this is partly an artifact of measurement practices: Firms with an age less than one measured in annual data cannot contribute negatively to net job creation. Return to text 10. See John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, and Javier Miranda (2013), “Who Creates Jobs? Small versus Large versus Young,” Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 95 (May), pp. 347–61; and Ryan Decker, John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and Javier Miranda (2014), “The Role of Entrepreneurship in US Job Creation and Economic Dynamism,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 28 (Summer), pp. 3–24. Return to text 11. For evidence on the importance of innovating young and small firms, see Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, Harun Alp, Nicholas Bloom, and William Kerr (2018), “Innovation, Reallocation, and Growth,” American Economic Review, vol. 108 (November), pp. 3450–91. For recent trends in technology diffusion of relevance to business entry, see Ufuk Akcigit and Sina T. Ates (2023), “What Happened to US Business Dynamism?” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 131 (August), pp. 2059–2124. Return to text 12. See Lisa D. Cook (2011), “Inventing Social Capital: Evidence from African American Inventors, 1843–1930,” Explorations in Economic History, vol. 48 (December), pp. 507–18; Lisa D. Cook (2014), “Violence and Economic Activity: Evidence from African American Patents, 1870–1940,” Journal of Economic Growth, vol. 19 (June), pp. 221–57; and Lisa D. Cook (2020), “Policies to Broaden Participation in the Innovation Process (PDF),” Hamilton Project Policy Proposal 2020-11 (Washington: Brookings Institution, August). Return to text 13. “Business applications” refers to applications for new Employer Identification Numbers submitted to the Internal Revenue Service. These are reported by the U.S. Census Bureau in the Business Formation Statistics. An application does not necessarily mean an actual firm with employees, revenue, or both will result. Return to text 14. Unless otherwise noted, the facts described in this section are documented in Ryan A. Decker and John Haltiwanger (2024), “Surging Business Formation in the Pandemic: A Brief Update,” working paper, September; and Ryan A. Decker and John Haltiwanger (2023), “Surging Business Formation in the Pandemic: Causes and Consequences? (PDF)” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall, pp. 249–302. Return to text 15. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Business Employment Dynamics (BED) report new firm job creation of 1.9 million, on average, in 2022 and 2023, the highest pace since 2007. Alternative data on firm births from the Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics, which lag the BED by one year, report 2.5 million jobs created by new firms in 2022, also the highest pace since 2007. Return to text 16. See Ryan Decker and John Haltiwanger (2024), “High Tech Business Entry in the Pandemic Era,” FEDS Notes (Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, April 19). Return to text 17. See Lisa D. Cook (2024), “Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and the Path Ahead for Productivity,” speech delivered at “Technology-Enabled Disruption: Implications of AI, Big Data, and Remote Work,” a conference organized by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Boston, and Richmond, Atlanta, October 1. Return to text 18. For a potential role of fiscal policy, see Catherine E. Fazio, Jorge Guzman, Yupeng Liu, and Scott Stern (2021), “How Is COVID Changing the Geography of Entrepreneurship? Evidence from the Startup Cartography Project,” NBER Working Paper Series 28787 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, May). For safety net programs (specifically expanded unemployment insurance), see Joonkyu Choi, Samuel Messer, Michael Navarrete, and Veronika Penciakova (2024), “Unemployment Benefits Expansion and Business Formation,” working paper, April. For the importance of financial conditions for entrepreneurship in past business cycles, see Michael Siemer (2019), “Employment Effects of Financial Constraints during the Great Recession,” Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 101 (March), pp. 16–29; and Teresa C. Fort, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, and Javier Miranda (2013), “How Firms Respond to Business Cycles: The Role of Firm Age and Firm Size,” IMF Economic Review, vol. 61 (3), pp. 520–59. Return to text 19. Examples of research finding a large role for business entry in responding to aggregate shocks include Manuel Adelino, Song Ma, and David Robinson (2017), “Firm Age, Investment Opportunities, and Job Creation,” Journal of Finance, vol. 72 (June), pp. 999–1038; Ryan A. Decker, Meagan McCollum, and Gregory B. Upton, Jr. (2024), “Boom Town Business Dynamics,” Journal of Human Resources, vol. 59 (March), pp. 627–51; and Fatih Karahan, Benjamin Pugsley, and Ayşegűl Şahin (2024), “Demographic Origins of the Startup Deficit,” American Economic Review, vol. 114 (July), pp. 1986–2023. Return to text 20. The last period of robust productivity growth in the U.S., the late 1990s and early 2000s, was preceded by several years by strong business creation in high-tech industries; see Lucia Foster, Cheryl Grim, John C. Haltiwanger, and Zoltan Wolf (2021), “Innovation, Productivity Dispersion, and Productivity Growth,” in Carol Corrado, Jonathan Haskel, Javier Miranda, and Daniel Sichel, eds., Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Return to text 21. The number of annual new firms as a share of all firms declined from around 12 percent in the 1980s, on average, to around 9 percent in the period of 2010–19. New firms’ share of gross job creation declined from nearly 20 percent to less than 15 percent over the same period. Data are from Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics. The pre-pandemic trend decline in entry rates was documented by Ryan Decker, John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and Javier Miranda (2014), “The Role of Entrepreneurship in US Job Creation and Economic Dynamism,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 28 (Summer), pp. 3–24. Return to text 22. See Ben S. Bernanke (2009), “Brief Remarks,” speech delivered at the Interstate Interchange Dedication Ceremony, Dillon, S.C., March 7. Return to text
What do qubits, parallelism, entanglement, photonics and decoherence have in common?
The answer to this question, and many more, will be top of mind when UConn’s College of Engineering (CoE) hosts a two-day Quantum Computing (QC) Workshop, November 20-21 at UConn Health in Farmington. The workshop will feature hands-on learning about quantum computing fundamentals, algorithms, security impacts, communications and applications.
This interactive event is being coordinated by UConn’s Center for Advanced Engineering Education and the School of Computing, in collaboration with QuantumCT and the Connecticut Advanced Computing Center. It is open to the public, including industry leaders, engineering organizations, faculty, state government, and anyone interested in the field.
Sanguthevar Rajasekaran, director of UConn’s School of Computing, says quantum computing offers the potential of speeding up computations by an exponential factor and can make a huge impact on every walk of life.
“Quantum computing exploits the unique features of quantum mechanics to solve problems quickly and more efficiently than traditional computing,” he explains. “QC applications are far and wide, embracing medicine, manufacturing, drug design, climate modeling and much more. The impact of this rapidly evolving technology appears limitless and can provide significant benefits for industry, science, health care, and society at large.”
According to Nora Sutton, Director of the Center for Advanced Engineering Education, workshop activities will include interactions with industry and academic experts, comprehensive exploration of quantum computing, and networking opportunities with peers and industry leaders.
“We’re very excited about this workshop, which is designed to immerse participants in the cutting-edge world of quantum technology,” says Sutton. “These real-world applications will help participants uncover the revolutionary, transformative potential in AI, cybersecurity, health care, and more. UConn and CoE are on the forefront of quantum learning, and working to become an educational leader in this important, dynamic field.”
Quantum mechanics is the area of physics that studies the behavior of particles at a microscopic level. At subatomic levels, the equations that describe how particles behave is different from those that describe the macroscopic world. Quantum computing is a multidisciplinary field comprising aspects of computer science, physics, and mathematics that utilizes quantum mechanics to solve complex problems faster than on classical computers.
Quantum computers take advantage of these behaviors to perform computations in a completely new way. The field includes hardware research and application development. Potential benefits include advanced machine learning, portfolio optimization in finance, simulation of chemical systems, significant healthcare applications and solving problems currently impossible even using powerful supercomputers.
Visit the UConn Engineering site for more information or to register.
SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced his appointment of 18 Superior Court Judges, which include one in Colusa County; one in Contra Costa County; five in Los Angeles County; two in Orange County; three in Sacramento County; one in San Bernardino County; four in San Diego County; and one in Sutter County.
Colusa County Superior Court
Brendan M. Farrell, of Colusa County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Colusa County Superior Court. Farrell has served as District Attorney of Colusa County since 2023. He was a Chief Deputy District Attorney at the Colusa County District Attorney’s Office from 2016 to 2022 and a Deputy District Attorney there from 2010 to 2016. Farrell served as a Volunteer Attorney at the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office in 2010. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Notre Dame Law School. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Jeffrey A. Thompson. Farrell is registered without party preference.
Contra Costa County Superior Court
Robert S. Leach, of Contra Costa County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Contra Costa County Superior Court. Leach has served as Chief of the Special Prosecutions Section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California since 2023 and has served in several positions there since 2012, including Deputy Chief of the Corporate and Securities Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney. He served in several roles at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2003 to 2012, including Assistant Regional Director, Branch Chief and Staff Attorney. Leach was an Associate at Latham & Watkins LLP from 1998 to 2003 and served as a Law Clerk for the Honorable John G. Davies at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California from 1997 to 1998. Leach earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Susanne Fenstermacher. Leach is registered without party preference.
Los Angeles County Superior Court
Leslie B. Gutierrez, of San Bernardino County, has been appointed to serve in an interim appointment as a Judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Gutierrez has served as a Deputy District Attorney at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office since 2012. She was a Sole Practitioner from 2011 to 2012. Gutierrez earned a Juris Doctor degree from Southwestern Law School. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Brian C. Yep. The Governor’s appointment allows her to immediately assume the position she was otherwise elected to begin in January 2025. Gutierrez is a Democrat.
Heather M. Hocter, of Los Angeles County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Hocter has served as a Deputy Alternate Public Defender at the Los Angeles County Alternate Public Defender’s Office since 2017. She served as a Deputy Public Defender at the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office from 2006 to 2017. Hocter earned a Juris Doctor degree from Southwestern Law School. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Amy Pellman. Hocter is a Democrat.
Karen C. Joynt, of Los Angeles County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Joynt has served as a Commissioner at the Los Angeles County Superior Court since 2022. She was Owner and Lead Attorney at Joynt Law from 2019 to 2022. Joynt served in several positions at the Office of the Los Angeles County Counsel from 2010 to 2019, including Assistant County Counsel, Senior Deputy County Counsel and Deputy County Counsel. She served as a Deputy Alternate Public Defender in the Office of the Los Angeles County Alternate Public Defender from 2006 to 2010. Joynt served as a Deputy Public Defender in the Office of the Los Angeles County Public Defender from 2003 to 2006. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from Southwestern Law School. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Richard J. Burdge. Joynt is a Democrat.
Esther K. Ro, of Los Angeles County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Ro has served as a Senior Appellate Attorney at the Second District Court of Appeal since 2019. She was a Partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP from 2017 to 2019 and an Associate there from 2011 to 2017. Ro was an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Recovery Fellow at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center from 2009 to 2010 and an Associate at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP from 2007 to 2009. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Paul A. Bacigalupo. Ro is a Democrat.
Karla Sarabia, of Los Angeles County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Sarabia has been a Deputy Public Defender at the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office since 2008. She served as a Deputy Public Defender at the Fresno County Public Defender’s Office from 2006 to 2008. Sarabia served as a Law Clerk in the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office from 2005 to 2006. Sarabia earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Steven D. Blades. Sarabia is a Democrat.
Orange County Superior Court
Julianne Sartain Bancroft, of Orange County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Orange County Superior Court. Bancroft has been Senior Appellate Research Attorney at the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Three since 2002. She was a Partner at Snell & Wilmer from 1997 to 2002 and an Associate there from 1994 to 1997. Bancroft was an Associate at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati from 1991 to 1994 and served as a Law Clerk for the Honorable Melvin T. Brunetti at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1990 to 1991. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge James E. Rogan. Bancroft is a Democrat.
Randy K. Ladisky, of Orange County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Orange County Superior Court. Ladisky has served as a Senior Deputy Alternate Public Defender in the Office of the Orange County Alternate Public Defender since 2014 and has been an Alternate Public Defender there since 2001. He was an Associate at the Law Office of Joel M. Garson from 2000 to 2001 and at the Law Office of Ronald Talmo from 1999 to 2000. Ladisky earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Western State College of Law. He fills the vacancy created by the appointment of Judge Martha K. Gooding to the Court of Appeal. Ladisky is a Democrat.
Sacramento County Superior Court
Lee S. Bickley, of Sacramento County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Sacramento County Superior Court. Bickley has served as a Senior Attorney at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System since 2024. She served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California from 2010 to 2024. Bickley was a Branch Chief for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2005 to 2010 and a Senior Litigation Associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP from 1998 to 2005. Bickley earned a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Gerrit W. Wood. Bickley is a Democrat.
