NewzIntel.com

Category: Education

  • MIL-OSI USA: Congressman Kim Celebrates Project Funding’s Success Supporting Lenape Regional High School District Transition to Adulthood Program

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Andy Kim (NJ-03)

    MEDFORD, N.J. – Today, Congressman Andy Kim (NJ-03) and representatives with Lenape Regional High School District (LRHSD) visited Binkley’s 5 & 10, a local business participating in the school district’s Transition to Adulthood Program, and celebrated the impact of Community Project Funding the Congressman secured to support participating students’ success.

    Congressman Andy Kim visits Binkley’s 5 & 10, a local business that employs students in LRHSD’s Transition to Adulthood Program.

    “I am proud to have brought back federal dollars to support such an impactful initiative as Lenape schools’ Transition to Adulthood Program that goes above and beyond to look out for the well-being and growth of local students,” said Congressman Kim. “Today I was able to see the incredible coordination between our schools and local businesses taking part in the program to foster a positive learning and work environment. We need to continue working to expand opportunities like this that make sure people with disabilities can thrive in communities across New Jersey.”

    “Since receiving this grant in September 2023, we eagerly partnered with local businesses that recognize the immense value individuals with disabilities bring to the workplace. Their skills and perspectives enhance our workforce, benefiting the entire community by fostering a culture of inclusion and diversity.  We are deeply grateful to Congressman Kim for championing our Transition to Adulthood Program, to the local businesses that collaborate with us, and to the dedicated LRHSD staff who support our students every step of the way. Over the next four years, this grant will allow us to introduce students to a wide range of career pathways, showcasing the unique contributions they can make to various industries,” said Superintendent, Dr. Carol Birnbohm, Lenape Regional High School District.

    For Fiscal Year 2023, Congressman Kim secured $593,663 to the Lenape Regional High School District to expand the school district’s Transition to Adulthood Program, an educational opportunity to teach special needs students between the ages 17-21, independent life skills and help set them up for success post-graduation. The funding request was to help hire additional staff, cover transportation costs for enrolled students, and purchase equipment. Other locations LRHSD is partnering with through this grant and who took part in today’s discussion are: Medford Bagel Shop and A Rose in December in Medford, and Evergreen Dairy Bar in Southampton.

    Congressman Kim is committed to supporting access and inclusivity in New Jersey communities, including by supporting federal funding for special education and related services for school-age children with disabilities and to provide free resources and informational support for families of children with disabilities. He has also hosted webinars focused on support available to families of adults living with disabilities and to overview disability rights in New Jersey.

    Congressman Kim is the Ranking Member on the Military Personnel Subcommittee, and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. More information about Congressman Kim’s accessibility, his work serving New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District, and information on newsletters and his monthly town halls can be found on his website by clicking here.

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Nadler and Garamendi Introduce Legislation to Codify the EPA Office of Children’s Health Protection On Children’s Environmental Health Day

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Jerrold Nadler (10th District of New York)

    Today, U.S House Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and John Garamendi (D-CA) introduced the Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024, legislation to codify into law the only office within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dedicated to children’s health, the Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP). This office would be responsible for rulemaking, policy, enforcement actions, research and applications of science that focuses on prenatal and childhood vulnerabilities, safe chemicals management; and coordination of community-based programs to eliminate threats to children’s health where they live, learn and play. 

    Similarly, the legislation would also make the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee a permanent advisory committee. This advisory committee will advise the EPA Administrator in regards to the activities of the Office of Children’s Health Protection, all relevant information regarding regulations, research, and communications related to children’s health, and continue to serve the EPA in protecting children from environmental harm. 

    The Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024 aims to ensure that no future President will be able to remove these safeguards that help shield children from environmental harms to their health. 

    “On Children’s Environmental Health Day, which highlights the urgent need to address the unique health risks children face from environmental factors, I am proud to introduce the Children’s Health Protection Act,” said Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY). “By codifying the 1997 Executive Order that created the EPA Office of Children’s Health Protection—the only office within the EPA dedicated to children’s health—this bill makes certain that the Office will remain a critical resource for our children, no matter who is in the White House.”

    “I am thrilled to partner with Congressman Nadler to protect children from exposure to toxic pollutants like lead and address health risks such as poor indoor air quality in our nation’s schools,” said Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA). “Our bill will ensure that the EPA prioritizes safeguarding children’s health, allowing them to grow up and become the next generation of American leaders. In 2018, the Trump Administration attempted to eliminate the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection, which plays a crucial role in ensuring that federal regulations for chemicals and other toxic substances account for children’s unique health needs. Congressman Nadler and I have introduced this commonsense bill to prevent any future administration from making such a reckless decision.”

    In addition to Representatives Nadler and Garamendi, the bill also cosponsored by Representatives Grijalva, Evans, Watson Coleman, Holmes Norton, Salinas, Tlaib, Moulton, Kamlager-Dove, and Bush. 

    BACKGROUND:

    Since its creation in 1997 through Executive Order, the EPA’s OCHP has been crucial in protecting children, who are uniquely vulnerable, from environmental hazards. It has done so through policy, research focusing on their unique prenatal and childhood health vulnerabilities, safe chemicals management, and coordination of community-based programs to eliminate threats to children’s health.

    The OCHP also studies how natural disasters affect children’s health, not only through exposure to hazards like mold and water-borne pathogens but also by analyzing the mental toll of displacement and loss. 

    The Children’s Health Protection Act will ensure this vital work continues by strengthening and securing the OCHP and the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee.

    The Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024 is endorsed by a wide range of health advocacy groups and environmental justice organizations, including: Allergy & Asthma Network, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, American Lung Association, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, California Brain Tumor Association, Children’s Environmental Health Network, Children’s Environmental Health Network, Climate Psychiatry Alliance, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, Health Care Without Harm, International Society for Environmental Epidemiology: North America Chapter, Medical Students for a Sustainable Future, Moms Clean Air Force, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, National Center for Healthy Housing, National Environmental Health Association, Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Maine, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Texas, Physicians for Social Responsibility of Pennsylvania, Prevention Institute, Rachel Carson Council, Rachel’s Network, San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sears-Swetland Family Foundation, Society for Public Health Education, Toxics Information Project (TIP), and 350 Bay Area Action.

    WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:

    “It is very fitting that on Children’s Environmental Health Day, a day of action for and with our youth, Representative Nadler is introducing The Children’s Protection Act,” said Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, Executive Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Network. “This Act would mandate that all aspects of a child’s well-being – health, education, safety, family and community unity, economic security and mobility, development, and identity – are foundational in developing new regulations that impact children in the United States and around the world. We have never seen an intention like this comprehensive approach to protecting all children, especially the most marginalized. It is critical and urgent for policy leaders to take a strong stand for the health and safety of children today and for generations to come.”

    “Children are the brightest part about our future,” said Deb Brown, Chief Mission Officer of the American Lung Association. “That’s why it’s critical to do everything we can to protect them. With lungs and other organs that are still developing, children are more vulnerable to the health harms from air pollution. Ensuring there will continue to be an office and a team dedicated to protecting the health of children from environmental hazards is a small step that will reap large benefits for our future.”

    “Nearly 5 million children in the United States have asthma, and asthma causes more missed school days than any other chronic disease,” said Kenneth Mendez, President and CEO of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). “Environmental factors such as poor indoor air quality and outdoor air pollution play a role in making asthma symptoms worse. That’s why we need the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection – to focus attention on steps to reduce asthma triggers. We thank Rep. Nadler for introducing this legislation to make this office permanent and ensure the health concerns of children are at the forefront of the EPA’s work.”

    “There are big gaps in our understanding of the long-term health outcomes resulting from exposure to the great number of toxins we’ve dumped into the environment over the last 50+ years,” said Sydney R. Sewall, MD, MPH, Pediatrician and President of Physicians for Social Responsibility (Maine Chapter). “We do know that children are at greatest risk, and more EPA policies need to be directed at reducing this risk.”

    “Children, and especially Black and Brown children, are uniquely vulnerable to the adverse health impacts  – both physical and mental – of air pollution, extreme weather and environmental injustice,” said Almeta Cooper, National Manager for Health Equity of the Moms Clean Air Force. “Moms Clean Air Force is proud to endorse this legislation, which makes children’s health a permanent factor in EPA decision-making.”

    “Children are disproportionately impacted by their environment because their bodies are still developing,” said Dr. David Dyjack, CEO of the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). “They are particularly vulnerable to air pollution, hazardous chemicals and contaminated water. This bill will help to ensure that EPA maintains an Office of Childrens’ Health Protection to ensure better health and a better future for our children.”

    “Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) commends Representative Nadler for safeguarding the health of children by introducing legislation to make the EPA Office of Children’s Health Protection and the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee permanent fixtures,” said Paige Knappenberger, Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility’s Environment and Health Program. “As physicians, PSR members know that children have unique vulnerabilities to environmental harms like climate change and air pollution and deserve special protections from these harms so they can have safe places to grow, play and learn.”

    “Pediatric nurse practitioners and advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) deal every day with the harmful effects of environmental threats to the health of our nation’s children and adolescents,” said Dr. Daniel Crawford, President of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP). “The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Children’s Health Protection and the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee play critically important roles in recognizing that children are often more likely to be at greater risk from environmental hazards than adults and that evidence-based federal policies eliminate or reduce those threats. NAPNAP applauds Congressman Nadler’s effort to permanently establish these important offices.”

    “The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments enthusiastically endorses Rep. Nadler’s bill introduced this week, the “Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024”, said Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN, Executive Director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. “This bill aims to make the EPA Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP) and the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee permanent. Established in 1997, OCHP is the only office within EPA dedicated to the health of children and as such, it safeguards our children from potential environmental harms to their health. We strongly urge members of Congress to support this bill to avoid any possibility of future administrations dismantling of this crucial office.”

    “Since their inception in 1997, the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Office (the Office) and the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (the Committee) have been key in increasing the environmental health literacy in our country,” said the Rachel Carson Council. “Tasked with research, rulemaking, policymaking, and enforcement, the Office addresses chemical management, community programs, and more to tackle threats to prenatal and childhood environmental threats. The Committee has played an instrumental role in advising the EPA Administrator on the priorities of the Office. While the Office and Committee have been revitalized by the Biden-Harris Administration over the last four years, hostile administrations have attempted to de-staff and even dismantle these pillars of environmental justice for children, and they are susceptible to the same threats in the event of a less amenable administration taking office in the future. The Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024 will prove crucial in shielding children from the environmental harms that could affect millions across the United States. If passed, this bill would permanently establish both the Office and the Committee within the EPA, so that prenatal and childhood environmental harm reduction is a fortified, standing priority in the Agency. We applaud Representative Nadler’s recognition of the need to enshrine the work of the Office and the Committee into law so that some of the most vulnerable members of our society, children, will indefinitely enjoy protections from environmental harm.”

    ###

    The Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024 is endorsed by a wide range of health advocacy groups and environmental justice organizations, including: Allergy & Asthma Network, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, American Lung Association, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, California Brain Tumor Association, Children’s Environmental Health Network, Children’s Environmental Health Network, Climate Psychiatry Alliance, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, Health Care Without Harm, International Society for Environmental Epidemiology: North America Chapter, Medical Students for a Sustainable Future, Moms Clean Air Force, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, National Center for Healthy Housing, National Environmental Health Association, Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Maine, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Texas, Physicians for Social Responsibility of Pennsylvania, Prevention Institute, Rachel Carson Council, Rachel’s Network, San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sears-Swetland Family Foundation, Society for Public Health Education, Toxics Information Project (TIP), and 350 Bay Area Action.

    WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:

    “It is very fitting that on Children’s Environmental Health Day, a day of action for and with our youth, Representative Nadler is introducing The Children’s Protection Act,” said Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, Executive Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Network. “This Act would mandate that all aspects of a child’s well-being – health, education, safety, family and community unity, economic security and mobility, development, and identity – are foundational in developing new regulations that impact children in the United States and around the world. We have never seen an intention like this comprehensive approach to protecting all children, especially the most marginalized. It is critical and urgent for policy leaders to take a strong stand for the health and safety of children today and for generations to come.”

    “Children are the brightest part about our future,” said Deb Brown, Chief Mission Officer of the American Lung Association. “That’s why it’s critical to do everything we can to protect them. With lungs and other organs that are still developing, children are more vulnerable to the health harms from air pollution. Ensuring there will continue to be an office and a team dedicated to protecting the health of children from environmental hazards is a small step that will reap large benefits for our future.”

    “Nearly 5 million children in the United States have asthma, and asthma causes more missed school days than any other chronic disease,” said Kenneth Mendez, President and CEO of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). “Environmental factors such as poor indoor air quality and outdoor air pollution play a role in making asthma symptoms worse. That’s why we need the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection – to focus attention on steps to reduce asthma triggers. We thank Rep. Nadler for introducing this legislation to make this office permanent and ensure the health concerns of children are at the forefront of the EPA’s work.”

    “There are big gaps in our understanding of the long-term health outcomes resulting from exposure to the great number of toxins we’ve dumped into the environment over the last 50+ years,” said Sydney R. Sewall, MD, MPH, Pediatrician and President of Physicians for Social Responsibility (Maine Chapter). “We do know that children are at greatest risk, and more EPA policies need to be directed at reducing this risk.”

    “Children, and especially Black and Brown children, are uniquely vulnerable to the adverse health impacts  – both physical and mental – of air pollution, extreme weather and environmental injustice,” said Almeta Cooper, National Manager for Health Equity of the Moms Clean Air Force. “Moms Clean Air Force is proud to endorse this legislation, which makes children’s health a permanent factor in EPA decision-making.”

    “Children are disproportionately impacted by their environment because their bodies are still developing,” said Dr. David Dyjack, CEO of the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). “They are particularly vulnerable to air pollution, hazardous chemicals and contaminated water. This bill will help to ensure that EPA maintains an Office of Childrens’ Health Protection to ensure better health and a better future for our children.”

    “Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) commends Representative Nadler for safeguarding the health of children by introducing legislation to make the EPA Office of Children’s Health Protection and the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee permanent fixtures,” said Paige Knappenberger, Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility’s Environment and Health Program. “As physicians, PSR members know that children have unique vulnerabilities to environmental harms like climate change and air pollution and deserve special protections from these harms so they can have safe places to grow, play and learn.”

    “Pediatric nurse practitioners and advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) deal every day with the harmful effects of environmental threats to the health of our nation’s children and adolescents,” said Dr. Daniel Crawford, President of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP). “The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Children’s Health Protection and the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee play critically important roles in recognizing that children are often more likely to be at greater risk from environmental hazards than adults and that evidence-based federal policies eliminate or reduce those threats. NAPNAP applauds Congressman Nadler’s effort to permanently establish these important offices.”

    “The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments enthusiastically endorses Rep. Nadler’s bill introduced this week, the “Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024”, said Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN, Executive Director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. “This bill aims to make the EPA Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP) and the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee permanent. Established in 1997, OCHP is the only office within EPA dedicated to the health of children and as such, it safeguards our children from potential environmental harms to their health. We strongly urge members of Congress to support this bill to avoid any possibility of future administrations dismantling of this crucial office.”

    “Since their inception in 1997, the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Office (the Office) and the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (the Committee) have been key in increasing the environmental health literacy in our country,” said the Rachel Carson Council. “Tasked with research, rulemaking, policymaking, and enforcement, the Office addresses chemical management, community programs, and more to tackle threats to prenatal and childhood environmental threats. The Committee has played an instrumental role in advising the EPA Administrator on the priorities of the Office. While the Office and Committee have been revitalized by the Biden-Harris Administration over the last four years, hostile administrations have attempted to de-staff and even dismantle these pillars of environmental justice for children, and they are susceptible to the same threats in the event of a less amenable administration taking office in the future. The Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024 will prove crucial in shielding children from the environmental harms that could affect millions across the United States. If passed, this bill would permanently establish both the Office and the Committee within the EPA, so that prenatal and childhood environmental harm reduction is a fortified, standing priority in the Agency. We applaud Representative Nadler’s recognition of the need to enshrine the work of the Office and the Committee into law so that some of the most vulnerable members of our society, children, will indefinitely enjoy protections from environmental harm.”

    ###

    The Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024 is endorsed by a wide range of health advocacy groups and environmental justice organizations, including: Allergy & Asthma Network, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, American Lung Association, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, California Brain Tumor Association, Children’s Environmental Health Network, Children’s Environmental Health Network, Climate Psychiatry Alliance, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, Health Care Without Harm, International Society for Environmental Epidemiology: North America Chapter, Medical Students for a Sustainable Future, Moms Clean Air Force, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, National Center for Healthy Housing, National Environmental Health Association, Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Maine, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Texas, Physicians for Social Responsibility of Pennsylvania, Prevention Institute, Rachel Carson Council, Rachel’s Network, San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sears-Swetland Family Foundation, Society for Public Health Education, Toxics Information Project (TIP), and 350 Bay Area Action.

    WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:

    “It is very fitting that on Children’s Environmental Health Day, a day of action for and with our youth, Representative Nadler is introducing The Children’s Protection Act,” said Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, Executive Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Network. “This Act would mandate that all aspects of a child’s well-being – health, education, safety, family and community unity, economic security and mobility, development, and identity – are foundational in developing new regulations that impact children in the United States and around the world. We have never seen an intention like this comprehensive approach to protecting all children, especially the most marginalized. It is critical and urgent for policy leaders to take a strong stand for the health and safety of children today and for generations to come.”

    “Children are the brightest part about our future,” said Deb Brown, Chief Mission Officer of the American Lung Association. “That’s why it’s critical to do everything we can to protect them. With lungs and other organs that are still developing, children are more vulnerable to the health harms from air pollution. Ensuring there will continue to be an office and a team dedicated to protecting the health of children from environmental hazards is a small step that will reap large benefits for our future.”

    “Nearly 5 million children in the United States have asthma, and asthma causes more missed school days than any other chronic disease,” said Kenneth Mendez, President and CEO of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). “Environmental factors such as poor indoor air quality and outdoor air pollution play a role in making asthma symptoms worse. That’s why we need the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection – to focus attention on steps to reduce asthma triggers. We thank Rep. Nadler for introducing this legislation to make this office permanent and ensure the health concerns of children are at the forefront of the EPA’s work.”

    “There are big gaps in our understanding of the long-term health outcomes resulting from exposure to the great number of toxins we’ve dumped into the environment over the last 50+ years,” said Sydney R. Sewall, MD, MPH, Pediatrician and President of Physicians for Social Responsibility (Maine Chapter). “We do know that children are at greatest risk, and more EPA policies need to be directed at reducing this risk.”

    “Children, and especially Black and Brown children, are uniquely vulnerable to the adverse health impacts  – both physical and mental – of air pollution, extreme weather and environmental injustice,” said Almeta Cooper, National Manager for Health Equity of the Moms Clean Air Force. “Moms Clean Air Force is proud to endorse this legislation, which makes children’s health a permanent factor in EPA decision-making.”

    “Children are disproportionately impacted by their environment because their bodies are still developing,” said Dr. David Dyjack, CEO of the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). “They are particularly vulnerable to air pollution, hazardous chemicals and contaminated water. This bill will help to ensure that EPA maintains an Office of Childrens’ Health Protection to ensure better health and a better future for our children.”

    “Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) commends Representative Nadler for safeguarding the health of children by introducing legislation to make the EPA Office of Children’s Health Protection and the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee permanent fixtures,” said Paige Knappenberger, Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility’s Environment and Health Program. “As physicians, PSR members know that children have unique vulnerabilities to environmental harms like climate change and air pollution and deserve special protections from these harms so they can have safe places to grow, play and learn.”

    “Pediatric nurse practitioners and advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) deal every day with the harmful effects of environmental threats to the health of our nation’s children and adolescents,” said Dr. Daniel Crawford, President of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP). “The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Children’s Health Protection and the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee play critically important roles in recognizing that children are often more likely to be at greater risk from environmental hazards than adults and that evidence-based federal policies eliminate or reduce those threats. NAPNAP applauds Congressman Nadler’s effort to permanently establish these important offices.”

    “The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments enthusiastically endorses Rep. Nadler’s bill introduced this week, the “Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024”, said Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN, Executive Director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. “This bill aims to make the EPA Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP) and the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee permanent. Established in 1997, OCHP is the only office within EPA dedicated to the health of children and as such, it safeguards our children from potential environmental harms to their health. We strongly urge members of Congress to support this bill to avoid any possibility of future administrations dismantling of this crucial office.”

    “Since their inception in 1997, the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Office (the Office) and the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (the Committee) have been key in increasing the environmental health literacy in our country,” said the Rachel Carson Council. “Tasked with research, rulemaking, policymaking, and enforcement, the Office addresses chemical management, community programs, and more to tackle threats to prenatal and childhood environmental threats. The Committee has played an instrumental role in advising the EPA Administrator on the priorities of the Office. While the Office and Committee have been revitalized by the Biden-Harris Administration over the last four years, hostile administrations have attempted to de-staff and even dismantle these pillars of environmental justice for children, and they are susceptible to the same threats in the event of a less amenable administration taking office in the future. The Children’s Health Protection Act of 2024 will prove crucial in shielding children from the environmental harms that could affect millions across the United States. If passed, this bill would permanently establish both the Office and the Committee within the EPA, so that prenatal and childhood environmental harm reduction is a fortified, standing priority in the Agency. We applaud Representative Nadler’s recognition of the need to enshrine the work of the Office and the Committee into law so that some of the most vulnerable members of our society, children, will indefinitely enjoy protections from environmental harm.”

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Biden-Harris Administration Awards Nearly $1.5 Million to Help Illinois Improve Maternal Health

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Robin Kelly IL

    Rep. Robin Kelly, Chair of CBC Health Braintrust, Joins Announcement as Part of HRSA’s Latest Enhancing Maternal Health Initiative Convening

    CHICAGO – The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced nearly $1.5 million to the University of Illinois-Chicago to identify and implement innovative strategies to address the maternal health crisis. HRSA Deputy Administrator Jordan Grossman, joined by Congresswoman Robin Kelly (IL-02), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust and Co-chair of the bipartisan Maternity Care Caucus, announced this award in Chicago as part of HRSA’s latest state Enhancing Maternal Health Initiative convening.

    HRSA announced the availability of this funding in December 2023 at a White House roundtable on innovation in maternal health convened by the Office of the Vice President Kamala Harris and the Domestic Policy Council in support of the White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis.

    “Our nation’s crisis of maternal mortality requires urgent action. Pregnancy and birth should be one of the happiest moments for a family, but too many moms and women are suffering,” said Rep. Kelly. “I’m grateful to HRSA for elevating this conversation and for their efforts to improve maternal health outcomes in Illinois and nationwide. Together, we will ensure that every woman receives the care, support, and resources she deserves.”

    “Supporting community solutions to the maternal mortality crisis means listening to moms and women with lived experience,” said HRSA Deputy Administrator Grossman. “At the Health Resources and Services Administration, we are proud to invest in our State Maternal Health Task Force initiative to create community tables across the country that are innovating and deploying community-driven solutions and strategies to advance women’s health.”

    State Maternal Health Innovation programs identify the key drivers of maternal mortality in their state, develop strategies and implement new interventions to address these issues tailored to their state’s needs. As part of this program, HRSA also funds State Maternal Health Task Forces that bring together health care providers, policymakers, patients, payers, and other stakeholders to develop shared solutions specific to their state’s needs and to better support pregnant women and new moms.

    State Maternal Health Innovations programs have implemented a broad range of interventions to address maternal health challenges in their individual states. Examples of these interventions include early identification and treatment of hypertension to reduce preeclampsia and other risks, providing mobile simulation trainings to prepare health care providers for a range of adverse labor events, expanding access to trainings to rural and frontier hospitals that do not have a dedicated obstetrics department, and creating resources to improve first responders’ ability to respond to patients with substance use disorder during and after pregnancy.

    This funding is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s broader efforts to improve maternal health and supports HRSA’s ongoing initiative to reduce maternal mortality and health disparities. HRSA’s Enhancing Maternal Health Initiative aims to accelerate HRSA’s efforts to improve maternal health outcomes in partnership with women, grant recipients, community organizations, and state and local officials nationwide.