Joseph M. Cress, of Sacramento County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Sacramento County Superior Court. Cress has been a Chief Assistant Public Defender at the Sacramento County Public Defender’s Office since 2022 and has served in several roles there since 1995, including Supervising Assistant Public Defender and Assistant Public Defender. He was an Adjunct Professor at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law from 2012 to 2015. Cress earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge James M. Mize. Cress is a Democrat.
Brenda R. Dabney, of Sacramento County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Sacramento County Superior Court. Dabney has been Northern California Regional Director at the Children’s Law Center of California since 2017. She has held several roles at the Children’s Law Center of California since 2001, including Firm Director from 2011 to 2017, Supervising Attorney from 2005 to 2011 and Staff Attorney from 2001 to 2005. Dabney earned a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Paul L. Seave. Dabney is a Democrat.
San Bernardino County Superior Court
James M. Taylor, of Riverside County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the San Bernardino County Superior Court. Taylor has been a Sole Practitioner since 2000. He was an Attorney for the San Bernardino County Indigent Defense Program from 2001 to 2020 and for Conflict Defense Lawyers from 2005 to 2014. Taylor earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Western State College of Law. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Ingrid A. Uhler. Taylor is registered without party preference.
San Diego County Superior Court
Jami L. Ferrara, of San Diego County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the San Diego County Superior Court. Ferrara has been a Sole Practitioner since 2001. She was a Trial Attorney at Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc. from 1997 to 2000. Ferrara earned a Juris Doctor degree from George Mason University Law School. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge John S. Meyer. Ferrara is a Democrat.
Rachel L. Jensen, of San Diego County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the San Diego County Superior Court. Jensen has been a Partner at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP since 2008 and an Associate from 2004 to 2007. She served as a Law Clerk for the Office of the Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2003 and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2002. Jensen served as a Law Clerk for the Honorable Warren J. Ferguson at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2001 to 2002. She was an Associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP from 2000 to 2001. Jensen earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 2000. She fills the vacancy created by the appointment of Judge David Rubin to the Court of Appeal. Jensen is a Democrat.
Devon L. Lomayesva, of San Diego County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the San Diego County Superior Court. Lomayesva has been Chief Judge at the Intertribal Court of Southern California since 2016. She has been a Sole Practitioner since 2014. Lomayesva was a Pro Tem Judge at the Intertribal Court of Southern California from 2015 to 2016 and Tribal Attorney for the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians from 2013 to 2014. She was Executive Director at California Indian Legal Services from 2007 to 2012 and In-House Counsel for the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel from 2004 to 2007. She was Directing Attorney at California Indian Legal Services from 2003 to 2004 and a Staff Attorney there from 1999 to 2002. Lomayesva was a Staff Attorney at the California Indian Lands Office from 2002 to 2003. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from the California Western School of Law. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Harry Powazek. Lomayesva is a Democrat.
Catherine A. Richardson, of San Diego County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the San Diego County Superior Court. Richardson has served as a Commissioner at the San Diego County Superior Court since 2024. She served as a Senior Chief Deputy City Attorney at the San Diego City Attorney’s Office from 2014 to 2024 and was Senior Counsel at Klinedinst PC from 2011 to 2014. Richardson served as a Deputy City Attorney at the San Diego City Attorney’s Office from 2009 to 2011 and from 1990 to1997. She was a Sole Practitioner from 2005 to 2009. She was a Partner at Thorsnes Bartolotta McGuire from 1997 to 2005 and an Associate there from 1988 to 1990. Richardson earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Diego School of Law. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Carlos O. Armour. Richardson is a Democrat.
Sutter County Superior Court
Fritzgerald A. Javellana, of Sutter County, has been appointed to serve as a Judge in the Sutter County Superior Court. Javellana has served as a Deputy County Counsel in the Office of the Sutter County Counsel since 2022. He was a Contract Juvenile Dependency Attorney for the Office of the Butte County Counsel from 2016 to 2022. Javellana was a Partner at Williams & Javellana LLP from 2014 to 2022 and an Associate at Rooney Law Firm from 2010 to 2014. Javellana earned a Juris Doctor degree from Southwestern Law School. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Perry M. Parker. Javellana is registered without party preference.
The compensation for each of these positions is $243,940.
Recent news
Oct 8, 2024
News What you need to know: The California Highway Patrol recently conducted two enforcement stops leading to the seizure of nearly $1.7 million of illegal fentanyl and multiple illegally possessed firearms and the arrests of three out-of-state suspects in the Central…
Oct 8, 2024
News What you need to know: The state is awarding $206 million in new funding to expand bus and rail services in disadvantaged communities, which face disproportionate impacts from pollution. SACRAMENTO — Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that Caltrans will award…
Oct 7, 2024
News In total, California has deployed 284 highly specialized personnel to support hurricane response efforts in recent weeksSACRAMENTO – With Hurricane Milton expected to make landfall in Florida this week as a Category 5 hurricane, Governor Gavin Newsom today…
Board of Trustees and schools often deal with highly sensitive information about staff, students, and families, so it’s important to know what you can do to help safeguard people’s privacy.
Five steps to help boost privacy
Be aware so you can model the kind of leadership required to ensure privacy is treated as taonga
Make sure your staff are using school email addresses and not their own accounts
Implement two factor authentication
Ask “why am I collecting this?” Does your school really need to collect this piece of information about your students?
Make sure students are asked before they get photos taken and respect their right to say no
Five good questions to ask to help promote good privacy practices
Is the information of the children and young people under your care treated as precious?
Are your IT systems fit for purpose?
Does your privacy officer (and every school needs one) have adequate training?
Is there good understanding about breach management, in order to prevent privacy breaches?
Do you have document retention and destruction policies in place?
Adding new technology?
If you’re thinking about changing how you’re collecting personal information, or implementing new technology at school, or even adding new software, then we recommend you take a few simple steps to understand possible privacy risks.
Need some help?
Our free online toolkit Poupou Matatapu sets out our expectations about what good privacy practice looks like and then helps you work towards that.
Our Ask Us function has a database of answers to questions like, ‘can a school monitor a student’s Wi-Fi usage?’, ‘can a school put parent details in a school directory?’, and ‘can I post photos or videos of my students to Instagram?
There’s also privacy support and advice available from Ministry of Education to help you, including items in Education Gazette.
DBEDT NEWS RELEASE: DIGITAL EQUITY INNOVATION AWARDS HONORS THOSE HELPING TO CLOSE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN HAWAI‘I
Posted on Oct 9, 2024 in Latest Department News, Newsroom
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM
JOSH GREEN, M.D.
GOVERNOR
SYLVIA LUKE
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
JAMES KUNANE TOKIOKA
DIRECTOR
CHUNG I. CHANG
STRATEGIC BROADBAND COORDINATOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2024
DIGITAL EQUITY INNOVATION AWARDS HONORS THOSE HELPING TO CLOSE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN HAWAI‘I
First-ever awards held during Digital Inclusion Week
In recognizing the work of individuals and organizations who help provide internet access and close the digital divide across the state of Hawai‘i, 18 recipients of the first-ever Digital Equity Innovation Awards (DEIA) were honored today.
Conducted in conjunction with National Digital Inclusion Week (October 7-11), the awards ceremony this morning recognized pioneers, future innovators, dedicated advocates, impactful organizations and data-driven leaders making significant strides in digital equity. This includes providing others with access to technology from broadband connectivity to devices, as well as teaching the necessary digital skills that are beneficial in employment, education, healthcare and other important facets of everyday life.
The digital awards were organized by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) Hawai‘i Broadband and Digital Equity Office (HBDEO), the Broadband Hui and Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR), in partnership with the four county governments and the islands’ nonprofit community access television providers, ʻŌlelo Community Media, Hōʻike Kaua‘i Community Television, Akakū Maui Community Media and Nā Leo TV. The awards recognized those in each of the four counties in the following categories:
Digital Equity Pioneer Award: Those making outstanding contributions to closing the digital divide in each of Hawai‘i’s counties through innovative access and skills training.
Future Innovators Award: Student teams driving digital inclusion within their schools and communities with creative solutions and leadership.
Digital Equity Luminary Award: Individuals championing digital equity through sustained advocacy and impactful leadership.
Community Impact Award: Organizations with measurable success in fostering digital inclusion and reducing disparities.
Digital Equity Beacon Award: Awarding those who effectively use data to tell stories, measure progress, and drive decision-making.
Hawai‘i Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke, who last year announced the launch of the state’s “Connect Kākou” initiative to expand broadband service statewide through anticipated federal funding, praised the accomplishments of the DEIA winners.
“Achieving accessible and affordable high-quality internet for all of Hawaiʻi is the commitment of Connect Kākou. Making this a reality will require a collective effort—from government and nonprofits to businesses, students, educators, and digital equity leaders,” Lt. Gov. Luke said. “Mahalo to the dedicated community champions who are paving the way to create a future that keeps us all connected for generations to come.”
The awardees are listed below and grouped by county:
City and County of Honolulu
Dotty Kelly-Paddock, Hui O Hau‘ula (Community Impact Award)
Dan Smith, Hawai‘i Broadband Hui (Beacon Award)
Stacey Aldrich, Hawai‘i State Librarian (Luminary Award)
The DEIA awards program will also be broadcast at 10 a.m. today on the Hōʻike Kaua‘i Community Television, Akakū Maui Community Media and Nā Leo TV public access channels on the neighbor islands, and tonight at 7 p.m. on O‘ahu on ʻŌlelo Community Media.
About Hawai‘i Broadband and Digital Equity Office (HBDEO):
HBDEO was established within the state of Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic
Development and Tourism with a mission to support and coordinate statewide deployment of high-speed internet access (broadband) and to achieve the goals of digital equity and adoption for all residents of Hawai‘i. HBDEO’s functions include the coordination, implementation, promotion, funding and managing of programs that ensure the equitable distribution of digital technologies and provide pathways to maximize Hawai‘i’s competitiveness in the digital economy.
About Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT):
DBEDT is Hawai‘i’s resource center for economic and statistical data, business development opportunities, energy and conservation information, as well as foreign trade advantages. DBEDT’s mission is to achieve a Hawai‘i economy that embraces innovation and is globally competitive, dynamic and productive, providing opportunities for all Hawai‘i’s citizens. Through its attached agencies, the department fosters planned community development, creates affordable workforce housing units in high-quality living environments and promotes innovation sector job growth.
# # #
Media Contact:
Laci Goshi
Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism
Headline: Bolstering local journalism to strengthen democracy
A free press is essential to healthy democracy, and local journalism is a critical component of a free press. Microsoft’sDemocracy Forward initiativeworks to preserve, protect, and advance the fundamentals of democracy by safeguarding open and secure democratic processes, promoting a healthy information ecosystem, and advocating for corporate civic responsibility.
Four years ago, we launched ajournalisminitiativeto explore ways in which we could help address the growing crisis facing independent local news organizations around the world. Two years ago, our Vice Chair and PresidentBrad SmithandUSAIDAdministratorSamantha Powerannounced our plan to partner with Internews to build a Media Viability Accelerator (MVA). We were thrilled to officially launch this tool during a panel event at the UN General Assembly last month.
Bolstering Independent Journalism through the Media Viability Accelerator
TheMedia Viability Acceleratoris a free web analytics platform built byInternewsandMicrosoft Azure. Funded by USAID andMicrosoft’s Democracy Forward initiative, the MVA aims to strengthen independent journalism by helping participating organizations achieve financial sustainability. Using Azure AI, the MVA harnesses the power of big data and machine learning to provide performance insights while ensuring that participants retain control over their own data. Through the MVA, media outlets can access a multilingual tool that visualizes performance data and receive actionable insights to improve performance.
Graphic of how the Media Viability Accelerator (MVA) functions.
More than 250 media outlets and over 500 journalists used the platform during the MVA’s initial pilot phase. Our goal is to empower over 1,000 more media outlets and thousands more journalists over the next two years, reaching audiences of hundreds of millions of people. Strengthening local journalism helps strengthen democracies around the world by ensuring that communities and voters have accurate, credible information about what’s happening around them, including and especially elections.
Strengthening journalism globally can also help turn the tide on rising authoritarianism. One of the guests on the panel we cohosted to launch the MVA was Juan Holmann, the publisher of Nicaragua’s longest-running newspaper, La Prensa. Holmann, who spent a year and a half in one of Nicaragua’s most notorious prisons, latersaidof his experience:
“I left jail with a stronger conviction that I have to continue fighting for freedom of expression. The most important right is the right to live, to be born, and to be. And the second most important is the right to free expression. The first right is useless if the second is taken away from us. Freedom of expression is the greatest because it is what makes us what we are. Freedom of expression is the right to be educated, the right to learn, to know, and to discern.”