    Other key actions HRSA has taken to improve maternal health include:

    • Launching the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline (833-TLC-MAMA) in 2022. The hotline provides 24/7 emotional and mental health support via call or text to expectant and new mothers and their families.
    • Expanding Home Visiting services. HRSA recently awarded over $440 million in funding to expand voluntary, evidence-based home visiting services for eligible families across the country. Through the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, local organizations can provide home visits from nurses, social workers, and other trained health workers who work with families to improve maternal and child health, child development and school readiness.
    • Expanding Healthy Start services. HRSA recently invested $105 million in community-based organizations to improve maternal and infant health across the country through Healthy Start. Healthy Start funding will better support moms and babies to improve health in communities experiencing high disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes.
    • Growing and diversifying the perinatal workforce, including doulas. HRSA has increased the number of obstetrician-gynecologists (OB/GYNs), nurses, midwives, doulas, and community health workers, especially in places without them, through grants, scholarships and loan repayment. For example, HRSA launched new programs to train more nurse midwifes who reflect the communities they serve, train and deploy more community-based doulas, and support the training of more nurse practitioners with a focus on maternal health, including in underserved and rural areas.
    • Investing in new community health center efforts to address maternal health disparities. HRSA invested more than $65 million in 35 HRSA-funded health centers across the country to implement innovative approaches to improve maternal health outcomes and reduce disparities for patients at highest risk.
    • Supporting maternal health care in rural communities. HRSA funds the Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies (Rural MOMS) Program to increase access to maternal and obstetrics care in rural communities and improve health outcomes for mothers and infants. HRSA also awarded nearly $9 million over four years to five organizations to expand access to and coordinate health care services before, during, and after pregnancy in rural communities in the South.

    For a complete list of State MHI awards, visit: https://mchb.hrsa.gov/programs-impact/programs/state-mhi.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Baldwin Introduces Bipartisan Legislation to Stop Federally Funded School Buses from Being Manufactured in China

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin
    WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) joined a group of bipartisan colleagues to introduce the Secure School Buses Act, legislation to ensure school bus manufacturers tied to foreign entities and countries of concern, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), do not receive federal funding.
    “When we use taxpayer dollars, we should be investing those dollars back into American businesses, workers, and communities – not sending money overseas to adversaries like China,” said Senator Baldwin. “I’m proud to work with my Democratic and Republican colleagues to ensure taxpayer investments in our children’s school buses won’t line the pockets of bad actors like China and give them a competitive edge over our workers and businesses.”
    Several years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established the Clean School Bus Program to replace existing school buses with cleaner alternatives.  According to the EPA, they have awarded almost $3 billion in taxpayer funds through this program. Troublingly, certain companies in the electric bus industry have ties to the CCP and other foreign entities of concern. While federal funds are prohibited from going to companies with ties to the CCP and other foreign entities of concern for public transit, there are no such prohibitions for the procurement of school buses. The Secure School Buses Act would prohibit the award of federal grant funding to school bus manufacturers with certain ties to a foreign entity of concern.
    Senator Baldwin has long pushed to close loopholes that allow federal funding to be used for purchasing and manufacturing equipment overseas, including her bipartisan Buy America for Small Shipyard Grants, SAFE TRAINS Act, and Made in America Act, which were signed into law.   
    The Secure School Buses Act is led by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and also co-sponsored by Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and John Cornyn (R-TX). The bill is endorsed by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and Heritage Action.
    Click here for bill text.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Myanmar: Two activists at grave risk of torture after arrests – Amnesty International

    Source: Amnesty International

    Myanmar’s military authorities must immediately account for the whereabouts and wellbeing of two pro-democracy activists arrested in Yangon on Wednesday, Amnesty International said today.

    Paing Phyo Min and Shein Wai Aung were arrested on 9 October and sent to an interrogation center, Amnesty International understands. Paing Phyo Min’s family has not been able to reach him, while Shein Wai Aung and his father, mother and sister have also been uncontactable.

    As many as six additional people are also believed to have been arrested in raids.

    “The Myanmar military must urgently account for the whereabouts and wellbeing of Paing Phyo Min and of Shein Wai Aung and his family. Unless they can be charged with an internationally recognized crime, they must be immediately and unconditionally released,” Amnesty International’s Myanmar Researcher Joe Freeman said.

    “As leaders from The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet in Laos and discuss a way out of the crisis brought on by the 2021 coup, the Myanmar military continues to arbitrarily detain people and carry out repression across the country.”

    Paing Phyo Min is known for his involvement with a group of young people performing Thangyat, a popular Myanmar traditional art form which fuses poetry, comedy and music to comment on social issues.

    In 2019, Paing Phyo Min and other members of an activist group called the Peacock Generation were arrested after performing Thangyat dressed as soldiers. For this, he was sentenced to six years in prison.

    In 2020, Amnesty International called for Paing Phyo Min’s release as part of its annual Write 4 Rights campaign, with many people writing letters to him to bolster his spirits. He was released in 2021 as part of a mass prisoner amnesty.

    After the military coup, he and others took part in peaceful protests in Yangon, despite enormous risks following violent crackdowns.

    Shein Wai Aung, a former student at Dagon University in Yangon, has been active in peaceful protests and in supporting political prisoners in Myanmar.

    “Protesting in Myanmar today is not the same as it was before the coup. Anyone involved in any kind of dissent against the military faces long jail terms, torture and other ill-treatment, and even death in custody,” Joe Freeman said.

    “In Myanmar’s prison system, there is little hope of fair treatment, no transparency, and extremely substandard conditions. Interrogation centers, where these two activists have likely been sent, are also notorious locations of abuse where torture has been used to extract information before charges are formally brought.”

    Myanmar’s military has killed more than 5,000 civilians since seizing power in the coup on 1 February 2021. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in its latest report last month that at least 1,853 of those people have died in custody.

    In the 2022 report ‘15 Days Felt Like 15 Years’, Amnesty International documented torture and other ill-treatment against people arbitrarily detained by the military and police after the coup.

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: LLMs are becoming a commodity—Now what?

    Source: Microsoft

    Headline: LLMs are becoming a commodity—Now what?

    Whenever a compelling new AI model emerges, I like to put it through its paces. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with the preview of OpenAI o1 (formerly known as Strawberry), an astonishing new LLM that’s capable of solving complex and layered problems, especially in math, science, and coding. 

    For businesses, o1 model and a slew of others in the works represent a clear opportunity. But they also reflect a less obvious challenge: as LLMs become more sophisticated, they’ll also become quickly commoditized, with not a lot of differentiation between them.  

    In other words, today’s breakthroughs will become tomorrow’s table stakes. This means companies should focus more on how they integrate these models with their own data and workflows, rather than seeing the models themselves as a unique competitive advantage. Embracing this shift in mindset is the way to ensure your business stays ahead.  

    Decoding the latest advance 
    We have historically relied on size to improve the capabilities of LLMs—training them on more and more data, a process that is incredibly time- and resource-intensive.    

    OpenAI o1 introduces an entirely new scaling dimension, one in which a model can become significantly more capable by taking more time to “think” or reason before it responds. That means o1 can tackle problems step by step, much like how a human might approach challenging questions.  

    Ethan Mollick, professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, tried the o1 preview on a tough segment of a crossword puzzle and it performed quite well (though not flawlessly). Crossword puzzles trip up other LLMs because they can’t perform the iterative thinking that’s required: trying a word, scratching it out when it doesn’t fit, and cross-referencing clues to see how answers might fit together. 

    People across the business world are already experimenting with how o1 can handle tasks like responding to RFPs or performing risk assessments. It’s clear that we’ll look back and consider o1 to be one of the most pivotal advancements in generative AI. 

    So if o1 is such a breakthrough, why am I arguing that models will be commoditized? It comes down to competition. With so much energy and opportunity in the AI space, model developers are racing to exceed one another’s advances. We can expect to see more models, from more providers, with more capabilities on par with one another. 

    Technology and commoditization 
    Think of another technology that was groundbreaking for its time: the television. Once a rare luxury made by only a few companies, TVs are now produced by many manufacturers, with excellent models widely available. About two decades ago, flat-screen TVs were coveted and expensive. Now it can cost as much to mount a TV on the wall as it does to buy the TV itself, and “flat-screen TV” has become a redundant phrase. We expect LLMs to follow a similar path to commoditization, but at a swifter pace.  

    What does this mean for businesses? Leaders have to look beyond the LLMs themselves and focus on creating a system around the models that will serve the unique needs of their organizations. Only by understanding AI systems more holistically will they be able to leverage them to innovate, create value, and maintain a competitive edge.  

    Unlocking the real value of AI for business 
    LLMs get a lot of attention in the media, but the real value of AI comes from how you steer, ground, and fine-tune these models with your business data and workflow. And those capabilities come from the full system that surrounds the LLM. 

    Consider the evolution of personal computers. At first the raw power of the CPU was the most critical factor. But as powerful CPUs became commodities, the value of the PC shifted to the overall system—the combination of hardware and software that met your needs. Today, we don’t judge a PC by the power of a single component; it’s the value of the entire package that differentiates one device from another. 

    The same goes for AI: the system is more powerful than any one part. An LLM on its own, no matter how impressive, won’t deliver truly valuable results until it’s grounded in your company’s specific knowledge. When a system like Copilot can draw from your work data—emails, files, meetings, etc.—it becomes much smarter about your business. The system performs better when you can steer it toward your goals and fine-tune it to adapt to your specific needs. Together, all these elements feed the advanced “thinking” that the LLMs can and will be doing. 

    Think about how this system would work for, say, a retailer. An LLM on its own can offer general ideas for training new employees for the sales floor. But AI is more powerful if it also knows the specifics of your business. A highly effective AI agent might create and deliver training modules for your new retail employees, with insight into your latest products, up-to-the-minute promotions, and specialized customer service techniques. 

    Summing it up  
    LLMs are making incredible progress, and I’m delighted every day by what they can accomplish. But their true potential comes through when they’re applied to your unique business data and workflows. That way, they’ll solve more than puzzles—they’ll help untangle your thorniest business problems and reveal new opportunities for creating value.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Igniting Inspiration: Jennifer Becerra’s STEM Legacy at Johnson 

    Source: NASA

    Jennifer Becerra has nearly three decades of experience in education, both in the classroom and within the NASA community. Leading a team dedicated to fostering a passion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), she develops programs that inspire students and educators alike.  
    Whether coordinating internships or organizing engagement events, Becerra creates educational opportunities to bring the excitement of NASA’s missions to life for students. As NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM) student services manager at Johnson Space Center in Houston, her efforts aim to cultivate the next generation of explorers and build a stronger, more engaged future workforce. 

    Becerra’s responsibilities include overseeing intern recruitment, placement, and development. She leads the OSTEM Center Engagement to create impactful opportunities for students to connect with NASA’s mission and resources. Becerra also serves as the technical officer for NASA’s Teams II Engaging Affiliated Museums and Informal Institutions Community Anchor grant program. She assists in managing funded projects that advance STEM education by supporting institutions that serve as local hubs for learning and space exploration.  
    Becerra holds memberships in The National Science Teachers Association and the Science Teachers Association of Texas, further underscoring her dedication to empowering tomorrow’s innovators. 

    Becerra takes great pride in her work. One of her most fulfilling achievements is witnessing the spark of inspiration in students when they participate in events like astronaut graduation, the Artemis II crew announcement, or the OSIRIS-REx sample reveal. “Seeing their excitement and curiosity fuels our commitment to creating impactful experiences that encourage students to explore STEM fields,” she said. “We aim to inspire the next generation of explorers who may one day contribute to future NASA missions.” 

    Her upbringing on the Texas-Mexico border in Del Rio, Texas, deeply influences her sense of identity. She is an active member of Johnson’s Hispanic Employee Resource Group, which promotes cultural awareness and provides a platform to engage and educate the Johnson community about the richness and significance of Hispanic culture. 
    “I aim to foster a more inclusive environment where diverse perspectives are valued and celebrated,” she said. Becerra honors her culture in the workplace by embracing her authentic self every day and contributing to her team in meaningful ways.  

    An important lesson she has learned throughout her career is the power of collaboration. “I’ve realized that it takes a collective effort to achieve our goals,” said Becerra. “I’ve come to deeply appreciate and rely on the diverse experiences and perspectives my colleagues bring to our team.” 
    Early in her career, Becerra faced imposter syndrome, but over time she overcame it by connecting with colleagues who shared her background. Today, she appreciates the inclusivity and collaboration within her teams. 

    Looking forward, Becerra is excited for the future of space exploration, especially the moment when the first woman steps onto the Moon. She hopes to inspire more girls to explore STEM and leave a lasting legacy with the Artemis Generation.  
    “Passion drives fulfillment and long-term commitment, especially at NASA,” she said. “I encourage students to seize every opportunity, build strong connections with their teams, and embrace the sense of being part of something much greater than themselves.” 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Folding the future: The rise of origami-inspired robots

    Source: US Government research organizations

    Origami, the ancient art of paper folding, is taking a futuristic turn with the work of Cynthia Sung at the University of Pennsylvania. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program award, “Computational Design for Robust Legged Robots,” Sung’s research blends the precision of engineering with the creativity of art to develop origami-inspired robots. These robots, built from thin, foldable materials, offer a fascinating glimpse into the future of robotics.

    Origami-inspired fabrication and folding approaches can create robots that can transform their shape. For example, the CurveQuad robot recently developed by Sung’s lab is an origami-inspired robot that can fold, unfold, crawl and steer using one motor. Its design is based on curved-crease origami, providing the robot with remarkable agility despite its simplicity — it only has four folds. These robots can directly incorporate electronics, actuation and sensing into their flat body. Such robots could be deployed in swarms for exploration or inspection tasks, showcasing the scalability and cost-effectiveness of this technology.

    Credit: Daniel Feshbach, Sung Robotics Lab

    CurveQuad robot consisting of a thin PET body with 4 folds, a single motor for actuation, and a flexible PCB for control.

    One of the exciting recent results from Sung’s work is the principle that any kinematic chain — a term used to refer to a series of links and joints that make up a robot’s arms and legs — can be constructed using origami techniques. Since origami fabrication is relatively fast and accessible, this means that in the future, full robots might be able to be designed and created within days or even hours, opening new possibilities for creating lightweight, flexible and safe robots, ideal for interacting with humans. The origami patterns are generated automatically, so a person does not need to be an origami artist or engineer; they only need to be able to describe the different joints of the robot that they want, and a design will come out. The potential applications are vast, from educational tools that make complex robotics concepts accessible for students to dynamic robots for exploring unstructured environments.

    Credit: Wei-Hsi Chen, Sung Robotics Lab

    An example of a robot arm generated by Sung’s lab software. It is a scaled-down version of the PUMA 6-dof arm (one of the old industrial manipulator arms commonly seen in manufacturing settings).

    Supported by an NSF Engineering Design and System Engineering award, Sung and her team are expanding this work to incorporate actuators, sensors and control. They are also building intuitive design tools on top of the underlying algorithms to make the design process easier for non-roboticists. By clicking and dragging robot parts on a computer screen, designers can creatively explore different kinematic chains and directly convert them into an origami pattern they can test in real life. Using this software, the team collaborates with The Arts League to create robots, activities and workshops for the students, artists and the general community to learn more about robotics.
     

    Three-link origami robots

    Credit: Diedra Krieger, University of Pennsylvania

    Three-link origami robots designed for workshops. The robots “slither” on marker legs, drawing patterns on the ground that change with the robot’s control input.

    Origami robots are not just restricted to indoor environments and classroom activities. Another intriguing project supported by an NSF Dynamics, Control and Systems Diagnostics award involves underwater robots with origami-inspired designs that can change body shape to take in and expel water, creating a jet to propel itself forward, much like squids do. These robots offer unique opportunities because they are affordable, easy to make and sturdy, ideal for moving efficiently underwater.

    Credit: Zhiyuan Yang and Dongsheng Chen, Sung Robotics Lab

    Origami robot swimming. A motor on the inside pulls on a tendon to compress the magic ball and release it, creating a jet in the back that propels the robot forward.

    “We used the magic ball origami pattern, which can change between an ellipsoidal (low volume) and spherical (high volume) shape. A special mechanism helps the robot contract to take in water, and the magic ball’s natural mechanics help it return to its original shape, creating a propulsion system that allows them to swim efficiently. The potential applications include environmental monitoring and underwater exploration,” Sung said.
     

    Origami-inspired robot that swims via jet propulsion

    Credit: Zhiyuan Yang and Dongsheng Chen, Sung Robotics Lab

    Origami robot swimming. A motor on the inside pulls on a tendon to compress the magic ball and release it, creating a jet in the back that propels the robot forward.

    Origami-inspired robots are bringing us incredible advancements, from self-folding and unfolding robots to those that can dissolve or change forms. Sung’s work advances robotics and inspires new thinking about materials and design. These innovations open up a wide range of applications, such as exploring unpredictable terrains in outer space, where the flexibility and adaptability of origami robots can be critical. The journey from simple paper folds to complex robotic systems exemplifies the power of foundational research, a key driver of NSF’s mission.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Chairs Inaugural Plenary Meeting of Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience

    Source: United States Department of Defense

    On October 7-8, 2024, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante chaired the inaugural plenary meeting of the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR) in Honolulu, HI. National Armament Directors, and similarly positioned senior leaders, joined him from all PIPIR member nations in both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions. The engagement was hosted by the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies and the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).

    PIPIR is a multi-lateral forum of allies and partners aimed at strengthening defense industrial resilience to promote continued regional security, economic security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. It serves as a platform to accelerate defense industrial base (DIB) cooperation by reducing barriers to production, creating new sustainment hubs, and addressing supply chain constraints.

    “From day one, Secretary Austin has driven success through teamwork,” Dr. LaPlante said. “Today’s security environment demands closer collaboration with our allies and partners. PIPIR will help strengthen our collective ability to produce and sustain warfighting capability in the Indo-Pacific, and the National Armaments Directors are uniquely positioned to drive action in these areas.”

    During this inaugural plenary meeting, participants adopted a Core Vision Statement, which establishes strategic principles to guide collaboration on defense industrial resilience. The agreement of a Core Vision Statement builds upon the Statement of Principles for Indo-Pacific Defense Industrial Base Collaboration endorsed by 13 nations, including by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue held in May 2024.

    Members also announced the creation of workstreams, each tasked with identifying key projects appointed leadership for each, and discussed plans to operationalize project activities. The four workstreams are Sustainment, Production, Supply Chain Resilience, and Policy and Optimization. Participants underscored the need to deliver material solutions that enhance shared defense industrial resilience. They also emphasized the importance of forging closer partnerships with industry and committed to creating a standing industrial advisory board with whom to consult. PIPIR will include other advisors as necessary to address the complexity and challenges of the DIB.

    The day prior to the plenary session, INDOPACOM hosted the PIPIR delegation at Camp Smith to provide the command’s regional perspective and discuss the implications and role of multi-lateral industrial partnerships for their mission.

    The establishment of PIPIR directly supports DoD’s implementation of the National Defense Industrial Strategy and Regional Sustainment Framework, which emphasize the importance of strengthening international defense production and sustainment relationships.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: First Greenhouse Gas Plumes Detected With NASA-Designed Instrument

    Source: NASA

    The imaging spectrometer aboard the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s Tanager-1 satellite identified methane and carbon dioxide plumes in the United States and internationally.
    Using data from an instrument designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the nonprofit Carbon Mapper has released the first methane and carbon dioxide detections from the Tanager-1 satellite. The detections highlight methane plumes in Pakistan and Texas, as well as a carbon dioxide plume in South Africa.
    The data contributes to Carbon Mapper’s goal to identify and measure greenhouse gas point-source emissions on a global scale and make that information accessible and actionable. 
    Enabled by Carbon Mapper and built by Planet Labs PBC, Tanager-1 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Aug. 16 and has been collecting data to verify that its imaging spectrometer, which is based on technology developed at NASA JPL, is functioning properly. Both Planet Labs PBC and JPL are members of the philanthropically funded Carbon Mapper Coalition.
    “The first greenhouse gas images from Tanager-1 are exciting and are a compelling sign of things to come,” said James Graf, director for Earth Science and Technology at JPL. “The satellite plays a crucial role in detecting and measuring methane and carbon dioxide emissions. The mission is a giant step forward in addressing greenhouse gas emissions.”
    The data used to produce the Pakistan image was collected over the city of Karachi on Sept. 19 and shows a roughly 2.5-mile-long (4-kilometer-long) methane plume emanating from a landfill. Carbon Mapper’s preliminary estimate of the source emissions rate is more than 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilograms) of methane released per hour.
    The image collected that same day over Kendal, South Africa, displays a nearly 2-mile-long (3-kilometer-long) carbon dioxide plume coming from a coal-fired power plant. Carbon Mapper’s preliminary estimate of the source emissions rate is roughly 1.3 million pounds (600,000 kilograms) of carbon dioxide per hour.
    The Texas image, collected on Sept. 24, reveals a methane plume to the south of the city of Midland, in the Permian Basin, one of the largest oilfields in the world. Carbon Mapper’s preliminary estimate of the source emissions rate is nearly 900 pounds (400 kilograms) of methane per hour.
    In the 1980s, JPL helped pioneer the development of imaging spectrometers with AVIRIS (Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer), and in 2022, NASA installed the imaging spectrometer EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation), developed at JPL, aboard the International Space Station.
    A descendant of those instruments, the imaging spectrometer aboard Tanager-1 can measure hundreds of wavelengths of light reflected from Earth’s surface. Each chemical compound on the ground and in the atmosphere reflects and absorbs different combinations of wavelengths, which give it a “spectral fingerprint” that researchers can identify. Using this approach, Tanager-1 will help researchers detect and measure emissions down to the facility level.
    Once in full operation, the spacecraft will scan about 116,000 square miles (300,000 square kilometers) of Earth’s surface per day. Methane and carbon dioxide measurements collected by Tanager-1 will be publicly available on the Carbon Mapper data portal.
    More About Carbon Mapper
    Carbon Mapper is a nonprofit organization focused on facilitating timely action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Its mission is to fill gaps in the emerging global ecosystem of methane and carbon dioxide monitoring systems by delivering data at facility scale that is precise, timely, and accessible to empower science-based decision making and action. The organization is leading the development of the Carbon Mapper constellation of satellites supported by a public-private partnership composed of Planet Labs PBC, JPL, the California Air Resources Board, Arizona State University, and RMI, with funding from High Tide Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, and other philanthropic donors.
    News Media Contacts
    Andrew Wang / Jane J. LeeJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov
    2024-136

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Biofuels and Batteries Gain From the System Dynamics Behind the Research

    Source: US National Renewable Energy Laboratory

    How Modeling Feedback Loops Informs Analysis and Decisions Across Decarbonization Technologies 

    NREL researchers Swaroop Atnoorkar (right), Shubhankar Upasani (center), and Guilherme Castelao look at data analysis. Photo by Agata Bogucka, NREL

    “When you look at renewable energy, not everything is linear,” said Swaroop Atnoorkar, an analyst at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). “Technologies often operate in complex systems with many moving parts in the background.”

    Atnoorkar relies on understanding the intricacies of clean energy systems in her research on biofuel economics and supply chains. Research like hers is a vital step in understanding how each decision made with any given technology could impact its evolution.

    But how do researchers examine the relationships between various factors within a given system, how they could change, and how those changes ultimately lead to different behaviors in the system over longer periods of time? And what exactly does this type of research inform?

    The answers to those questions may lie within a sophisticated modeling method known as system dynamics.

    Brief History of System Dynamics

    Since its creation in the 1950s by Jay W. Forrester, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, system dynamics has become a tried-and-true method for understanding the behaviors of complex systems in terms of stocks, flows, and the feedback loops that connect them.

    A simplified and generic example of a system dynamics model illustrates the complex interactions that could occur within a biofuel supply and production chain, featuring a feedstock, conversion pathway, and biofuel supply module. Graphic by Liz Craig, NREL

    Think of this relationship like planting crops such as corn.  The growth of corn in the field—a flow—is controlled by feedback processes including watering and nutrient availability. When the stock of corn is harvested, other feedback loops control the decomposition of residues and the return of nutrients to the soil.