We’re grateful to have La Prensa as a participant in the MVA, and we’re grateful for the tremendous work Internews has put into building and running this platform. We look forward to supporting its continued growth in the years to come.
Strengthening Democracy through Partnerships with News Organizations
As part of our efforts to strengthen democracy around the world, we have announced projects with a number of organizations designed to help journalists and newsrooms deploy AI responsibly in newsgathering, as well as bolster business practices to help build sustainable newsrooms. These ongoing partnerships include:
The Institute for Nonprofit Newsis leveraging AI to curate stories from the Rural News Network andconnect rural residentswith the stories most relevant to them via SMS messaging. Up to 30 newsrooms are also receiving stipends to produce and distribute voter information guides.
The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalismat CUNY brought 25 experienced journalists to a tuition-free program to explore ways to incorporate generative AI into their work and newsrooms in a three-month hybrid and highly interactive program. TheAI Journalism Labhas added two new upcoming cohorts, one focused on adoption and another focused on leadership.
The Online News Associationlaunched programming to support journalists and newsroom leaders as they navigated the evolving AI ecosystem. ONA’sAI in Journalism Initiativeoffered a menu of opportunities addressing what is possible across the newsroom through AI and offered workshops to experiment with tools and learn about best practices. More than 2,000 journalists have been reached through in-person and virtual programming this year.
The GroundTruth Project,which sends local journalists into newsrooms around the world through its Report for America and Report for the World programs, added an AI track of work for its corps members through the AI in Local News initiative to explore tool adoption. The project helped local newsrooms work together to explore use cases for AI in newsgathering.
Semaforharnessed AI tools to assist journalists in their research and source discovery withSemaforSignals, which helped journalists provide a diverse array of credible local, national, and global sources to their audience. They also created an elections display to show connections between different countries in a massive global election year.
As the media landscape continues to evolve in response to new technology, we are doubling down on our efforts to provide journalists with the tools they need to deliver timely, accurate information to their communities. In doing so, we can help ensure that the “fourth pillar” of democracy remains robust and resilient.
We expect to have updated impact data on the above partnerships soon and will update this post once this information is available. News outlets or other organizations interested in joining the Media Viability Accelerator can visithttp://www.mva.netto learn more.
Even though Chenglin Hong didn’t grow up locally and came to UConn via Beijing, Seattle, and Los Angeles, students in his classes might have more in common with him than they realize.
“I grew up in a very rural area in northeast China,” he says. “Neither of my parents went to middle school, so I had to navigate the education system and academia by myself. UConn has a very diverse student body. Many are from underserved communities or low-income families, and quite a few also are first-generation students.”
Chenglin Hong, assistant professor in the UConn School of Social Work (Contributed photo)
It’s a shared experience that Hong believes will help him relate to those he’s mentoring as one of the newest faculty members in the UConn School of Social Work. He also thinks that even though his position as assistant professor is steeped in research – and some students might find that intimidating – together, they can work in tandem.
“The majority of students will work as clinicians and practitioners, either as psychotherapists or case managers,” he says. “It’s important for them to know, though, that research and clinical practice are connected. Their experiences will inform my research, and my research will inform the way they deliver services.”
Hong describes himself as a global health scholar, one who started his career as a medical social worker in China and went on to get his Master of Social Work and Master of Public Health from the University of Washington and Ph.D. from UCLA.
And what he studies falls under a self-described “big umbrella.”
Right now, he’s considering the relationship between intimate partner violence among gay and bisexual men and an increased risk of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, an understudied area, he says, even though research has shown the prevalence of intimate partner violence among this group is similar or higher than among heterosexual counterparts.
Hong says his previous research found that as the prevalence of violence rises among gay and bisexual men, so too does the risk of mental health disorders, substance use, and HIV and STIs. He hopes to take this research a step further and look at how technology-based interventions, like eHealth and mHealth, might fit in.
“My work considers the intersection of social work, public health, psychology, and implementation science to see how I can utilize those interdisciplinary approaches to address the health issues this population faces,” Hong says.
“I came from a culture where sexual and gender identity are highly stigmatized and people don’t seek care after receiving an HIV diagnosis or an STI diagnosis,” he continues. “That really shaped my research. I want the knowledge I generate to inform practice and policy. I want to be a part of optimizing the standard of services we have and designing new ways to help individuals access health care.”
The health system in China is vastly different than the United States, Hong notes, explaining that social workers’ primary task in working with those who’ve been diagnosed with HIV is to connect people with medical services, things like getting and taking medications and showing up for follow-up appointments.
In the U.S., Hong says, supporting one’s medical care isn’t necessarily the focus. There’s already a standard of care and treatment thanks to antiretroviral therapy that offers a life expectancy much the same as the general population.
“We’re not only talking about physical health in the U.S., we’re also talking about mental health and social well-being,” he says, adding that his work in California with Black sexual minority men living with HIV included a team of professionals, from medical clinicians to lawyers. “That is really different, and I appreciate that approach because physical health is just one component of the overall well-being of individuals.”
As he begins to establish his research lab at UConn, Hong admits he misses China, his family, and the community he left behind. They’re always in his heart, he says, and have profoundly impacted the way he looks at the world and how he approaches his work.
“I’m half Korean, half Chinese,” Hong says. “The U.S. is a multicultural society with people from different backgrounds and different cultures. My own experience helps me see the health disparities and think about the best approach for us as researchers to design interventions and services to address societal problems.”
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
A study published in JAMA Network Open looks at maternal folate levels and congenital heart disease risk in babies.
Dr Erica D. Watson, Associate Professor in Reproductive Biology at University of Cambridge, said:
“It is important to be responsible when writing about this subject because folic acid supplementation has real benefits to fetal health, and we do not want to scare people off from taking their pregnancy vitamins!
The study indicates that maternal folic acid supplementation largely benefits the development of the baby’s heart. However, the study also shows that in some cases high folate levels in the mother’s blood was associated with an increased risk of heart defects in the baby. More research is needed to understand why this is. It is difficult to predict exactly how much folic acid is too much because genetics, metabolism, diet, and other aspects of the environment of both parents might interact to impact heart development. Importantly, moderate folic acid supplementation likely benefits fetal heart development.”
‘Maternal Serum Folate During Pregnancy and Congenital Heart Disease in Offspring’ by Qu et al., 2024 was published in JAMA Network Open at 16:00 UK time on Thursday 10th October.
DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.38747
Declared interests
Dr Erica D. Watson “I have no conflicts of interest to declare”
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Government makes significant expansion to size of attendance mentoring to get thousands more persistently absent pupils back in school
Thousands more pupils will benefit from the support of a specialist attendance mentor as the government ramps up work to tackle the epidemic of school absence.
Persistent absence across the country has increased since the pandemic, with around one in five pupils across the country currently missing 10% or more of school.
Backed by £15 million, the government will expand the investment and reach of attendance mentoring to reach 10,000 more children and cover an additional 10 areas with some of the worst attendance rates across the country. Nottingham, Ipswich and Blackpool are among the new areas that will benefit from the expansion.
The original programme, which has been running since 2022 in five pilot areas, sees attendance mentors provide one to one support to persistently absent pupils including those with SEND or mental ill health to break down the barriers to attendance, getting them back in the classroom, learning and thriving.
The new mentoring programme builds on the government’s plan to deliver free breakfast clubs in every primary school, with delivery starting in up to 750 schools from as early as April 2025. This is one of many programmes that will make sure children start the day ready to learn to ensure they leave school with the best life chances.
Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson said:
Tackling the national epidemic of school absence is non-negotiable if we are to break down the barriers to opportunity so many young people face.
For too long persistent absence has held back young people across the country and denied them the life chances that they deserve: this government is gripping this generational challenge facing our schools.
This significant new investment will help thousands of children back into the classroom and marks an important step towards truly turning the tide on persistent absence, helping us drive high and rising standards in every school.
Pupils on the programme will be supported over a 12 to 20 week period and will have a specific plan to help them, developed by the mentor.
This might include helping pupils to manage anxious feelings, developing their confidence and self-esteem, establishing more consistent routines at home and supporting pupils to access support from wider services.
The programme will be run by delivery partners, Etio, a specialist consultancy that is already running a number of successful education projects in England, including the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics.
UK Managing Director at Etio, Dr. Gordon Carver said:
Etio has been awarded the Attendance Mentoring Pilot Expansion (AMPE) project by the DfE, which aims to improve attendance and produce a robust evidence base for what works. The project is expected to yield important sector insights for tackling one of the most pressing issues in education. Headed up by Etio Project Director, Laura Bell, and a brilliant team behind her, we are keen to begin this important work.
The pilot programme has already successfully supported pupils with a wide range of challenges including low-level anxiety, special educational needs, poor attitude to learning and complex family circumstances. The pilot evaluation showed improvements in individual pupils’ attendance, wellbeing, home routines, and engagement at school.
To make sure the new contract also provides the opportunity to build a more robust evidence base around what works, the department has appointed the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) to oversee a full external evaluation of the programme.
Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza said:
As Children’s Commissioner, children tell me all the time that they want to be in school, so this investment is a welcome step in addressing some of the barriers to attendance. These barriers are varied and complex: unmet mental health or SEND needs, family commitments such as being a young carer, or a disengagement from school that needs special care to resolve.
I remain deeply concerned by the rate of severe and persistent absences, which have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. Attendance mentors can be an important part of the solution, by being a trusted person working closely with children and their families.
I have seen through my role as Chair of Greater Manchester Local Attendance Action Alliance how shared objectives, learning from what works and focusing on meeting every child’s needs means we can see real progress. Attendance must be a shared and top priority. Only when we ensure every child can engage with education, will we truly break down the barriers to opportunity.
The programme builds on the government’s statutory Working together to improve school attendance guidance which takes a ‘support first’ approach to managing school absence, by working with children and their families to address their specific barriers to regular school attendance.
The government is committed to tackling the root causes of absence including by providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every secondary school, introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary and ensuring earlier intervention in mainstream schools for pupils with special needs.
Source: United States Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) released the following video celebrating women’s athletic achievements on October 10th after introducing a resolution earlier this year to designate 10/10 as ‘American Girls in Sports Day.’
Despite the fact that nearly 70% of Americans agree athletes should only be allowed to compete on teams that correspond with their sex at birth, Senate Democrats blocked the effort to pass this resolution last month.
Click here to download this video of Senator Blackburn discussing ‘American Girls in Sports Day.’
“In 2022, the Biden-Harris Department of Education announced new rules that would actually force schools to allow biological men to play on female teams. This regulation really does undermine women’s sports, so I introduced legislation that would establish a day, October 10th, as ‘American Girls in Sports Day.’ The Democrats went to the floor and blocked that resolution, but October 10th should still be a day we set aside and celebrate our female athletes. In the last 50 years, since the signing of Title IX, female athletes have really gone from the sidelines to center stage. That is something to celebrate.” – Senator Blackburn
Analysis of more than a dozen Israeli evacuation warnings show how Lebanese civilians were given contradictory information and exposed to heightened danger
Some warnings issued in middle of night on social media and with only 30 minutes notice
Backdrop of comments from Netanyahu and others indicates that Israel considers Lebanese civilians and property to be legitimate targets
‘This is not a warning, it’s torture. It’s a sadistic game’ – resident of Burj al-Barajneh
‘We’re extremely concerned that Israel may be seeking to replicate the approach it followed in Gaza, resulting in unprecedented civilian harm’ – Agnès Callamard
The evacuation warnings issued by the Israeli military to residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut and south Lebanon have been inadequate – and in some cases misleading – said Amnesty International.
Amnesty analysed more than a dozen Israeli military evacuation warnings and conducted interviews with 12 residents who fled various districts in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh following the Israeli evacuation warnings on 27-28 September, including al-Laylaki, Hay El Sellom, Hadi Nasrallah highway and Burj al-Barajneh. Amnesty also interviewed three residents of villages in south Lebanon.
Amnesty examined two warnings issued to residents of the crowded urban areas of Dahieh overnight on 27-28 September, after the attack that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The airstrikes demolished entire residential buildings in the densely-populated area. Each warning identified three military targets and said that residents should evacuate a 500-metre radius around that location. The warnings were issued through the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson on X at night, without a clear timeline or details on safe routes.
In the two Dahieh warnings, maps published by the Israeli military alongside the evacuation warnings covering six different areas were misleading. In each case the area highlighted on the maps indicating the danger zone for civilians covered a much smaller area than the 500-metre radius that the Israeli military had advised civilians was the minimum distance civilians should evacuate. To be effective, warnings must give clear and timely instructions for civilians on moving away from military objectives that are going to be targeted, with information on safe routes and destinations.