    At the time Forrester developed it, system dynamics research was applied to corporate managerial questions at General Electric’s plants. Studying corporate managerial problems remained its primary application through the 1960s, until researchers broadened its uses to examine other larger-scale societal questions. Initially, these simulations of stock-flow feedback structures were conducted with command-line programs, visualized with hand-drawn diagrams, and showed how internal management decisions impacted the dynamics of inventory and human resource systems. Now, its applications include examining everything from public health to renewable energy systems.

    “Many of the early users of system dynamics knew its potential was far greater than its original business management use,” said Bobby Jeffers, acting laboratory program manager in NREL’s Energy Systems Integration directorate. “We are always trying to answer the question: ‘What are the feedback loops that really take hold of the system and cause it to go on some trajectory?’ We’re trying to encourage virtuous cycles that build on themselves while finding dampening cycles that allow things to grow sustainably.”

    Jeffers specializes in system dynamics research. He and other researchers at NREL, like Atnoorkar, now use computer modeling to explore the complex relationships between various elements of system structures.

    NREL program manager Bobby Jeffers leads a session during a workshop put together by the Energy Security and Resilience Program Office. Photo by Joe DelNero, NREL

    Snapshot of System Dynamics at NREL

    Atnoorkar is among the newer members of the research team working to find new ways to approach biofuel development at NREL.

    For the last decade, much of the work being done to gain insights into the biofuel market has utilized NREL’s Bioenergy Scenario Model (BSM), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). The System Dynamics Society Award-winning model tracks biofuel deployment and the effects of various influences on the biofuel market, such as changes in consumer demand, government policies, and land availability for feedstock. It dynamically models these elements as part of the U.S. domestic biofuels supply chain.

    “Factors like oil prices, biofuel demand, and the costs of resources are always fluctuating—sometimes unpredictably—and changes in each one creates different outcomes, especially at the national scale,” Atnoorkar said.

    NREL and BETO have historically used BSM to develop deployment strategies for advanced biofuels. Currently, it helps researchers like Atnoorkar develop insights into U.S. biofuels market growth and examine potential barriers to broader expansion of biofuel technologies. Among those technologies are those that create sustainable aviation fuels.

    System dynamics research at NREL helps inform development and policies surrounding sustainable aviation fuel that is used at airports across the United States. Photo from Getty Images

    “Many airports nowadays have sustainability goals, and they want to determine if those goals are feasible,” Atnoorkar said. “While the BSM does analysis for potential biofuels supply at the national scale, the analysis we do at the regional scale can also help ports and airports make decisions about their biofuel sourcing.”

    To that end, the system dynamics research being done at NREL has ultimately helped inform policy strategies surrounding low-carbon fuel standards. A major part of that research is the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge—a plan set forth by DOE, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Transportation, and other federal agencies that aims to spur the expansion of commercial SAF production technologies.

    Critically, the SAF Grand Challenge is targeting at least a 50% reduction in life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions and ramping up SAF supply to meet 100% of aviation fuel demand by 2050.

    “The BSM is now being used to investigate how we could reach those goals and what kinds of roadblocks may need to be overcome,” said Emily Newes, the NREL Strategic Energy Analysis Center’s Integrated Modeling and Economic Analysis Group manager.

    NREL Integrated Modeling and Economic Analysis Group Manager Emily Newes leads the teams studying supply chain and policy questions for aviation and maritime biofuels. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL

    Newes works extensively with the system dynamics models informing potential biofuel deployment, specifically the SAF Grand Challenge and biofuels for maritime applications. These models are answering questions about how changes in everything from the resources needed to build refineries to the different types of potential feedstocks ultimately affect the policies and decisions being made.

    “It helps inform us about what barriers there could be so that we can help find solutions—either through policy or the industry—to overcome them,” Newes said.

    System dynamics models are also informing NREL’s research in battery energy storage. A key modeling framework used in this space is the Lithium-Ion Battery Resource Assessment, or LIBRA, model. LIBRA is vital in NREL’s work in understanding the supply chain of lithium-ion batteries, which have become a key component to a future with more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road.

    “When we’re talking about the needs for manufacturing in this country and globally, you can’t just look at one technology at a time,” NREL’s supply chain analytics lead Maggie Mann said. “When we talk about batteries, we’re looking at how much cobalt, nickel, and lithium are needed to manufacture them, as well as the demand for those same materials for other technologies.”

    NREL’s system dynamics modeling examines supply chains for raw materials like the lithium used in electric vehicle batteries. Photo from Getty Images

    Mann was on the team that pioneered and developed the LIBRA model. It gives users the means to examine the long-term effects of changes in the battery supply chain for multiple EV battery types, consumer electronics, and utility-scale storage systems.

    Through examining elements such as the costs, raw materials, and changing policies at both the domestic and international scales, LIBRA is providing invaluable insights into the U.S. battery recycling supply chain. Those insights then inform manufacturing and industry practices as well as policy decisions in the clean energy sector.

    Along with the LIBRA model, supply chain researchers at NREL, like Mann, are also developing the Recursive Integrated Networks for Growth (RING) model, which supports NREL’s Mapping, Modeling, and Analysis Consortium (MMAC). This model, designed specifically for DOE’s Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) office, calculates how each output can be cycled back into the supply chain itself. What does that mean?  

    “Say you want to look at how many batteries are manufactured, then go through their life, hit the end of their life, and you want to recycle them, so the raw materials and battery components go back into manufacturing,” Mann said. “System dynamics can allow for those types of recursive calculations and help us look out 10 to 12 years to see the total demand for manufactured batteries minus the raw materials that are recycled.”

    Both the RING and LIBRA models help researchers answer the critical question of “How much could recycling batteries affect the amount of new material we need to produce?” Each model helps inform the decisions behind battery production and policies through 2050 and quantify the impact that recycling can have on decreasing the United States’ dependence on foreign resources.

    NREL Decision Support Analysis Group Manager Maggie Mann presents about her research to a group at the Coordinating Research Council’s Sustainable Mobility Workshop. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL

    How Is System Dynamics Evolving at NREL?

    Much of the research Atnoorkar, Jeffers, Mann, Newes, and others do in supply chains is centered around system dynamics. Because of their broad lenses, models like BSM, LIBRA, and RING are often used to develop strategies for new technology deployment.

    In the case of BSM, bioenergy’s large, comprehensive nature makes it tougher to focus on smaller-scale system dynamics. That is why the team is working to modify it for limited-case, regional scenarios, using a new BETO-funded model called the Regional Bio-Economy Model (RBEM).

    “The main structure is the same,” Atnoorkar said. “But with RBEM, we are able to focus on biorefinery investment decisions in specific regions, such as marine biofuel production in coastal areas or aviation biofuel production in the immediate area around a major airport.”

    RBEM will enable researchers to examine the logic behind the feedback loops in those smaller systems. The team aims to publicly release this model in the next year or two.

    And while Atnoorkar and Newes are helping with the development of RBEM, Jeffers says NREL could look to system dynamics as a unique lens to broaden the scope of NREL’s research into a low-carbon energy system future.

    “I think we lead the world in showing what a decarbonized energy system could look like,” Jeffers said. “But system dynamics can help us realize this future by giving us a means to think about all the complex elements of economic, social, and environmental systems that influence the pathway to affordable, resilient, and secure decarbonization.”

    Explore NREL’s bioenergy, energy analysis, and grid modernization research.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: Cloudera Expands Industry-Leading Enterprise AI Ecosystem with New Partners

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    New partners Anthropic, Google Cloud, and Snowflake join Cloudera’s AI Ecosystem at EVOLVE24 New York event

    Ecosystem of technology providers makes it easier, more economical, and safer for enterprises to maximize the value of AI initiatives

    SANTA CLARA, Calif. and NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cloudera, a hybrid platform for data, analytics, and AI, today announced the expansion of its Enterprise AI Ecosystem during its annual data and AI conference, EVOLVE24 New York. This initiative brings together a diverse group of industry-leading AI providers to deliver comprehensive, end-to-end AI solutions for customers that help to maximize the value of AI.

    Large enterprises have special requirements for running AI applications at scale, including:

    • Demonstrating business value that justifies the total cost of ownership within a reasonable timeframe.
    • Adhering to strict security and privacy standards to protect sensitive data and maintain compliance.
    • Maintaining the flexibility to deploy a diverse range of models from a broad selection of vendors in the optimal environment for each use case – where the supporting data often resides.

    At last year’s EVOLVE conference, Cloudera launched the Enterprise AI Ecosystem, with these founding members:

    • NVIDIA who provides full-stack accelerated computing for the development and deployment of AI workloads both in private and public clouds. Cloudera’s recent announcement highlighted the expansion of its Cloudera’s AI Inference Service through the integration of NVIDIA NIM, part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform, a set of easy-to-use microservices designed for secure, reliable deployment of high-performance AI model inferencing across clouds, data centers and workstations.
    • Amazon Web Services (AWS) with Amazon Bedrock, which allows customers to build and scale generative AI applications with a single API.
    • Pinecone for its leading vector database, which underpins the most common technical AI use cases: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and semantic search.

    Over the last year, the Enterprise AI Ecosystem has generated significant inbound interest and a steady flow of requests for Cloudera to build on its existing AI partners and establish new ones. Now Cloudera is proud to introduce its newest set of AI Ecosystem partners at EVOLVE24 New York. They are:

    • Google Cloud: Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Model Garden provides a centralized hub for discovering, customizing, and deploying a diverse range of models. This includes a selection of over 150 first-party, open, and third-party foundation models, including Google’s Gemini, Chirp, Imagen, and more. Google Cloud’s infrastructure also supports Cloudera’s DataHub platform, which serves as the data foundation for building AI applications.

      Additionally, for the first ecosystem collaboration, Cloudera released an Accelerator for Machine Learning Project (AMP) entitled “Summarization with Gemini from Vertex AI” to help customers quickly deploy a summarization use case that takes advantage of the cost effectiveness and performance of Gemini Pro Models accessed from the Vertex AI Model Garden via API.

    • Anthropic: Anthropic’s Claude large language models (LLMs) are ideal for code generation, vision analysis, data insight and text generation use cases. Anthropic’s family of Claude models will allow Cloudera users to balance performance and cost, while their commitment to AI safety research helps to ensure reliable, unbiased, and non-harmful outputs. Cloudera is releasing an AMP entitled “Image Analysis with Anthropic’s Claude LLM” that will significantly reduce the time to develop a production image analysis application. Cloudera is also making Claude its default foundational model for its Cloudera AI Coding Co-pilot.
    • Snowflake: Cloudera and Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, are building on their strategic collaboration, also announced at EVOLVE24, with Snowflake’s Arctic Embed models, which excel at SQL generation and offer strong cost-performance ratios. Snowflake’s Iceberg-enabled platform provides interoperability with Cloudera, facilitating the sharing of data to feed AI use cases. Cloudera is actively working on product integrations with Snowflake, which can be read about here.

    “We pioneered the Enterprise AI Ecosystem to cater to the complex and continually evolving enterprise-grade security, privacy, authorization, and LLM demands of major organizations; this involves a complete suite of solutions across accelerated compute, semantic querying, vector embeddings, multi-modal agents, RAG applications, fine-tuning, and frontier models,” stated Abhas Ricky, Chief Strategy Officer at Cloudera. “AI researchers and practitioners have since deployed 400+ cutting-edge AI accelerators (AMPs) and numerous agentic applications supporting high-value use cases such as voice of customer analysis, invoice reconciliation, and underwriting automation. Together we are delivering a fully integrated Enterprise AI platform, built on leading models and knowledge bases, to further production-ready high fidelity solutions delivered with experts by your side.”

    “OCBC has delivered dozens of Gen AI applications into production leveraging Cloudera AI and technologies from The Enterprise AI Ecosystem members,” said Adrien Chenailler, Head of Data Science and AI at OCBC Bank. “Our call center transcription application transcribes thousands of hours of calls daily and has led to a significant reduction in average call handling time. We have reduced the investment in research time of our Relationship Managers with GenAI. We’re delighted that Cloudera continues to expand their Enterprise AI Ecosystem because it delivers proven solution architectures that get us from prototype to production faster.”

    “Our partnership with Cloudera helps organizations extract hidden value in their enterprise data, including complex sources like images,” said Kate Jensen, Head of Growth and Revenue at Anthropic. “The new Image Analysis capability turns visual data from images, charts or graphics into actionable insights, while Claude as the default model for Cloudera AI Coding Assistant, and potential other use cases such as Text to SQL and NLP Co-pilots provides customers with a powerful AI assistant that boosts productivity and uncovers new opportunities in their data. Together, we’re transforming raw data into actionable intelligence, empowering businesses to make smarter decisions faster.”

    “We are thrilled to work with Cloudera to integrate Snowflake’s Arctic Embed models into Cloudera AI Inference powered by NVIDIA’s NIM,” said Baris Gultekin, Head of AI, Snowflake. “This collaboration will empower our joint customers to unlock the full potential of generative AI at scale, driving faster insights, enhanced decision-making, and transformative business outcomes. Together, Snowflake and Cloudera are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with modern data platforms, providing businesses with the agility and intelligence they need to stay ahead in an increasingly AI-driven world.”

    Cloudera’s existing group of Enterprise AI Ecosystem partners, including NVIDIA and AWS, will also be in the spotlight at EVOLVE24 New York, happening today, October 10.

    Click here to learn more about how Cloudera and its partner ecosystem are making it easier, more economical, and safer for enterprises to maximize the value they get from AI.

    About Cloudera

    Cloudera is a hybrid platform for data, analytics, and AI. With 100x more data under management than other cloud-only vendors, Cloudera empowers global enterprises to transform data of all types, on any public or private cloud, into valuable, trusted insights. Our open data lakehouse delivers scalable and secure data management with portable cloud-native analytics, enabling customers to bring GenAI models to their data while maintaining privacy and ensuring responsible, reliable AI deployments. The world’s largest brands in financial services, insurance, media, manufacturing, and government rely on Cloudera to use their data to solve what was impossible—today and in the future.

    To learn more, visit Cloudera.com and follow us on LinkedIn and X. Cloudera and associated marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cloudera, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

    Contact
    Jess Hohn-Cabana
    cloudera@v2comms.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Financial News: The autumn cycle of webinars “Fintrek” for students and teachers will begin on October 23

    MILES AXLE Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Central Bank of Russia –

    In the new season, participants will have 5 webinars with representatives of the Bank of Russia and financial market experts. “Fintrek” is a unique opportunity to learn first-hand why inflation occurs, what generative artificial intelligence is, who are drops and what should a person do who is involved in droppering. They will also tell you where to start your career path and how to achieve success. The topics were selected taking into account the feedback from participants of the last season of “Fintrek”.

    Alexander Auzan, Dean of the Faculty of Economics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, speaker of the 2023 Fintrek fall season, notes: “The financial market is a puzzle of a thousand pieces that can only be assembled by understanding how these pieces are interconnected. The Fintrek webinar series will help students discover these connections with the help of experts who see every detail from the inside, find common ground between them, and assemble them into a single picture.”

    Classes will be held on Wednesdays at 10:00 Moscow time. It is no longer necessary to adjust your plans to the webinar schedule – the recordings will be posted on the Fintrek platform, and you can watch them at any convenient time. You only need to register onproject website.

    Every week, registered participants will be given away a prize of branded merch.

    Upon completion of the classes, students will be able to receive a personal certificate, which will be useful for a personal portfolio. To do this, you need to pass the entrance test until October 23 inclusive, watch all the webinars and successfully pass the final test.

    The autumn season will last until November 20. All information will be posted in the project community VKontakteAndtelegram channelHere you can also send a question to the speakers and receive an answer.

    Students from 1,500 universities from 89 regions of Russia took part in the last season of Fintrek, which took place in the spring of 2024. The most popular topics were “Investment Trends 2024”, “Loans and Installments”.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    http://vvv.kbr.ru/press/event/?id=21072

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Child care program closed over safety concerns

    Source: Government of Canada regional news

    As a result of a number of non-compliances involving unsupervised children, Willowbrae Academy West Point Centre, a child-care program in Edmonton, was suspended and placed on a probationary licence with a term that expired on Oct. 9. Since the probationary license was issued, Child Care Licensing has worked with the program through enhanced monitoring to support them in returning to compliance.

    Due to ongoing concerns and unaddressed non-compliances involving unsupervised children, Willowbrae Academy’s suspended licence was not reinstated. The closure of this program affects about 187 children.

    Families affected by the closure of the program were notified in person on Oct. 9. Families not informed in person will be notified by email as soon as the contact information is provided by the child-care program. In addition, a notice confirming closure of the program, which describes the reason for closure, has been posted on the door of the facility.

    Jobs, Economy and Trade will continue to provide support, information and assistance to families looking for alternative child-care options.

    Anyone with concerns about a child-care program in their community or needing to report an incident is encouraged to call Child Care Connect toll-free at 1-844-644-5165.

    Information on child-care program closures can be found on the Finding and Choosing Child Care webpage (link below).

    Quick facts

    • Jobs, Economy and Trade monitors licensed child-care programs across the province and takes appropriate actions to ensure safety and compliance with the Early Learning and Child Care Act and the Early Learning and Child Care Regulation.
    • A licence holder who is subject to a decision respecting their licence may request, within 30 days of the decision, an administrative review, alternative dispute resolution or an appeal to bring forward concerns regarding a licencing decision, up to and including cancellation.
    • Alternative child-care options can be found online through the Child Care Lookup Tool.

    Related information

    • Child Care Lookup Tool
    • Finding and Choosing Child Care
    • Early Learning and Child Care Act
    • Child Care licensing – How to appeal

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Cajun Navy’ volunteers who participate in search-and-rescue operations after hurricanes are forming long-lasting organizations

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kyle Breen, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M International University

    Volunteers with Savage Freedoms Relief Operation coordinates aid in Swannanoa, on Oct. 7, 2024, after Hurricane Helene severely damaged the North Carolina town. Allison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images

    The volunteers who take part in search-and-rescue operations and then support disaster survivors belong to organizations that have become more formal and established over the past decade. That’s what we found after spending more than four years volunteering alongside eight of these groups to better understand their role and the motivations of the people who participate in these efforts.

    We did this research as part of a larger team of sociologists, an urban planning scholar and emergency management specialists. All of us worked alongside civilian volunteer search-and-rescue groups from Louisiana and Texas between 2017 and 2022 during and after many hurricanes, including Harvey and Laura, the winter storm known as Uri and other major disasters.

    While we volunteered with these organizations, we observed them in action and interviewed their leaders and volunteers to learn why they were making the time and taking personal risks to save others. Many cited their personal values, expressed their need to belong to a group, and said it had helped them find a sense of purpose. Others shared that they were motivated by their personal circumstances and experiences or feelings of guilt, or that this kind of volunteering gave them a deep sense of satisfaction.

    “I lost everything I owned in Katrina. They deemed my family’s property uninhabitable,” said a boater we’ll call Dylan to protect his anonymity. “I can’t sit here after knowing what it is to lose everything.”

    Some volunteers said that one reason why they have repeatedly done this work is to counter stereotypes about people who engage in these efforts. When he’s heard people say, “Oh you’re just out there, doing it for the spotlight,” said Roger, he told us he wants to respond by saying, “Yeah, dude. If you flood, call me, I’ll come get you.”

    While the organizations we researched were based in Louisiana and Texas, the volunteers who participate in these efforts come from across the U.S. and, in some cases, other countries. One volunteer we met was from the United Kingdom.

    After Hurricane Helene destroyed roads in western North Carolina, rescue squads delivered aid by donkey and helicopter.

    Why it matters

    Since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, volunteers have been participating in search-and-rescue efforts after big disasters – especially in that region. But these volunteers come from all over.

    Many of these groups are known as “Cajun Navy” organizations. Whether or not these organizations use the Cajun Navy branding in their names they share, a common mission of helping others in emergencies.

    These volunteers aren’t just operating boats and helicopters. Others serve as dispatchers, handle logistics, and run social media operations.

    Over time, some of the organizations have begun to team up with local emergency responders, signing memorandums of understanding with them. They partner with government agencies while assisting in disaster response and relief efforts, but they primarily operate with autonomy and are able to travel where they perceive the need is greatest.

    This kind of group tends to dissolve after a disaster is over, instead of evolving into an established nonprofit.

    But many of the eight groups we studied have become nonprofits or are in the process of doing so.

    How we do our work

    We were able to do this research by becoming volunteers ourselves. We took part in dispatch operations on the ground and remotely, and we supported logistics planning. We also observed and, in some cases, participated in search-and-rescue training and operations in the water and on land.

    The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

    Kyle Breen received funding from the National Science Foundation for this research. He currently holds funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for other research projects.

    J. Carlee Purdum received funding from The National Science Foundation for this research and for other ongoing projects.

    – ref. ‘Cajun Navy’ volunteers who participate in search-and-rescue operations after hurricanes are forming long-lasting organizations – https://theconversation.com/cajun-navy-volunteers-who-participate-in-search-and-rescue-operations-after-hurricanes-are-forming-long-lasting-organizations-240769

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Federal Disaster Assistance for Connecticut Tops $6 Million

    Source: US Federal Emergency Management Agency

    Headline: Federal Disaster Assistance for Connecticut Tops $6 Million

    Federal Disaster Assistance for Connecticut Tops $6 Million

    Two weeks after President Joseph R. Biden declared a major disaster for the state of Connecticut following the August 18-19, 2024 severe storm, flooding, landslides and mudslides, more than $6 million in federal assistance has been provided by FEMA and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to support disaster recovery. 

    Homeowners and renters whose homes and property were damaged by the storm, and who still need to apply for federal assistance, have until November 19, 2024, to do so.

    As of October 8, Connecticut’s recovery assistance includes:

    • More than $5 million in FEMA’s Individual and Households Program (IHP) grants awarded to eligible homeowners and renters in three Connecticut counties. These grants help pay for uninsured and underinsured losses and storm-related damage, including:
      • More than $3.9 million in FEMA housing grants to help pay for home repair, home replacement and rental assistance for temporary housing.
      • More than $1.1 million in Other Needs Assistance grants to help pay for personal property replacement and other serious storm-related needs—such as moving and storage fees, transportation, childcare, and medical and dental expenses.
      • More than $1 million in long-term, low-interest disaster loans has been approved by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) for homeowners and renters to help repair, rebuild or replace disaster-damaged physical property and to cover economic injury for businesses of all sizes and non-profit organizations.

    The three Connecticut counties designated for FEMA assistance in this disaster are: Fairfield, Litchfield, and New Haven. 

    FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance (DSA) teams have been visiting storm-affected neighborhoods in the designated counties to help residents apply for FEMA assistance, identify and address immediate needs, and make referrals to other local, state and voluntary agencies for additional support. To date, DSA personnel have visited more than 8,803 households and 697 businesses to connect survivors with assistance.

    In addition to FEMA’s $5 Million in grants and SBA’s $1 Million in loans, the National Flood Insurance Program has also helped survivors whose homes were affected by the disaster, paying more than $2.4 million in claims to policy holders for flood damage related to the storm.

    FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers (DRCs) have been opened in Fairfield and New Haven counties to provide one-on-one support to survivors. At the centers, recovery specialists from FEMA and the U.S. Small Business Administration provide information on available services, explain assistance programs, and help survivors complete or check the status of their applications for assistance. A FEMA Hazard Mitigation Community Education Outreach Specialist will also be on site to assist survivors in preparing for future incidents. No appointment is necessary to visit a Disaster Recovery Center. Walk-ins are welcome.

    The DRC in Fairfield County is located at: 

    Our Lady of Fatima Church

    229 Danbury Road 

    Wilton, CT 06897 

    The DRC in New Haven County is located at: 

    Southbury Town Hall

    501 Main Street S

    Southbury, CT 06488 

    Operating Hours: 

    Monday – Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. 