The Israeli military also issued evacuation warnings to residents of approximately 118 towns and villages in south Lebanon between 1-7 October, following the start of its ground invasion. These warnings, which included towns that were more than 35 km from the border with Israel and outside the UN-declared buffer zone, do not – said Amnesty – make south Lebanon a free-fire zone.
Under international humanitarian law, parties to a conflict have a clear obligation to take all feasible precautions to avoid – or at least minimise – harm to civilians when carrying out attacks. This includes giving effective advance warning of attacks to civilians in affected areas unless circumstances do not permit. In any case, emphasised Amnesty, issuing warnings does not absolve Israel of its obligations under international humanitarian law to never target civilians and to take all possible measures to minimise harm to them.
According to the UN, a quarter of Lebanese territory has been affected by evacuation warnings.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said:
“The warnings issued by the Israeli military to residents of Dahieh – the densely-populated southern suburbs of Beirut – were inadequate.
“Our analysis shows that not only did the warnings issued by the Israeli military include misleading maps, but they were also issued at short notice – in one instance less than 30 minutes before strikes began – in the middle of the night, via social media, when many people would be asleep, offline or not following media reports.
“Instructing the residents of entire towns and villages in south Lebanon to evacuate is an overly-general warning that is inadequate and raises questions around whether this is intended to create the conditions for mass displacement.
“Regardless of the efficacy of the warnings, they do not mean that Israel can treat any remaining civilians as targets.
“Having spent the last 12 months investigating Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, we’re extremely concerned that Israel may be seeking to replicate the approach it followed in Gaza, resulting in unprecedented civilian harm.
“Amnesty International is calling on Israel’s allies, including the United States, to suspend all arms transfers and other forms of military assistance to Israel due to the significant risk that these weapons could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law.
“The organisation is also calling for a suspension of all arms transfers to Hezbollah and other armed groups in Lebanon.”
Case studies – southern suburbs of Beirut
Starting at 11:06 pm on 27 September, the Israeli military began to issue evacuation warnings to residents of Dahieh, a suburb in the south of Beirut. In the first warning, the Israeli military instructed residents via X to move 500 metres away from three buildings in the districts of al-Laylaki and al-Hadath, both densely-populated areas, alleging that residents are “located near Hezbollah interests”. The order did not give a timeframe for the evacuation. The map published alongside this warning highlighted an area around the buildings to indicate what was supposedly the 500-metre radius that residents should leave. However, the highlighted area in fact only covered approximately a 135-metre radius. While the map showed 30 buildings within the red circle, there are in fact 500 buildings within the 500-metre radius. The same is true for the evacuation warnings in the al-Hadath district: the areas highlighted on the maps warning residents to stay 500 metres away from the Sheet building and the al-Salam Complex, showed only at approximately 125m and 100m radiuses respectively.
At around 12:36am, just an hour and a half later, local media reported an Israeli airstrike on al-Laylaki. Over the next hour and 10 minutes, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported 11 further attacks on Dahieh, including on buildings and areas that had not received an evacuation warning. Fatima, a journalist who lives in al-Laylaki, told Amnesty that her brother called her at around 11:15pm while she was covering news of the strike on Nasrallah, warning her to leave the area. She said:
“I jumped in the car and drove erratically … I arrived in al-Laylaki and found that everyone was acting as crazily as I was. If people could throw themselves off the balcony to leave faster [they would]. Screaming, running, cars honking, motorcycles, plastic bags … I quickly helped my parents down the stairs to my car, and I only took my cat with me … I currently have no belongings at all.”
Fatima explained that al-Laylaki is a crowded residential area that remained fully populated until that night because it is on the outskirts of Dahieh and residents did not expect it to be targeted.
Abir, who lives with her mother close to al-Laylaki, told Amnesty that she could not immediately evacuate her house because her mother is older and sick, and needs to be carried down the stairs:
“It was a night from hell. I laid my mother on the floor in the safest room, which is the old bathroom, we hid our heads with our arms [throughout the bombardment].”
They were only able to leave a few hours later after a friend helped carry her mother down from the sixth floor.
At 3am on 28 September, the Israeli military issued another evacuation warning via X to residents in the districts of Burj al-Barajneh and al-Hadath, again in Beirut’s southern suburbs, instructing them to move 500 metres away from three other identified buildings. The warning did not give a timeframe for evacuation and maps of the affected areas were similarly misleading, highlighting areas much smaller than the indicated 500 metre radius.
At 5:47 am, the National News Agency reported that Israeli airstrikes targeted al-Hadath and al-Laylaki as well as the Chouiefat and al-Kafaat districts in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which were not listed in the evacuation warning. Local media reported continued airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs throughout the day.
Taghreed, a resident of Hay el-Sellom, said that she had not heard about the Israeli warning and took the decision to flee after the major attack that killed Hassan Nasrallah. She told Amnesty: “We were hiding and couldn’t reach the television. I don’t have social media so I don’t know what the Israelis said.”
Ahmad, a resident of Burj al-Barajneh, also said that he made the decision to leave Dahieh immediately after the airstrike that killed Nasrallah, as he lives with his elderly parents. He said:
“While we were still stuck on the road out of Dahieh, with all the ambulances trying to prioritise the wounded people, we heard about the warning on the radio in the van. I felt bitter. This is not a warning, it’s torture. It’s a sadistic game: ‘we will kill you and your family soon. Show us how you can escape’.”
On 30 September, the Israeli military issued a warning to evacuate from the surroundings of residential buildings in al-Laylaki, Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh. The Israeli military launched a series of airstrikes just 30 minutes later. Similarly, on 3 October, at 10:51 pm, the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for the residents of Burj al-Barajneh, telling them to leave immediately. Local media reported a “heavy strike” minutes after the evacuation order was issued, and at least four attacks by 11:30 pm.
Under international law, Hezbollah and other armed groups must, to the extent feasible, avoid locating military objectives, including fighters, ammunition, weapons, and military infrastructure, in or near densely-populated areas. However, the presence of military objectives in populated areas does not absolve Israeli forces of their obligations under international humanitarian law to avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks as well as to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians, including civilians who fail to leave the area after an evacuation warning. Failure to provide effective advance warnings of attacks which may affect civilians, unless circumstances do not permit, and not taking all other feasible precautions to protect civilians, constitute violations of international humanitarian law.
Case studies – southern Lebanon
On 1 October, the Israeli military issued two evacuation warnings to residents of southern Lebanon. The first, at 9:21 am, instructed residents not to move vehicles south of the Litani River “until further notice,” alleging that Hezbollah is using “the civilian environment and the population as human shields”. At 12:18 pm, the Israeli military instructed residents of more than 25 towns across southern Lebanon to evacuate and move north of the Awwali River, some 58 km from the border with Israel and about 30km farther than the Litani River, which marks the UN buffer zone created after the 2006 war.
On 2 October, at 9:11 am and then at 11:15 am, the Israeli military issued warnings for a further 24 towns and villages across southern Lebanon, telling residents to “save their lives and leave their homes immediately”, ordering them to move north of the Awwali River and saying that any movement south could expose them to danger. The Israeli military issued a similar warning at 12:49 pm on 3 October for a further 25 towns and villages, at 9:11 am on 4 October for a further 35 villages, and at 12:58 pm on 7 October for 25 additional villages.
None of the “orders” offered safe and effective evacuation information, just instructing residents to leave “immediately”.
Amnesty’s concerns about the warnings to civilians in south Lebanon are heightened by some statements from Israeli political and military leaders indicating that they considered Lebanese civilians and property to be legitimate targets. Benjamin Netanyahu said on 27 September there is “a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage”. The Israeli Education Minister said on television on 21 September that there was no difference between Hezbollah and Lebanon and that Lebanon “would be annihilated”. In June, the Israeli Defence Minister said that Israel is capable of returning Lebanon “to the stone age”.
The south Lebanon warnings and instructions that vehicles do not travel south of the Litani River also raise serious concerns over civilians’ access to essential supplies and services, including food, medication, healthcare and fuel. The mukhtar of Rmeich, a village south of the Litani river close to the border with Israel, which did not receive an evacuation warning but is within the area in which Israel has said vehicles are prohibited from travelling, told Amnesty that supplies in the town were rapidly dwindling. “The area is going to become destitute. How can we continue? It’s like they want to displace us,” he said.
The conditions being created by Israel’s actions in south Lebanon risk forcibly displacing the majority of the civilian population there. One of the towns in southern Lebanon that the Israeli military warned must be evacuated is Ain Ebel, where the majority of residents are Christian and have no known affiliation with Hezbollah.
Rakan Diab, an Ain Ebel resident, told Amnesty that residents of the village were surprised when, on 1 October, Ain Ebel was included in the Israeli military’s evacuation warning on X. Shortly afterwards, the village mayor received a call from a person purporting to be a member of the Israeli military warning residents to flee within around 45 minutes because there were weapons in the village. “People panicked … we needed to pack and leave immediately,” Rakan Diab said, explaining how the majority fled to the nearby village of Rmeich and the Lebanese army and the Lebanese Red Cross facilitated safe passage for a convoy of around 100 cars from Rmeich to north of the Awwali River.
Year of Israel-Lebanon conflict
Israel’s intensified military attacks in Lebanon began on 23 September. During the first day, Israeli forces carried out at least 1,600 attacks in areas across Lebanon, killing more than 500 people and injuring more than 1,800 in the first 24 hours. Hezbollah also launched more than 200 rockets towards Israel that day, with around 10 people sustaining shrapnel or debris wounds.
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in ongoing cross-border hostilities since the group launched attacks into northern Israel following the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Gaza last October. Israeli attacks on Lebanon since 7 October 2023 have killed at least 2,083 people, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. More than 1.2 million people have been displaced in Lebanon, and at least 400,000 have crossed the border to Syria.
Since 8 October 2023, Hezbollah and other armed groups have launched thousands of missiles at northern Israel, killing 16 civilians. A further 12 civilians, all children, were killed on 27 July in an attack on Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights. Around 63,000 residents of northern Israel have been evacuated since 8 October. In one Hezbollah attack, on 12 November 2023, an anti-tank missile hit a group of electricity company workers who were doing infrastructure work near Dovev. One worker was killed and another lightly injured. In another attack, on 9 July, two civilians were killed when a missile hit their car while driving on highway 91 in the Golan Heights. In a statement released that day, Hezbollah took responsibility and said that it targeted the nearby Nafah military base in response to the assassination of one of its members. Many of Hezbollah’s rockets are unguided and cannot be aimed at a specific target. Firing inherently inaccurate rockets into areas where civilians are present are indiscriminate attacks, and thus violate international humanitarian law. Direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians constitute war crimes.
Evacuation warnings issued by the Israeli military to residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut and south Lebanon were inadequate, and in some cases also misleading, said Amnesty International today, highlighting that these warnings do not absolve Israel of its obligations under international humanitarian law to never target civilians and to take all possible measures to minimize harm to them.
Under international humanitarian law, parties to a conflict have a clear obligation to take all feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians when carrying out attacks; this includes giving effective advance warning of attacks to civilians in affected areas unless circumstances do not permit.
“The warnings issued by the Israeli military to residents of Dahieh, the densely populated southern suburbs of Beirut, were inadequate. Our analysis shows that not only did the warnings issued by the Israeli military include misleading maps, but they were also issued at short notice – in one instance less than 30 minutes before strikes began – in the middle of the night, via social media, when many people would be asleep, offline or not following media reports,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
“Furthermore, instructing the residents of entire towns and villages in south Lebanon to evacuate is an overly general warning that is inadequate and raises questions around whether this is intended to create the conditions for mass displacement. Regardless of the efficacy of the warnings, they do not mean that Israel can treat any remaining civilians as targets. People who choose to stay in their homes or are unable to leave because members of their household have limited mobility, due to disability, age or other reasons, continue to be protected by international humanitarian law. Israel must at all times abide by its obligations under international law, including by taking all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, wherever they are.”
Our analysis shows that not only did the warnings issued by the Israeli military include misleading maps, but they were also issued at short notice – in one instance less than 30 minutes before strikes began – in the middle of the night, via social media, when many people would be asleep, offline or not following media reports
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General
To be effective a warning must be timely and provide information on safe routes and destinations. Amnesty International examined two warnings issued to residents of the crowded urban area of Dahieh overnight on 27/28 September, after the surprise strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The airstrikes demolished entire residential buildings in the densely populated area. Each warning identified three military targets and requested that residents evacuate a 500-metre radius around that location. The warnings were issued through the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson on X (formerly Twitter), at night, without a clear timeline or details on safe routes.