    Saturday: 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

    Sunday: 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 

    Note: Open on the holiday – Monday, October 14

    To apply for FEMA assistance without visiting a center, go online to DisasterAssistance.gov, download the FEMA mobile app or call the FEMA Helpline at 1-800-621-3362. If you use a relay service such as video relay service, captioned telephone service or others, give FEMA your number for that service when you apply.

    adrien.urbani

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA’s Hubble, New Horizons Team Up for a Simultaneous Look at Uranus

    Source: NASA

    6 min read

    Download this image

    NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very different viewpoints. The results inform future plans to study like types of planets around other stars.

    Astronomers used Uranus as a proxy for similar planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets, comparing high-resolution images from Hubble to the more-distant view from New Horizons. This combined perspective will help scientists learn more about what to expect while imaging planets around other stars with future telescopes.

    “While we expected Uranus to appear differently in each filter of the observations, we found that Uranus was actually dimmer than predicted in the New Horizons data taken from a different viewpoint,” said lead author Samantha Hasler of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and New Horizons science team collaborator.

    In this image, two three-dimensional shapes (top) of Uranus are compared to the actual views of the planet from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (bottom left) and NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft (bottom right). Comparing high-resolution images from Hubble to the smaller view from New Horizons offers a combined perspective that will help researchers learn more about what to expect while imaging planets around other stars with future observatories.
    NASA, ESA, STScI, Samantha Hasler (MIT), Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), New Horizons Planetary Science Theme Team; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

    Download this image

    Direct imaging of exoplanets is a key technique for learning about their potential habitability, and offers new clues to the origin and formation of our own solar system. Astronomers use both direct imaging and spectroscopy to collect light from the observed planet and compare its brightness at different wavelengths. However, imaging exoplanets is a notoriously difficult process because they’re so far away. Their images are mere pinpoints and so are not as detailed as the close-up views that we have of worlds orbiting our Sun. Researchers can also only directly image exoplanets at “partial phases,” when only a portion of the planet is illuminated by their star as seen from Earth.

    Uranus was an ideal target as a test for understanding future distant observations of exoplanets by other telescopes for a few reasons. First, many known exoplanets are also gas giants similar in nature. Also, at the time of the observations, New Horizons was on the far side of Uranus, 6.5 billion miles away, allowing its twilight crescent to be studied—something that cannot be done from Earth. At that distance, the New Horizons view of the planet was just several pixels in its color camera, called the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera.

    On the other hand, Hubble, with its high resolution, and in its low-Earth orbit 1.7 billion miles away from Uranus, was able to see atmospheric features such as clouds and storms on the day side of the gaseous world.

    “Uranus appears as just a small dot on the New Horizons observations, similar to the dots seen of directly-imaged exoplanets from observatories like Webb or ground-based observatories,” added Hasler. “Hubble provides context for what the atmosphere is doing when it was observed with New Horizons.”

    The gas giant planets in our solar system have dynamic and variable atmospheres with changing cloud cover. How common is this among exoplanets? By knowing the details of what the clouds on Uranus looked like from Hubble, researchers are able to verify what is interpreted from the New Horizons data. In the case of Uranus, both Hubble and New Horizons saw that the brightness did not vary as the planet rotated, which indicates that the cloud features were not changing with the planet’s rotation.

    However, the importance of the detection by New Horizons has to do with how the planet reflects light at a different phase than what Hubble, or other observatories on or near Earth, can see. New Horizons showed that exoplanets may be dimmer than predicted at partial and high phase angles, and that the atmosphere reflects light differently at partial phase.

    NASA has two major upcoming observatories in the works to advance studies of exoplanet atmospheres and potential habitability.

    “These landmark New Horizons studies of Uranus from a vantage point unobservable by any other means add to the mission’s treasure trove of new scientific knowledge, and have, like many other datasets obtained in the mission, yielded surprising new insights into the worlds of our solar system,” added New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute.

    This illustration shows NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft’s view of our solar system from deep in the Kuiper Belt. New Horizons is currently at an estimated distance of more than 5 billion miles from Earth. The probe was 6.5 billion miles away from Uranus when it recently observed the planet. In this study, researchers used the gas giant as an exoplanet proxy, comparing high-resolution images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to the smaller view from New Horizons to learn more about what to expect while imaging planets around other stars.
    NASA, ESA, Christian Nieves (STScI), Ralf Crawford (STScI), Greg Bacon (STScI)

    Download this image

    NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch by 2027, will use a coronagraph to block out a star’s light to directly see gas giant exoplanets. NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory, in an early planning phase, will be the first telescope designed specifically to search for atmospheric biosignatures on Earth-sized, rocky planets orbiting other stars.

    “Studying how known benchmarks like Uranus appear in distant imaging can help us have more robust expectations when preparing for these future missions,” concluded Hasler. “And that will be critical to our success.”

    Launched in January 2006, New Horizons made the historic flyby of Pluto and its moons in July 2015, before giving humankind its first close-up look at one of these planetary building block and Kuiper Belt object, Arrokoth, in January 2019. New Horizons is now in its second extended mission, studying distant Kuiper Belt objects, characterizing the outer heliosphere of the Sun, and making important astrophysical observations from its unmatched vantage point in distant regions of the solar system.

    The Uranus results are being presented this week at the 56th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences, in Boise, Idaho.

    The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

    The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio and Boulder, Colorado, directs the mission via Principal Investigator Alan Stern and leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

    Media Contacts:

    Claire AndreoliNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MDclaire.andreoli@nasa.gov

    Hannah Braun, Ray VillardSpace Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD

    Science Contacts:

    Samantha HaslerMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: Employers Holdings, Inc. Appoints Michael Pedraja as its Next CFO

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    RENO, Nev., Oct. 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Employers Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: EIG), a leading provider of workers’ compensation insurance, is pleased to announce that Michael Pedraja will join the company as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (Designate), effective February 3, 2025. He will assume the role of Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer effective on or about March 31, 2025.

    Mr. Pedraja succeeds outgoing Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Michael Paquette, who will retire in March 2025.

    Mr. Pedraja has more than 30-years of experience as a corporate financial services leader in various insurance-related roles.

    “With a proven track record in financial leadership and a deep understanding of the insurance industry, Michael will be instrumental in driving our strategic goals, optimizing our financial operations, and helping to shape the next phase of the Company’s transformation,” said Katherine Antonello, President and Chief Executive Officer of Employers Holdings, Inc.

    As Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Pedraja will serve as a member of Employers Holdings’ executive leadership team and will be charged with leading the financial and investor relations functions of the business.

    Most recently, he served as Group Chief Financial Officer for Ariel Re Services, a leading reinsurance underwriter. His professional career spans roles from Senior Vice President and Treasurer of The Allstate Corporation to insurance-focused Investment Banker at Aon Securities, Barclays and Credit Suisse. Mr. Pedraja received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from DePaul University.

    “The team has a done a wonderful job in solidifying EMPLOYERS as America’s small business insurance specialist,” said Mr. Pedraja. “It is an honor to partner with Kathy and the leadership team to further that position while profitably growing the business and driving shareholder value.”

    About EMPLOYERS

    Employers Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: EIG), is a holding company with subsidiaries that are specialty providers of workers’ compensation insurance and services (collectively “EMPLOYERS®”) focused on small and mid-sized businesses engaged in low-to-medium hazard industries. EMPLOYERS leverages over a century of experience to deliver comprehensive coverage solutions that meet the unique needs of its customers. Drawing from its long history and extensive knowledge, EMPLOYERS empowers businesses by protecting their most valuable asset – their employees – through exceptional claims management, loss control, and risk management services, creating safer work environments.

    EMPLOYERS is also proud to offer Cerity®, which is focused on providing digital-first, direct-to-consumer workers’ compensation insurance solutions with fast, and affordable coverage options through a user-friendly online platform.

    EMPLOYERS operates throughout the United States, apart from four states that are served exclusively by their state funds. Insurance is offered through Employers Insurance Company of Nevada, Employers Compensation Insurance Company, Employers Preferred Insurance Company, Employers Assurance Company, and Cerity Insurance Company, all rated A – (Excellent) by A.M. Best. Not all companies do business in all jurisdictions. EIG Services, Inc., and Cerity Services, Inc., are subsidiaries of Employers Holdings, Inc. EMPLOYERS® is a registered trademark of EIG Services, Inc., and Cerity® is a registered trademark of Cerity Services, Inc. For more information, please visit http://www.employers.com and http://www.cerity.com.

    Forward-Looking Statements

    In this press release, the Company and its management discuss and make statements based on currently available information regarding their intentions, beliefs, current expectations, and projections of, among other things, the Company’s future performance, economic or market conditions, including current levels of inflation, changes in interest rates, labor market expectations, catastrophic events or geo-political conditions, legislative or regulatory actions or court decisions, business growth, retention rates, loss costs, claim trends and the impact of key business initiatives, future technologies and planned investments. Certain of these statements may constitute “forward-looking” statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts and are often identified by words such as “may,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “target,” “project,” “intend,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “pro forma,” “seek,” “likely,” or “continue,” or other comparable terminology and their negatives. The Company and its management caution investors that such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Risks and uncertainties are inherent in the Company’s future performance. Factors that could cause the Company’s actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements include, among other things, those discussed or identified from time to time in the Company’s public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the risks detailed in the Company’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and the Company’s Annual Reports on Form 10-K. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

    Media Contact:

    Kimberly Eye
    Vice President, Marketing & Communications
    keye@employers.com

    Investor Relations Contact:
    Michael Paquette
    Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
    mpaquette@employers.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Garamendi Introduces Bill to Expand Eligibility for Early Education

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman John Garamendi – Representing California’s 3rd Congressional District

    WASHINGTON, DC—In recognition of Head Start Awareness Month, U.S. Representative John Garamendi (D-CA-08) recently introduced legislation to expand eligibility for Head Start, the country’s largest federal early education program. Head Start’s current eligibility is primarily tied to the federal poverty line, with limited categorical exceptions. This has left behind many families in California who do not fall below the federal poverty line, but experience poverty due to the disproportionately high cost of living.

    The “Expanding Head Start Eligibility Act of 2024” (H.R.9825) would address this gap by amending the Head Start Act to include families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and federal housing assistance as eligible. Specifically, this legislation would expand categorical eligibility to WIC and federal housing assistance. It would also codify existing categorical eligibility to Head Start for TANF, SSI, and, most recently, SNAP, to prevent a future administration from revoking this inclusion.

    “While the right-wing extremists behind Project 2025 threaten to eliminate Head Start entirely, I am working alongside Head Start administrators to expand access to this critical early education program,” said Garamendi. “By expanding eligibility for Head Start, this legislation ensures that our most vulnerable children and families are no longer left behind in early education. Every child living in poverty should have the opportunity learn and thrive, and this legislation brings us closer to realizing that goal.”

    “Head Start California is proud to support the Expanding Head Start Eligibility Act of 2024,” said Melanee Cottrill, Executive Director of Head Start California. “Many families are eligible for a myriad of other Federal assistance programs but are left out of Head Start. This bill would level the playing field by allowing more of our most vulnerable children and families to apply for Head Start services. It would also stabilize enrollment in parts of California that are experiencing under-enrollment due to demographic shifts and the State’s implementation of universal pre-kindergarten for four-year-olds. We appreciate that this bill would maintain local control of enrollment, allowing individual programs to continue determining which eligible children and families the program is most suited to serve.”

    “E Center is proud to support the Head Start Eligibility Act of 2024.  E Center firmly believes that families that qualify for and rely on supplemental food and housing programs should qualify for Head Start Services.  This bill recognizes that families in need of these basic necessities are also in need of quality childcare services providing support to families as they strive towards self-sufficiency.  Childcare is an essential need for low income families as they work towards stability,” said E Center.

    Since its inception in 1965, the federally funded Head Start program has provided over 39 million children from low-income families with high-quality early education and the skills they need to succeed in school and beyond. Additionally, these locally-run programs partner with families and communities to provide children and their families with health and nutrition services. Nationwide, Head Start serves over 800,000 children annually, including nearly 95,000 in California.

    Endorsed by:  Head Start California, NEA, AFT, AASA, California County Superintendents, National Center on Housing and Child Welfare, Association of Educational Service Agencies, Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP, Oregon Head Start Association

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the ‘social cost of carbon’ measurement can hide economic inequalities and mask climate suffering

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Majid Hashemi, Adjunct assistant professor, Economics Department, Queen’s University, Ontario

    The social cost of carbon (SCC) is an essential tool for climate decision-making around the world. SCC is essentially a large cost-benefit calculation that helps policymakers compare the benefits of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the society-wide costs of continued use.