In the two warnings issued to residents of Dahieh, the maps published by the Israeli military alongside the evacuation warnings, covering six different areas, were misleading. In each of these cases the area highlighted on the maps to indicate the danger zone for civilians covered a much smaller area than the 500-metre radius that the Israeli military had advised civilians was the minimum distance civilians should evacuate.
The Israeli military also issued evacuation warnings to residents of around 118 towns and villages in south Lebanon between 1 -7 October, following the start of its ground invasion. These warnings, which included towns that were more than 35 km from the border with Israel and outside the UN-declared buffer zone, do not make south Lebanon a free-fire zone.
To be effective, warnings must give clear instructions for civilians on moving away from military objectives that are going to be targeted. While warnings can, in some circumstances, be general in character, the definition of what constitutes general does not include overly broad warnings that ask civilians to evacuate entire areas (see for instance the 1987 Commentary on Protocol I).
Israel’s warnings in southern Lebanon covered large geographical areas, raising concerns as to whether they were designed instead to trigger mass relocation. Principle 5 of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement states that, in all circumstances, authorities and international actors must abide by their obligations under international law so as “to prevent and avoid conditions that might lead to displacement of persons”.
Methodology
Israel’s Operation Northern Arrows began on 23 September with intense aerial bombardment of several areas across Lebanon, including the south, the Bekaa valley and Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. According to the Lebanese government, the number of displaced people fleeing Israeli airstrikes has risen to 1.2 million – the vast majority in the last three weeks alone.
Amnesty International reviewed over a dozen evacuation warnings by the Israeli military and conducted interviews with 12 residents who fled Dahieh following the Israeli evacuation warnings on 27/28 September 2024, including al- Laylaki, Hay El Sellom, Hadi Nasrallah highway, and Burj al-Barajneh. The organization also interviewed three residents of villages in south Lebanon.
Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab mapped the areas covered by Israel’s evacuation warnings to analyse the areas impacted by the strikes.
In its analysis of these warnings, Amnesty International is not seeking at this time to determine whether Israel struck military objectives in their attacks, but rather to investigate whether or not the warnings that Israel issued were effective at protecting civilians and adhered to international law.
Southern suburbs of Beirut: ‘This is not a warning, it’s torture’
Starting at 11:06 pm on 27 September, the Israeli military began to issue evacuation warnings to residents of Dahieh. In the first warning, the Israeli military instructed residents via X (formerly Twitter) to move 500 metres away from three buildings in the neighbourhoods of al-Laylaki and al-Hadath, both of which are densely populated areas, alleging residents there are “located near Hezbollah interests”. The order did not give a timeframe for evacuation.
The map published alongside this warning highlights an area around the buildings to indicate what was supposedly the 500-metre radius that residents should leave. However, the highlighted area in fact only covered approximately a 135-metre radius. While the map showed 30 buildings within the red circle, there are in fact 500 buildings within the 500-metre radius.
Caption: A map published by the Israeli military on X misrepresents the area affected by an evacuation warning. The text over the red dotted line reads “500 metres” in Arabic, but the line covers approximately 135 metres.
Caption: Satellite imagery shows the al-Laylaki neighborhood, in southern Beirut. The red circle shows the area highlighted by the Israeli military on the map published on social media. The wider area shows the full 500 metre radius impacted by the evacuation warning.
The same is true for the evacuation warnings in the al-Hadath neighbourhood: the areas highlighted on the maps warning residents to stay 500 metres away from the Sheet building and the Al-Salam Complex, showed only approximately 125m and 100m radiuses respectively.
Caption: Satellite imagery shows the al-Hadath neighbourhood, in southern Beirut. The red circles show the area highlighted in the map published by the Israeli military on social media. The wider circles show the area impacted by the evacuation warning.
At around 12:36am, just an hour and a half later, local media reported an Israeli strike on al-Laylaki. Over the next hour and 10 minutes, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported 11 further strikes on Dahieh, including on buildings and areas that had not received an evacuation warning.
Fatima, a journalist who lives in al-Laylaki, told Amnesty International that her brother called her at around 11:15pm while she was covering news of the strike on Nasrallah, warning her to leave the area:
“I jumped in the car and drove erratically… I arrived to al-Laylaki and found that everyone was acting as crazily as I was. If people could throw themselves off the balcony to leave faster [they would]. Screaming, running, cars honking, motorcycles, plastic bags…I quickly helped my parents down the stairs to my car, and I only took my cat with me… I currently have no belongings at all.”
Fatima explained that Al-Laylaki is a crowded residential area that remained fully populated until that night because it is on the outskirts of Dahieh and residents did not expect it to be targeted.
Abir, who resides with her mother close to al-Laylaki, told Amnesty International that she could not immediately evacuate her house because her mother is older and sick, and needs to be carried down the stairs: “It was a night from hell. I laid my mother on the floor in the safest room, which is the old bathroom, we hid our heads with our arms [throughout the bombardment].” They were only able to leave a few hours later after a friend helped carry her mother down from the sixth floor.
It was a night from hell. I laid my mother on the floor in the safest room, which is the old bathroom, we hid our heads with our arms
Abir, whose mother is older and sick and needed to be carried down from the sixth floor to be evacuated
At 3am on 28 September, the Israeli military issued another evacuation warning via X to residents in the neighbourhoods of Burj al-Barajneh and al-Hadath, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, instructing them to move 500 metres away from three other identified buildings. The warning did not state a timeframe for evacuation and maps of the affected areas were similarly misleading, highlighting areas much smaller than the indicated 500 metre radius.
Caption: Satellite imagery shows the Burj al-Barajneh and al-Hadath, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The red circles show the area highlighted in the map published by the Israeli military on social media. The wider circles show the actual area impacted by the evacuation warning.
At 5:47 am, the National News Agency reported that Israeli strikes targeted al-Hadath and al-Laylaki as well as the Chouiefat and al-Kafaat neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which were not listed in the evacuation warning. Local media reported continued strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs throughout the day.
Taghreed, a resident of Hay el-Sellom, said that she had not heard about the Israeli warning and took the decision to flee after the major attack that killed Hassan Nasrallah. “We were hiding and couldn’t reach the television. I don’t have social media so I don’t know what the Israelis said,” she told Amnesty International.
Ahmad, a resident of Burj al-Barajneh, also said that he made the decision to leave Dahieh immediately after the strike that killed Nasrallah, as he lives with his elderly parents. “While we were still stuck on the road out of Dahieh, with all the ambulances trying to prioritize the wounded people, we heard about the warning on the radio in the van. I felt bitter. This is not a warning; it’s torture. It’s a sadistic game: ‘we will kill you and your family soon. Show us how you can escape’.”
On 30 September 2024, the Israeli military issued a warning to evacuate from the surroundings of residential buildings in al-Laylaki, Haret Hreik, and Burj al-Barajneh. The Israeli military launched a series of strikes just 30 minutes later. Similarly, on 3 October 2024, at 10:51 pm, the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for the residents of Burj al-Barajneh, urging them to leave immediately. Local media reported a “heavy strike” minutes after the evacuation order was issued, and at least four strikes by 11:30 pm.
Under international law, Hezbollah and other armed groups must, to the extent feasible, avoid locating military objectives, including fighters, ammunition, weapons, and military infrastructure, in or near densely populated areas. However, the presence of military objectives in populated areas does not absolve Israeli forces of their obligations under international humanitarian law to avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks as well as to take all feasible precautions to spare all civilians, including civilians who fail to leave the area after an evacuation warning. Failure to provide effective advance warnings of attacks which may affect civilians, unless circumstances do not permit, and not taking all other feasible precautions to protect civilians, constitute violations of international humanitarian law.
En masse evacuation warnings to residents of south Lebanon
On 1 October, the Israeli military issued two evacuation warnings to residents of south Lebanon. The first, at 9:21am, instructed residents not to move vehicles south of the Litani River “until further notice,” alleging that Hezbollah is using “the civilian environment and the population as human shields.”
At 12:18 pm, the Israeli military instructed residents of over 25 towns across southern Lebanon to evacuate and move north of the Awwali River, some 58 km from the border with Israel and about 30km farther than the Litani River, which marks the UN buffer zone created after the 2006 war.
On 2 October 2024, at 9:11 am and then at 11:15 am, the Israeli military issued warnings for a further 24 towns and villages across southern Lebanon, telling residents to “save their lives and leave their homes immediately,” ordering them to move north of the Awwali River, and saying that any movement south could expose them to danger. The Israeli military issued a similar warning at 12:49 pm on 3 October for a further 25 towns and villages, at 9:11 am on 4 October for a further 35 villages, and at 12:58 pm on 7 October for 25 additional villages.
None of the “orders” offered safe and effective evacuation, just instructing residents to leave “immediately”.
Caption: A map showing the towns and villages impacted by evacuation warnings across southern Lebanon
Amnesty International’s concerns about the warnings to civilians in south Lebanon are heightened by some statements from Israeli political and military leaders indicating that they considered Lebanese civilians and property to be legitimate targets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said on 27 September 2024 there is “a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage”. The Israeli Education Minister said on television on 21 September 2024 that there was no difference between Hezbollah and Lebanon and that Lebanon “would be annihilated”. The Israeli Defense Minister has also previously warned in June 2024 that Israel is capable of returning Lebanon “to the stone age”.
“The massive loss of life in Lebanon in recent days raises fears that Israeli forces may be flouting their obligation to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians wherever they are, including through issuing effective warnings. Having spent the last 12 months investigating Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, Amnesty International is extremely concerned that Israel may be seeking to replicate the approach it followed in Gaza, resulting in unprecedented civilian harm,” said Agnes Callamard.
The south Lebanon warnings and the instructions that vehicles do not travel south of the Litani River also raise serious concerns over civilians’ access to essential supplies and services, including food, medication, healthcare and fuel.
The mukhtar of Rmeich, a village south of the Litani river close to the border with Israel, which did not receive an evacuation warning but is within the area in which Israel has said vehicles are prohibited from travelling, told Amnesty International that supplies in the town were rapidly dwindling. “The area is going to become destitute. How can we continue? It’s like they want to displace us,” he said.
The conditions being created by Israel’s actions in south Lebanon risk forcibly displacing the majority of the civilian population there.
One of the towns in southern Lebanon that the Israeli military warned must be evacuated is Ain Ebel, where the majority of residents are Christian and have no known affiliation with Hezbollah.
Rakan Diab, an Ain Ebel resident, told Amnesty International that residents of the village were surprised when Ain Ebel was included in the Israeli military’s evacuation warning on X (formerly Twitter) on 1 October. Shortly afterwards, the mayor of the village received a call from an individual purporting to be a member of the Israeli military warning residents to flee within around 45 minutes because there were weapons in the village.
“People panicked… we needed to pack and leave immediately,” he said explaining how the majority fled to the nearby village of Rmeich and the Lebanese army and the Lebanese Red Cross facilitated safe passage for a convoy of around 100 cars from Rmeich to north of the Awwali River.
“Amnesty International is calling on Israel’s allies, including the United States, to suspend all arms transfers and other forms of military assistance to Israel due to the significant risk that these weapons could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law. The organization is also calling for a suspension of all arms transfers to Hezbollah and other armed groups in Lebanon,” said Agnès Callamard.
Background
Israel’s Operation Northern Arrows began on 23 September. During the first day, Israeli forces carried out at least 1,600 strikes in areas across Lebanon, killing more than 500 people and injuring over 1800 in the first 24 hours. Hezbollah also launched more than 200 rockets towards Israel that day, with around 10 people sustaining shrapnel or debris wounds.
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in ongoing cross-border hostilities since the group launched attacks into northern Israel following the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and the occupied Gaza Strip in October 2023.
Many of Hezbollah’s rockets are unguided and cannot be aimed at a specific target. Firing inherently inaccurate rockets into areas where civilians are present are indiscriminate attacks, and thus violate international humanitarian law. Direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians constitute war crimes.
Since 8 October 2023, Hezbollah and other armed groups have launched thousands of missiles at northern Israel, killing 16 civilians. A further 12 civilians, all children, were killed on 27 July in an attack on Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights. Around 63,000 residents of northern Israel have been evacuated since 8 October.
In one Hezbollah attack, on 12 November 2023, an anti-tank missile hit a group of electricity company workers who were doing infrastructure work near Dovev. One worker was killed in the attack, and another lightly injured.
In another attack, on 9 July 2024, two civilians were killed when a missile hit their car while driving on highway 91 in the Occupied Golan Heights. In a statement released that day, Hezbollah took responsibility and said that it targeted the nearby Nafah military base in response to the assassination of one of its members.
Headline: Microsoft expands AI capabilities to shape a healthier future
REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 10, 2024 — On Thursday, Microsoft Corp. is unveiling several Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare innovations that connect care experiences, enhance team collaboration, empower healthcare workers, and unlock clinical and operational insights.
Through new healthcare AI models in Azure AI Studio, capabilities for healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric, the healthcare agent service in Copilot Studio, and an AI-driven nursing workflow solution, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is supporting healthcare organizations on every step of their journey toward shaping a healthier future.
“We are at an inflection point where AI breakthroughs are fundamentally changing the way we work and live,” said Joe Petro, corporate vice president, Healthcare and Life Sciences Solutions and Platforms at Microsoft. “Across the broader healthcare and life sciences industry, these advancements are dramatically enhancing patient care and also rekindling the joy of practicing medicine for clinicians. Microsoft’s AI-powered solutions are helping lead these efforts by streamlining workflows, improving data integration, and utilizing AI to deliver better outcomes for healthcare professionals, researchers and scientists, payors, providers, medtech developers, and ultimately the patients they all serve.”
Expanding the reach of AI beyond text: healthcare AI models in Azure AI Studio
Microsoft is announcing the launch of healthcare AI models, a collection of cutting-edge multimodal medical imaging foundation models available in the Azure AI model catalog. Developed in collaboration with partners like Providence and Paige.ai, these models enable healthcare organizations to integrate and analyze diverse data types — ranging from medical imaging to genomics and clinical records. By using these advanced models as a foundation, healthcare organizations can rapidly build, fine-tune and deploy AI solutions tailored to their specific needs, all while minimizing the extensive compute and data requirements typically associated with building multimodal models from scratch.
“The development of foundational AI models in pathology and medical imaging is expected to drive significant advancements in cancer research and diagnostics,” said Carlo Bifulco, MD, chief medical officer of Providence Genomics and a co-author of the Prov-GigaPath study. “These models can complement human expertise by providing insights beyond traditional visual interpretation and, as we move toward a more integrated, multimodal approach, will reshape the future of medicine.”
Harnessing the power of healthcare data with Microsoft Fabric
Historically, healthcare data has been difficult to access due to its unstructured nature and the limitations of existing data management systems. These challenges have limited organizations’ ability to gain a comprehensive view of patient experiences and access valuable insights.
With the general availability of healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric, healthcare organizations can overcome these barriers by reshaping how users access, manage and act on data with a single, unified AI-powered platform. Additionally, healthcare security application templates for Microsoft Purview, an innovative suite of features designed to help govern healthcare data, are available in public preview. We’re also launching new capabilities in public preview within healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric including:
Conversational data integration: Send conversational data, such as patient conversations, from DAX Copilot to the Fabric platform. By sending DAX Copilot audio files, transcripts and draft clinical notes to Fabric, customers and partners can leverage various native tools in Azure and Fabric to analyze this data and/or combine it with other data to generate comprehensive insights.
Social determinants of health (SDOH) public dataset transformation: Ingest, persist, harmonize and consume SDOH national and international public datasets to enable healthcare organizations to identify risks and health-related social needs to help create equitable healthcare for all patients and communities.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) claim and claim line feed (CCLF) data ingestion: Streamline the ingestion of claims data and harmonize with clinical, imaging and SDOH data to unlock actionable insights on patients and populations.
Care management analytics: Leverage unified healthcare data and care management analytical templates to enhance patient care by identifying high-risk individuals, optimizing treatment plans and improving care coordination.
Data discovery and cohorting: Utilize an integrated workflow that allows healthcare organizations to create, manage, analyze and share patient cohorts.
Building a safe and responsible healthcare agent
Healthcare organizations face numerous challenges, including workforce shortages, rising costs and increasing patient care demands. Generative AI offers a potential solution to these challenges by automating administrative tasks, analyzing vast amounts of data for actionable insights and assisting healthcare professionals in decision-making.
To address this, Microsoft is announcing the public preview of healthcare agent service in Copilot Studio to build Copilot agents for appointment scheduling, clinical trial matching, patient triaging and more. Organizations can leverage the healthcare agent service to help create connected patient experiences, improve clinical workflows, and empower healthcare professionals while helping organizations meet industry expectations with Microsoft Copilot Studio. Early adopters, like Cleveland Clinic, which provided feedback to help optimize the solution for a healthcare setting, are already using these innovations to enhance patient experiences and improve operational efficiency.
Enhancing nursing workflows with AI: nursing early outcomes
With the World Health Organization (WHO)1 predicting a shortage of 4.5 million nurses by 2030, the urgency to deliver technology to support the nursing profession is felt more than ever.
Last month at Epic’s UGM, we announced the next focus area for our collaboration in Epic Workshop. Today, we’re sharing more about how we’re actively collaborating with several leading healthcare organizations — including Advocate Health, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Duke Health, Intermountain Health Saint Joseph Hospital, Mercy, Northwestern Medicine, Stanford Health Care, and Tampa General Hospital — to build an AI solution using ambient technology that addresses nursing documentation by drafting flowsheets for review, allowing nurses to focus less on paperwork and more on their patients. This innovation expands on the company’s long-standing strategic collaboration and joint development initiatives with Epic.
“AI is transforming nursing workflows by streamlining administrative tasks, allowing nurses to focus more on patient care,” said Corey Miller, vice president of R&D at Epic. “Together with Microsoft, we’re using AI-powered ambient voice technology to populate patient assessments. Nurses using the tool are already sharing positive feedback on how it enhances personalized patient interactions.”
“For nurses, the integration of AI-driven solutions into our workflows is a game changer,” said Terry McDonnell, DNP, ANCP-BC, senior vice president and chief nurse executive, Duke University Health System, vice dean for Clinical Affairs, Duke University School of Nursing, Duke Health. “It allows us to focus more on patient care rather than the administrative burden of documentation. By automating tedious tasks, Microsoft’s ambient AI solution helps alleviate burnout and gives us more time to connect with our patients at the bedside, where we truly make a difference.”
Empowering responsible AI practices across healthcare
In line with Microsoft’s dedication to responsible AI, these new solutions adhere to the company’s AI principles established in 2018 to help guide AI development and use. Microsoft remains committed to developing responsible AI by design, ensuring that these technologies positively impact both the healthcare ecosystem and broader society. In practice this means properly building, testing and monitoring systems to avoid undesirable behaviors, such as harmful content, bias, misuse and other unintended risks. Over the years, we have made significant investments in building out the necessary governance structure, policies, tools and processes to uphold these principles and build and deploy AI safely. At Microsoft, we are committed to sharing our learnings on this journey of upholding our Responsible AI principles with our customers. We use our own best practices and learnings to provide people and organizations with capabilities and tools to build AI applications that share the same high standards we strive for.
For more information on Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare and the new data and AI solutions and their impact, visit https://news.microsoft.com/hlth-2024, or visit Microsoft at booth #4004 at HLTH 2024.
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) creates platforms and tools powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers. The technology company is committed to making AI available broadly and doing so responsibly, with a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
1Nursing and midwifery, World Health Organization, 2024
For more information, press only:
Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications, (425) 638-7777, [email protected]
Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit Microsoft Source at https://news.microsoft.com/source. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.
This press release includes key announcements on AI-driven healthcare innovations by Microsoft and includes a quote emphasizing AI’s transformative role in healthcare.
Epic is a registered trademark of Epic Systems Corp.
Education is essentially an “industry of industries,” with K-12 and higher education enterprises handling data that could include health records, financial data, and other regulated information. At the same time, their facilities can host payment processing systems, networks that are used as internet service providers (ISPs), and other diverse infrastructure. The cyberthreats that Microsoft observes across different industries tend to be compounded in education, and threat actors have realized that this sector is inherently vulnerable. With an average of 2,507 cyberattack attempts per week, universities are prime targets for malware, phishing, and IoT vulnerabilities.¹
Security staffing and IT asset ownership also affect education organizations’ cyber risks. School and university systems, like many enterprises, often face a shortage of IT resources and operate a mix of both modern and legacy IT systems. Microsoft observes that in the United States, students and faculty are more likely to use personal devices in education compared to Europe, for example. Regardless of ownership however, in these and other regions, busy users do not always have a security mindset.
This edition of Cyber Signals delves into the cybersecurity challenges facing classrooms and campuses, highlighting the critical need for robust defenses and proactive measures. From personal devices to virtual classes and research stored in the cloud, the digital footprint of school districts, colleges, and universities has multiplied exponentially.
We are all defenders.
A uniquely valuable and vulnerable environment
The education sector’s user base is very different from a typical large commercial enterprise. In the K-12 environment, users include students as young as six years old. Just like any public or private sector organization, there is a wide swath of employees in school districts and at universities including administration, athletics, health services, janitorial, food service professionals, and others. Multiple activities, announcements, information resources, open email systems, and students create a highly fluid environment for cyberthreats.
Virtual and remote learning have also extended education applications into households and offices. Personal and multiuser devices are ubiquitous and often unmanaged—and students are not always cognizant about cybersecurity or what they allow their devices to access.
Education is also on the front lines confronting how adversaries test their tools and their techniques. According to data from Microsoft Threat Intelligence, the education sector is the third-most targeted industry, with the United States seeing the greatest cyberthreat activity.
Cyberthreats to education are not only a concern in the United States. According to the United Kingdom’s Department of Science Innovation and Technology 2024 Cybersecurity Breaches Survey, 43% of higher education institutions in the UK reported experiencing a breach or cyberattack at least weekly.²
QR codes provide an easily disguised surface for phishing cyberattacks
Today, quick response (QR) codes are quite popular—leading to increased risks of phishing cyberattacks designed to gain access to systems and data. Images in emails, flyers offering information about campus and school events, parking passes, financial aid forms, and other official communications all frequently contain QR codes. Physical and virtual education spaces might be the most “flyer friendly” and QR code-intensive environments anywhere, given how big a role handouts, physical and digital bulletin boards, and other casual correspondence help students navigate a mix of curriculum, institutional, and social correspondence. This creates an attractive backdrop for malicious actors to target users who are trying to save time with a quick image scan.
Recently the United States Federal Trade Commission issued a consumer alert on the rising threat of malicious QR codes being used to steal login credentials or deliver malware.³
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 telemetry shows that approximately more than 15,000 messages with malicious QR codes are targeted toward the educational sector daily—including phishing, spam, and malware.
Legitimate software tools can be used to quickly generate QR codes with embedded links to be sent in email or posted physically as part of a cyberattack. And those images are hard for traditional email security solutions to scan, making it even more important for faculty and students to use devices and browsers with modern web defenses.
Targeted users in the education sector may use personal devices without endpoint security. QR codes essentially enable the threat actor to pivot to these devices. QR code phishing (since its purpose is to target mobile devices) is compelling evidence of mobile devices being used as an attack vector into enterprises—such as personal accounts and bank accounts—and the need for mobile device protection and visibility. Microsoft has significantly disrupted QR code phishing attacks. This shift in tactics is evident in the substantial decrease in daily phishing emails intercepted by our system, dropping from 3 million in December 2023 to just 179,000 by March 2024.
Source: Microsoft incident response engagements.
Universities present their own unique challenges. Much of university culture is based on collaboration and sharing to drive research and innovation. Professors, researchers, and other faculty operate under the notion that technology, science—simply knowledge itself—should be shared widely. If someone appearing as a student, peer, or similar party reaches out, they’re often willing to discuss potentially sensitive topics without scrutinizing the source.
University operations also span multiple industries. University presidents are effectively CEOs of healthcare organizations, housing providers, and large financial organizations—the industry of industries factor, again. Therefore, top leaders can can be prime targets for anyone attacking those sectors.
The combination of value and vulnerability found in education systems has attracted the attention of a spectrum of cyberattackers—from malware criminals employing new techniques to nation-state threat actors engaging in old-school spy craft.
Microsoft continually monitors threat actors and threat vectors worldwide. Here are some key issues we’re seeing for education systems.
Email systems in schools offer wide spaces for compromise
The naturally open environment at most universities forces them to be more relaxed in their email hygiene. They have a lot of emails amounting to noise in the system, but are often operationally limited in where and how they can place controls, because of how open they need to be for alumni, donors, external user collaboration, and many other use cases.
Education institutions tend to share a lot of announcements in email. They share informational diagrams around local events and school resources. They commonly allow external mailers from mass mailing systems to share into their environments. This combination of openness and lack of controls creates a fertile ground for cyberattacks.
AI is increasing the premium on visibility and control
Cyberattackers recognizing higher education’s focus on building and sharing can survey all visible access points, seeking entry into AI-enabled systems or privileged information on how these systems operate. If on-premises and cloud-based foundations of AI systems and data are not secured with proper identity and access controls, AI systems become vulnerable. Just as education institutions adapted to cloud services, mobile devices and hybrid learning—which introduced new waves of identities and privileges to govern, devices to manage, and networks to segment—they must also adapt to the cyber risks of AI by scaling these timeless visibility and control imperatives.
Nation-state actors are after valuable IP and high-level connections
Universities handling federally funded research, or working closely with defense, technology, and other industry partners in the private sector, have long recognized the risk of espionage. Decades ago, universities focused on telltale physical signs of spying. They knew to look for people showing up on campus taking pictures or trying to get access to laboratories. Those are still risks, but today the dynamics of digital identity and social engineering have greatly expanded the spy craft toolkit.
Universities are often epicenters of highly sensitive intellectual property. They may be conducting breakthrough research. They may be working on high-value projects in aerospace, engineering, nuclear science, or other sensitive topics in partnership with multiple government agencies.
For cyberattackers, it can be easier to first compromise somebody in the education sector who has ties to the defense sector and then use that access to more convincingly phish a higher value target.
Universities also have experts in foreign policy, science, technology, and other valuable disciplines, who may willingly offer intelligence, if deceived in social-engineering cyberattacks employing false or stolen identities of peers and others who appear to be in individuals’ networks or among trusted contacts. Apart from holding valuable intelligence themselves, compromised accounts of university employees can become springboards into further campaigns against wider government and industry targets.
Nation-state actors targeting education
Peach Sandstorm
Peach Sandstorm has used password spray attacks against the education sector to gain access to infrastructure used in those industries, and Microsoft has also observed the organization using social engineering against targets in higher education.
Mint Sandstorm
Microsoft has observed a subset of this Iranian attack group targeting high-profile experts working on Middle Eastern affairs at universities and research organizations. These sophisticated phishing attacks used social engineering to compel targets to download malicious files including a new, custom backdoor called MediaPl.
Mabna Institute
In 2023, the Iranian Mabna Institute conducted intrusions into the computing systems of at least 144 United States universities and 176 universities in 21 other countries.
The stolen login credentials were used for the benefit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and were also sold within Iran through the web. Stolen credentials belonging to university professors were used to directly access university library systems.
Emerald Sleet
This North Korean group primarily targets experts in East Asian policy or North and South Korean relations. In some cases, the same academics have been targeted by Emerald Sleet for nearly a decade.
Emerald Sleet uses AI to write malicious scripts and content for social engineering, but these attacks aren’t always about delivering malware. There’s also an evolving trend where they simply ask experts for policy insight that could be used to manipulate negotiations, trade agreements, or sanctions.
Moonstone Sleet
Moonstone Sleet is another North Korean actor that has been taking novel approaches like creating fake companies to forge business relationships with educational institutions or a particular faculty member or student.
One of the most prominent attacks from Moonstone Sleet involved creating a fake tank-themed game used to target individuals at educational institutions, with a goal to deploy malware and exfiltrate data.
Storm-1877
This actor largely engages in cryptocurrency theft using a custom malware family that they deploy through various means. The ultimate goal of this malware is to steal crypto wallet addresses and login credentials for crypto platforms.
Students are often the target for these attacks, which largely start on social media. Storm-1877 targets students because they may not be as aware of digital threats as professionals in industry.
A new security curriculum
Due to education budget and talent constraints and the inherent openness of its environment, solving education security is more than a technology problem. Security posture management and prioritizing security measures can be a costly and challenging endeavor for these institutions—but there is a lot that school systems can do to protect themselves.
Maintaining and scaling core cyberhygiene will be key to securing school systems. Building awareness of security risks and good practices at all levels—students, faculty, administrators, IT staff, campus staff, and more—can help create a safer environment.
For IT and security professionals in the education sector, doing the basics and hardening the overall security posture is a good first step. From there, centralizing the technology stack can help facilitate better monitoring of logging and activity to gain a clearer picture into the overall security posture and any vulnerabilities.
Oregon State University
Oregon State University (OSU), an R1 research-focused university, places a high priority on safeguarding its research to maintain its reputation. In 2021, it experienced an extensive cybersecurity incident unlike anything before. The cyberattack revealed gaps in OSU’s security operations.
“The types of threats that we’re seeing, the types of events that are occurring in higher education, are much more aggressive by cyber adversaries.”
—David McMorries, Chief Information Security Officer at Oregon State University
In response to this incident, OSU created its Security Operations Center (SOC), which has become the centerpiece of the university’s security effort. AI has also helped automate capabilities and helped its analysts, who are college students, learn how to quickly write code—such as threat hunting with more advanced hunting queries.
Arizona Department of Education
A focus on Zero Trust and closed systems is an area that the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) takes further than the state requirements. It blocks all traffic from outside the United States from its Microsoft 365 environment, Azure, and its local datacenter.
“I don’t allow anything exposed to the internet on my lower dev environments, and even with the production environments, we take extra care to make sure that we use a network security group to protect the app services.”
—Chris Henry, Infrastructure Manager at the Arizona Department of Education
Follow these recommendations:
The best defense against QR code attacks is to be aware and pay attention. Pause, inspect the code’s URL before opening it, and don’t open QR codes from unexpected sources, especially if the message uses urgent language or contains errors.
Consider implementing “protective domain name service,” a free tool that helps prevent ransomware and other cyberattacks by blocking computer systems from connecting to harmful websites. Prevent password spray attacks with a stringent password and deploy multifactor authentication.
Educate students and staff about their security hygiene, and encourage them to use multifactor authentication or passwordless protections. Studies have shown that an account is more than 99.9% less likely to be compromised when using multifactor authentication.
Corey Lee has always had an interest in solving puzzles and crimes. He started his college career at Penn State University in criminal justice, but soon realized his passion for digital forensics after taking a course about investigating a desktop computer break-in.
After completing his degree in security and risk analysis, Corey came to Microsoft focused on gaining cross-industry experience. He’s worked on securing everything from federal, state, and local agencies to commercial enterprises, but today he focuses on the education sector.
After spending time working across industries, Corey sees education through a different lens—the significantly unique industry of industries. The dynamics at play inside the education sector include academic institutions, financial services, critical infrastructure like hospitals and transportation, and partnerships with government agencies. According to Corey, working in such a broad field allows him to leverage skillsets from multiple industries to address specific problems across the landscape.
The fact that education could also be called underserved from a cybersecurity standpoint is another compelling challenge, and part of Corey’s personal mission. The education industry needs cybersecurity experts to elevate the priority of protecting school systems. Corey works across the public and industry dialogue, skilling and readiness programs, incident response, and overall defense to protect not just the infrastructure of education, but students, parents, teachers, and staff.
Today, Corey is focused reimagining student security operations centers, including how to inject AI into the equation and bring modern technology and training to the table. By growing the cybersecurity work force in education and giving them new tools, he’s working to elevate security in the sector in a way that’s commensurate with how critical the industry is for the future.
Next steps with Microsoft Security
To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.
¹The Institutional Impacts of a Cyberattack, University of Florida Information Technology. January 18, 2024.
²Cyber security breaches survey 2024: education institutions annex, The United Kingdom Department for Science, Innovation & Technology. April 9, 2024
³Scammers hide harmful links in QR codes to steal your information, Federal Trade Commission (Alvaro Puig), December 6, 2023.
Methodology: Snapshot and cover stat data represent telemetry from Microsoft Defender for Office 365 showing how a QR code phishing attack was disrupted by image detection technology and how Security Operations teams can respond to this threat. Platforms like Microsoft Entra provided anonymized data on threat activity, such as malicious email accounts, phishing emails, and attacker movement within networks. Additional insights are from the 78 trillion daily security signals processed by Microsoft each day, including the cloud, endpoints, the intelligent edge, and telemetry from Microsoft platforms and services including Microsoft Defender. Microsoft categorizes threat actors into five key groups: influence operations; groups in development; and nation-state, financially motivated, and private sector offensive actors. The new threat actors naming taxonomy aligns with the theme of weather.
Wells Fargo has partnered with the University of Connecticut’s Center for Neurodiversity & Employment Innovation to introduce free neurodiversity workshops for corporate America. The new workshops, an academic and corporate collaboration, aim to provide instruction to key leaders from Fortune 500 companies to help design neurodiversity initiatives end-to-end.
The full-day workshops are part of a larger $3.75 million grant from Wells Fargo to create the Wells Fargo Center for Neurodiversity and Inclusive Employment at UConn. There are three components to the grant: 1) Providing neurodiversity education and training; 2) funding groundbreaking academic research study to capture much-needed metrics about the business outcomes of neurodiversity programs and to create standards for measuring success in this arena; and 3) working with universities, non-profits, and vocational rehab agencies nationwide to bring efficiency, programming, and education to their regions and better connect job seekers and inclusive employers within their local communities.
Neurodiversity refers to the natural variation in the ways people think, behave, and communicate. Neurodivergence is when that variation falls outside of what is typical, often creating barriers to success in finding and keeping meaningful employment. Neurodivergent conditions commonly include autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and other differences.
Only about half of autistic college graduates are fully employed compared to their peers, according to Stephen DeStefani, the Wells Fargo team’s program executive who has led the initiative to partner with UConn.
“Partnering with Wells Fargo’s team has been amazing,” says Judy Reilly, Executive Director of UConn’s Center for Neurodiversity and Employment Innovation. “Wells Fargo’s willingness to share their real-world industry expertise to create—and deliver at no cost—education for corporate America that’s grounded in academic and research excellence is unheard of in this field.”
“This partnership enables UConn to blend academic instructional design and research with real-world industry application and expertise to create solutions for corporate America,” Reilly says.
“The workshops further the Center’s mission to create inclusive workplaces by increasing employer awareness and understanding of the value of neurodivergent talent,” says Anne D’Alleva, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at UConn. “This is a great example of how UConn’s research provides novel approaches to solve real-world problems in Connecticut and nationwide.”
“Since we launched our Neurodiversity program in 2020, we’ve experienced first-hand the significant impact these highly skilled individuals can have on the nation’s largest organizations,” said Kristy Fercho, head of Diverse Segments, Representation and Inclusion at Wells Fargo. “With continued underemployment of neurodivergent talent, we understand our responsibility to work with our corporate partners to collectively educate and bring awareness to this extraordinarily valuable and untapped talent pool.”
OVERVIEW The NASA chief technologist’s team, within the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS), is hosting a Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder (LAMP) workshop on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, to provide a community forum to discuss modeling and simulation testbeds in this domain. The workshop is in coordination with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. With the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. Technologies like trusted autonomy are necessary to support these types of sustained operations. Trusted autonomy is a more robust level of autonomy designed for long-term operational use. The LAMP workshop will be held on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Black Fire Innovation Facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Black Fire Innovation Center Building is located at 8400 W. Sunset Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89113, approximately 20 minutes from the UNLV main campus. This workshop has been designed to coincide with the 2024 Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium fall meeting (also taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada). The OTPS solver-in-residence is the main organizer and facilitator for this workshop. PROGRAM The LAMP workshop will provide a forum for a discussion on topics that include:
A modeling and simulation (M&S) pathfinder to explore an integrated sim environment for lunar stakeholders from commercial industry, other U.S. government agencies, international partners and academia, to simulate their systems that would eventually operate in the lunar environment and to test interoperability between systems. How to leverage the planned rover missions to 1) calibrate and improve this M&S environment over time, and 2) potentially use them as autonomy testbeds to safely mature algorithms in a relevant environment.
Please RSVP for in-person or virtual attendance by registering at the following site: https://nasaevents.webex.com/weblink/register/rdf4dd38bc3bf176dc32d147513f7b77c *Please note registration is on an individual basis. If attending with multiple guests, each guest must register for the event separately. LAMP Workshop Agenda (All times listed are in PST and subject to change)
10:00 a.m. – 12:00p.m. Modeling and Simulation (M&S) showcase (In-person only & optional)This is an opportunity for interested participants to show their lunar simulation capabilities inside of UNLV’s Blackfire Innovation esports arena. Space is limited. Please indicate if you are interested in participating when you register, and we will reach out with additional information.
1:00 –2:00p.m. Challenges to Developing Trusted Autonomy NASA will discuss the challenges of maturing autonomy that can be trusted to operate over long periods of time and how we can work together to overcome those challenges.
2:00 –3:00p.m. Pre-Formulation Discussion of a Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder Modeling and Simulation EnvironmentSubject matter experts (SMEs) from NASA will layout thoughts on what a digital transformation pathfinder would look like that benefits lunar autonomy efforts across the globe.
3:00 – 3:15p.m. Break
3:15 – 4:15p.m. Lunar Testbeds DiscussionThis will be a discussion focused on how assets on the moon could be used as testbeds to generate truth data for Earth-based simulations and to validate that autonomy can be trusted in the lunar environment.
4:15 – 5:00p.m. Polling and DiscussionsAudience feedback will be solicited on various topics. This will include a pre-formulated series of questions and real time polls.
CONTACT For questions, please email:
Dr. Adam Yingling2024 OTPS Solver-in-ResidenceOffice of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) NASA Headquarters Email: adam.j.yingling@nasa.gov The Solver-in-Residence (SiR) program is a one-year detail position with the chief technologist in NASA’s Office of Technology Policy and Strategy. The program enables a NASA civil servant to propose a one-year investigation on a specific technology challenge and then work to identify solutions to address those challenges.
IAM Women’s and Young Workers Director Julie Frietchen recently traveled to Alberta, Canada to conduct a training on Ending Violence Association’s Be More Than Bystander program for IAM Local 99 members and management at Finning, a tool and machine rental company, in Fort McMurray.
In January 2023, the IAM became the first labor group in the United States to be trained in the Be More Than a Bystander program when 19 male IAM staff members attended a three-day train-the-trainer course at the William W. Winpisinger Education and Technology Center.
Now, Frietchen is spreading the program across the IAM, most recently visiting IAM members at Finning Canada to teach two sessions, each with over 30 attendees. IAM District 14 Directing Business Representative Kyle Franzon and Business Representative Steve Luba welcomed Frietchen and attended the training as well.
“I just love this program and I am so happy to see its success in our union,” said Frietchen. “It’s one of the best harassment modules I have come across; it really connects the dots on how it’s a safety issue for everyone.”
Finning’s Fort McMurray site manager asked Frietchen to conduct the training for all employees after hearing about it from an IAM steward who had attended the class at the IAM’s William W. Winpisinger Education and Technology Center, where Frietchen is based.
Frietchen also took advantage of the opportunity to visit Finning’s other IAM-represented facility in Fort McKay and said she was thrilled to experience the workplace of Finning IAM members whom she’s built relationships with through the IAM’s educational programs.
“This was the first time I facilitated the training in Canada and I hope there is more to come,” said Frietchen.
“The ‘Be More Than A Bystander’ program, which was developed in British Columbia, has had unparalleled success in guiding employees through gendered harassment intervention,” said IAM Canada General Vice President David Chartrand. “Our union was the first union to adopt the program, and we will proudly team up with any employer to help IAM members and anyone else learn how to be more than a bystander when it comes to discrimination, especially in our workplaces.”
Kelly Huang, a Kalsi assistant professor at the University of Houston, reflects on her transformative journey from NREL wind energy intern at NREL to educator, inspiring the next generation of engineers with real-world research opportunities. Photo from Kelly Huang
Kelly Huang was on the fence as she wrapped up her junior year as a mechanical engineering major at Cornell University. Senior year was fast approaching, and then graduation, and then the rest of her life. Should she seek a career in industry or academia? Should she pursue a master’s degree? A Ph.D.?
Luckily, Huang had landed an internship with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) Program. For 10 weeks that summer, Huang supported NREL’s research on offshore wind energy, collaborating with leading researchers and gaining experience that shaped her future career.
“I fell in love with atmospheric flows, fluid dynamics, and the hands-on aspects of fieldwork: going out, collecting data, and using instrumentation that we built ourselves,” Huang recalled. “Those 10 weeks showed me what research could really be like.”
During her internship, Huang developed code for optimizing the dimensions of floating offshore wind turbine spar structures, which are long, vertical, floating components that extend deep into the water and allow the turbine to float without being anchored to the seabed. The team’s end goal was to integrate this code into NREL’s Wind Plant Integrated System Design and Engineering Model (WISDEM), which helps analyze how different parts of a wind energy system work together in order to find ways to improve performance and lower costs.
“The coding part was helpful for gaining basic engineering skills,” Huang said. “But more importantly, the whole experience showed me that there’s a whole community of scientists working on similar problems. It gave me the courage to pursue a Ph.D., which had seemed like a very daunting task up to that point.”
A Journey of Growth and Giving Back
During their internship, Huang and fellow interns Caelan Lapointe (middle) and Julian Quick (right) conducted wind energy field research at NREL’s National Wind Technology Center. Photo from Kelly Huang
Ten weeks passed, the internship concluded, and Huang completed her senior year, graduating with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering. During her senior year, she applied and was accepted to Princeton University, where she earned a master of arts and a Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering. Today, Huang is a Kalsi assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston. Huang recently returned to NREL to participate in the Faculty-Applied Clean Energy Sciences (FACES) program—another 10-week program that gave her the opportunity to collaborate with researchers and enhance her research skills.
The FACES program aims to bridge the gap between national laboratories and faculty at minority-serving institutions. Participants work with NREL researchers to enhance their expertise in clean energy science, develop scalable educational modules, and receive mentorship. Huang used field data from NREL’s AWAKEN campaign to build a curriculum for a class she is launching called “Introduction to Environmental Fluid Dynamics.”
“Students will use open-source data, like the data from the AWAKEN campaign, for independent projects on environmental fluid mechanics,” Huang said. “This will expose students to real-world research so that they can gain experience with data analysis and scientific inquiry.”
For Huang, participating in the FACES program brought her full circle in several ways.
“I grew up in Houston and really appreciated the diverse, multicultural community there,” Huang said. “That was one reason why I accepted my position at the University of Houston. It inspired me to give back to that community. I was happy to see NREL also recognize the importance of supporting diverse communities through education and research communities.”
Huang also reconnected with NREL researcher Senu Sirnivas, her supervisor from her SULI internship.
“He told me that my code had been integrated into the WISDEM tool and that researchers still use it, which was really cool to learn,” Huang said. “He was already supportive during the internship, and this time, he was excited to catch up and went out of his way to advise me on navigating my role as a professor and the challenges that come with it.”
Upon visiting the NREL campus again, Huang was pleased to see how the wind energy internship cohort has grown over the years.
“When I started, there were only eight of us at the wind site,” Huang recalled. “Now, there are so many interns, they have to do separate cohorts because onboarding is taking so long. Which is a great problem to have—it means the program is thriving.”
Huang’s internship also fostered lasting connections among its participants.
“I still keep in contact with my internship cohort,” Huang said. “One of them is an assistant professor of mathematics at University of Seattle, one of them is a researcher at the Technical University of Denmark, and a few work in the clean energy industry.”
Huang plans to encourage her colleagues in academia to apply for the FACES program and also to get her students involved with NREL through SULI and other internship programs.
“Working with NREL as a SULI intern and later as a FACES partner were such valuable experiences,” Huang said. “They both changed the course of my career.”
Visit NREL’s internships page to learn more about the wide variety of programs available to undergraduate and graduate students. Check out the FACES program page to learn how you can enhance your research skills with expertise in clean energy science.
Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 2
News Release
Thursday, October 10, 2024
NIH-funded study focused on original virus strain, unvaccinated participants during pandemic.
Infection from COVID-19 appeared to significantly increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death for up to three years among unvaccinated people early in the pandemic when the original SARS-CoV-2 virus strain emerged, according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported study. The findings, among people with or without heart disease, confirm previous research showing an associated higher risk of cardiovascular events after a COVID-19 infection but are the first to suggest the heightened risk might last up to three years following initial infection, at least among people infected in the first wave of the pandemic.
Compared to people with no COVID-19 history, the study found those who developed COVID-19 early in the pandemic had double the risk for cardiovascular events, while those with severe cases had nearly four times the risk. The findings were published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.
“This study sheds new light on the potential long-term cardiovascular effects of COVID-19, a still-looming public health threat,” said David Goff, M.D., Ph.D., director for the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which largely funded the study. “These results, especially if confirmed by longer term follow-up, support efforts to identify effective heart disease prevention strategies for patients who’ve had severe COVID-19. But more studies are needed to demonstrate effectiveness.”
The study is also the first to show that increased risk of heart attack and stroke in patients with severe COVID-19 may have a genetic component involving blood type. Researchers found that hospitalization for COVID-19 more than doubled the risk of heart attack or stroke among patients with A, B, or AB blood types, but not in patients with O types, which seemed to be associated with a lower risk of severe COVID-19.
Scientists studied data from 10,000 people enrolled in the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database of European patients. Patients were ages 40 to 69 at the time of enrollment and included 8,000 who had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus and 2,000 who were hospitalized with severe COVID-19 between Feb. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020. None of the patients had been vaccinated, as vaccines were not available during that period.
The researchers compared the two COVID-19 subgroups to a group of nearly 218,000 people who did not have the condition. They then tracked the patients from the time of their COVID-19 diagnosis until the development of either heart attack, stroke, or death, up to nearly three years.
Accounting for patients who had pre-existing heart disease – about 11% in both groups – the researchers found that the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death was twice as high among all the COVID-19 patients and four times as high among those who had severe cases that required hospitalization, compared to those who had never been infected. The data further show that, within each of the three follow-up years, the risk of having a major cardiovascular event was still significantly elevated compared to the controls – in some cases, the researchers said, almost as high or even higher than having a known cardiovascular risk factor, such as Type 2 diabetes.
“Given that more than 1 billion people worldwide have already experienced COVID-19 infection, the implications for global heart health are significant,” said study leader Hooman Allayee, Ph.D., a professor of population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. “The question now is whether or not severe COVID-19 should be considered another risk factor for cardiovascular disease, much like type 2 diabetes or peripheral artery disease, where treatment focused on cardiovascular disease prevention may be valuable.”
Allayee notes that the findings apply mainly to people who were infected early in the pandemic. It is unclear whether the risk of cardiovascular disease is persistent or may be persistent for people who have had severe COVID-19 more recently (from 2021 to the present).
Scientists state that the study was limited due to inclusion of patients from only the UK Biobank, a group that is mostly white. Whether the results will differ in a population with more racial and ethnic diversity is unclear and awaits further study. As the study participants were unvaccinated, future studies will be needed to determine whether vaccines influence cardiovascular risk. Studies on the connection between blood type and COVID-19 infection are also needed as the mechanism for the gene-virus interaction remains unclear.
This study was supported by NIH grants R01HL148110, R01HL168493, U54HL170326, R01DK132735, P01HL147823, R01HL147883, and P30ES007048.
About the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI): NHLBI is the global leader in conducting and supporting research in heart, lung, and blood diseases and sleep disorders that advances scientific knowledge, improves public health, and saves lives. For more information, visit http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
Rimar Capital USA, Inc. Board Member Clifford Boro also Charged
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Rimar Capital USA, Inc. (Rimar USA), Rimar Capital, LLC (Rimar LLC), Itai Liptz, and Clifford Boro for making false and misleading statements about Rimar LLC’s purported use of artificial intelligence, or AI, to perform automated trading for client accounts and numerous other material misrepresentations. The parties agreed to settle the SEC’s charges and pay $310,000 in total civil penalties.
According to the SEC order, Liptz, owner and CEO of Rimar LLC and Rimar USA, with the help of Boro, a Rimar USA board member, raised nearly $4 million from 45 investors for the development of Rimar LLC, an investment adviser that was falsely described as having an AI-driven platform for trading securities. The order found that the Rimar entities, Liptz, and Boro also made misrepresentations about Rimar LLC’s assets under management and its investment returns. In addition, the order found that Rimar LLC and Liptz obtained advisory clients using the misleading statements and that Liptz misappropriated company funds for personal expenses.
“Through entities he controlled, Liptz lured investors and clients with multiple fabrications, including with buzzwords about the latest AI technology,” said Andrew Dean, Co-Chief of the SEC’s Asset Management Unit. “As AI becomes more popular in the investing space, we will continue to be vigilant and pursue those who lie about their firms’ technological capabilities and engage in ‘AI washing’.”
Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, Rimar USA, Rimar LLC, Liptz, and Boro consented to the entry of an order finding antifraud violations and to cease and desist from violating the charged provisions. Liptz consented to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest totaling $213,611, to pay a $250,000 civil penalty, and to be subject to an investment company prohibition and associational bar with the right to reapply in five years. Boro agreed to pay a $60,000 civil penalty. Rimar LLC consented to be censured.
The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy has issued an Investor Alert about AI and investment fraud.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Payam Danialypour under the supervision of Brent Wilner, Associate Regional Director of the Los Angeles Regional Office, and Mr. Dean. Roberto Grasso of the Division of Examinations, Office of Risk and Strategy assisted with the investigation.