    The “right” SCC has long been an open debate, with several studies attempting to estimate it using a range of methods. In fact, there are more than 323 studies that provide varying SCC estimates in one form or another.

    Most studies focus on the global level working with aggregate SCC values from countries around the world. This global value, however, hides an important nuance. When one looks at individual SCC values at the country level a clear picture emerges. Poorer countries have proportionally lower SCCs than richer ones.



    Read more:
    Don’t applaud the COP28 climate summit’s loss and damage fund deal just yet – here’s what’s missing

    To put this in context, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends a global social cost of carbon at US$208 per ton of CO2 for 2024 (average of recent studies).

    The Government of Canada uses the same EPA value after exchange rate. When this global estimate (i.e., the aggregate damages to the entire planet) is broken down to country-specific estimates (i.e., the damages to a particular country), it reveals SCCs of less than US$1 for poor countries.

    Does this imply that poorer countries bear lower costs due to climate change impacts? Not at all, in fact the reality is quite the opposite. Studies reveal that the damages associated with climate change are proportionally higher for lower-income countries. These damages are often hidden in SCC values in ways that reveal much about the inequalities of our modern world.

    Why is the social cost of carbon lower?

    The answer is the modelling approach.

    To estimate the social cost of carbon, a complicated model integrates multidisciplinary scientific evidence into a single framework to analyze climate change damages. These models incorporate “damage functions” that account for various pathways through which climate change impacts societies.

    Pathways include some of the things that we can measure, such as reduced agricultural productivity, increased energy expenditures for space heating and cooling, flood-related property damages and premature death due to extreme temperatures and weather events.

    Despite the comprehensive nature of these climate damage models, a critical disparity remains. The monetary value of damages is significantly smaller in poorer countries than in richer ones. Again, this does not mean the impacts are less severe; instead, it reflects the lower overall economic value of losses in these regions because of their lower overall income levels.

    One of the three studies referenced by the U.S. EPA’s guidance on SCC finds climate-change-related agriculture damages and premature deaths account for 45 per cent and 49 per cent of the total global damages, respectively. In poorer countries these percentages are likely much lower given both a comparatively undervalued agricultural sector and lower ability to pay for life saving equipment.

    Simply put, extreme global economic inequality hides the very real losses and damages experienced by many in poorer countries. This is because the comparative wealth gap between them and richer countries results in a lower relative SCC value.

    What does this mean?

    To a national policymaker, an almost zero SCC means that climate change-related projects will likely compete neck-and-neck with basic-needs projects (e.g., addressing malnutrition). From the global perspective, this leaves poorer countries with little incentive to allocate resources to the fight against climate change. Poor countries may even see their investments in such efforts as nothing more than donations to richer countries.

    Indeed, from such a simple SCC-based perspective any CO2 emissions reduction step a poorer country takes could result in a higher SCC value in richer countries — a value which they are likely to receive very little of. What can be done to address this imbalance?



    Read more:
    How COP28 failed the world’s small islands

    One proposed solution has been to use the differences in SCC values between poorer and richer countries to inform international climate negotiations on the implied historical responsibility and liability, commonly known as the loss and damage funds.

    Additionally, international development assistance to climate adaptation funds should be more equitably aligned with SCC imbalances to ensure that richer countries — which will benefit more from emission reduction efforts — help bear the burden in supporting poorer countries’ adaptation and mitigation efforts.

    While methods for estimating SCC values have become more sophisticated in recent years, addressing the global-versus-country-specific imbalance requires a combination of financial transfers and practical co-operation between richer and poorer nations. This will help ensure that the costs and benefits of global CO2 emissions reductions are shared more equally, accounting for both ethical and economic considerations.

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

    – ref. How the ‘social cost of carbon’ measurement can hide economic inequalities and mask climate suffering – https://theconversation.com/how-the-social-cost-of-carbon-measurement-can-hide-economic-inequalities-and-mask-climate-suffering-233041

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Hurricane Milton: Flooded industrial sites and toxic chemical releases are a silent, growing threat

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By James R. Elliott, Professor of Sociology, Rice University

    An industrial storage tank overturned by Hurricane Helene in Asheville, N.C., shows the power of fast-moving floodwater. Sean Rayford/Getty Images

    Hundreds of industrial facilities with toxic pollutants are in Hurricane Milton’s path as it heads toward Florida, less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded communities across the Southeast.

    Milton, expected to make landfall as a major hurricane late on Oct. 9, is bearing down on boat and spa factories along Florida’s west-central coast, along with the rubber, plastics and fiberglass manufacturers that supply them. Many of these facilities use tens of thousands of registered contaminants each year, including toluene, styrene and other chemicals known to have adverse effects on the central nervous system with prolonged exposure.

    Farther inland, hundreds more manufacturers that use and house hazardous chemicals onsite lie along the Interstate 4 and Interstate 75 corridors and their feeder roads. And many are in the path of the storm’s intense winds and heavy rainfall.

    Black dots indicate facilities in EPA’s 2022 Toxic Release Inventory within Hurricane Milton’s projected impact zone.
    Rice University Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience, CC BY-ND

    Helene’s heavy rainfall in late September 2024 flooded industrial sites across the Southeast. A retired nuclear power plant just south of Cedar Key, Florida, was flooded by Helene’s storm surge.

    In disasters like these, the industrial damage can unfold over days, and residents may not hear about releases of toxic chemicals into water or the air until days or weeks later, if they find out at all.

    Yet pollution releases are common.

    After Hurricane Ian broadsided Florida’s western coast in 2022, runoff that included hazardous materials from damaged storage tanks and local fertilizer mining facilities, in addition to millions of gallons of wastewater, was visible from space, spilling across the coastal wetlands into the Gulf of Mexico. A year earlier, Hurricane Ida triggered more than 2,000 reported chemical spills.

    During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, floodwater surrounded chemical facilities near Houston. Some caught fire as cooling systems failed, releasing huge volumes or pollutants into the air. Emergency responders and residents, who didn’t know what risks they might face, blamed the chemicals for causing respiratory illnesses.

    Many types of toxic material can spread, settle and change the long-term health and environmental safety of surrounding communities – often with little notice to residents. Our team of environmental sociologists and anthropologists has mapped hazardous industrial sites across the country and paired them with hurricanes’ projected impact maps to help communities hold nearby facilities accountable.

    Major polluters on Gulf Coast at high risk”

    The risks from industrial facilities are most obvious along the U.S. Gulf Coast, where many major petrochemical complexes are clustered in harm’s way. These refineries, factories and storage facilities are often built along rivers or bays for easy shipping access.

    But those rivers can also bring storm surge flooding that can raise the ocean by several feet during hurricanes. The storm surge from Helene was over 10 feet above ground level in Florida’s Big Bend and over 6 feet in Tampa Bay. With Milton, forecasters warning of a 10- to 15-foot storm surge at Tampa Bay.

    A boom surrounds flooded railcars to try to contain leaks at a chemical plant in Braithwaite, La., after Hurricane Isaac in 2012.
    AP Photo/David J. Phillip

    A recent study found evidence of two to three times more pollution releases during hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico than during normal weather from 2005 to 2020.

    The effects of these pollution releases fall disproportionately on low-income communities and people of color, further exacerbating environmental health risks.

    Why residents may not hear about toxic releases

    The statistics are disconcerting, yet they get little attention. That is because hazardous releases remain largely invisible due to limited disclosure requirements and scant public information. Even emergency responders often don’t know exactly which hazardous chemicals they are facing in emergency situations.

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires major polluters to file only very general information about chemicals and on-site risks in their risk management plans. Some large-scale fuel storage facilities, such as those holding liquefied natural gas, are not even required to do that.

    These risk management plans outline “worst-case” scenarios and are supposed to be publicly accessible. But, in reality, we and others have found them difficult to access, heavily redacted and housed in federal reading rooms with limited access. The reason local officials and national scientific review panels often give for the secrecy is to protect the facilities from terrorist attack.

    Oil storage tanks and industrial facilities line the Houston Ship Channel, which is vulnerable to storm surge from Gulf of Mexico hurricanes.
    AP Photo/David J. Phillip

    Adding to this opacity is the fact that many states – including those along the Gulf – suspend restrictions on pollution releases during emergency declarations. Meanwhile, real-time incident notifications from the National Response Center – the federal government’s repository for all chemical discharges into the environment – typically lag by a week or more,

    We believe this limited public information on rising chemical threats from our changing climate should be front-page news every hurricane season. Communities should be aware of the risks of hosting vulnerable industrial infrastructure, particularly as rising global temperatures increase the risk of extreme downpours and powerful hurricanes.

    Mapping the risks nationwide to raise awareness

    To help communities understand their risks, our team at Rice University’s new Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience investigates how industrial communities in flood-prone areas nationwide can better adapt to such threats, socially as well as technologically.

    Our interactive map shows where elevated future flood risks threaten to inundate major polluters that we identify using the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory.

    The U.S. has several hot spots with clusters of flood-prone polluters. Houston’s Ship Channel, Chicago’s waterfront steel industries and the harbors at Los Angeles and New York/New Jersey are among the biggest.

    Three of the biggest hot spots, where large numbers of industrial facilities with toxic materials face elevated future flood risks, are in the Northeast, the northwestern Gulf Coast and the southern end of the Great Lakes.
    Rice University Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience, CC BY-ND

    But, as Helene revealed, there can also be great concern in less obvious spots. Inland, particularly in the mountains, runoff can quickly turn normally tame rivers into fast-rising torrents. The French Broad River at Asheville, North Carolina, rose about 12 feet in 12 hours during Helene and set a new flood stage record.

    When hurricanes and tropical storms are headed for the U.S., our interactive maps show where major polluters are located in the storm’s projected cone of impact. The maps identify hazardous flood-prone facilities down to the address, anywhere in the country.

    Knowledge is the first step

    Knowing where these sites are located is only the first step. Often, it’s up to communities themselves, many of them already overexposed and historically underserved, to raise concerns and demand strategies for mitigating the health, economic and environmental risks that industrial sites at risk of flooding and other damage can pose.

    These discussions can’t wait until a disaster is on the way. By knowing where these risks may be, communities can take steps now to build a safer future.

    This article, originally published Sept. 30, has been updated with Hurricane Milton.

    James R. Elliott receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Renewable Energy Lab.

    Dominic Boyer receives funding from the National Science Foundation, NOAA and Texas Sea Grant.

    Phylicia Lee Brown has nothing to disclose.

    – ref. Hurricane Milton: Flooded industrial sites and toxic chemical releases are a silent, growing threat – https://theconversation.com/hurricane-milton-flooded-industrial-sites-and-toxic-chemical-releases-are-a-silent-growing-threat-239977

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Do recent class actions against ‘flex commission’ car loans mean consumer voices are getting stronger?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeannie Marie Paterson, Professor of Law, The University of Melbourne

    Gatot Adri/Shutterstock

    It’s been more than five years since the banking royal commission, but its findings continue to have an impact on the financial services sector.

    Law firm Maurice Blackburn recently announced it had settled with ANZ in a class action over allegedly unlawful “flex commissions” built into car loans made by Esanda between 2011 and 2016.

    ANZ agreed to settle the proceedings for $85 million on a “no admission of liability” basis. However, two further flex commission class actions – against Westpac & St George and Macquarie Leasing – remain on foot and will be heard this month.

    Class actions are a growing trend in the ways consumers seek to access justice. Many cases are simply too small to be pursued individually.

    On top of this, a recent High Court ruling could see organisations come under greater scrutiny over the systems they put in place. Could all of this mean consumers are getting a stronger voice?

    What are flex commissions?

    Many car dealers offer to provide financing for prospective car buyers as an alternative to getting a loan directly from a bank. But dealers typically don’t have their own huge reserves of funds to lend out.

    This financing usually comes from a finance company or bank lender through what is sometimes called a “white label” product.

    Many car dealers offer financing arrangements directly to customers.
    Tikhomirov Sergey/Shutterstock

    Dealers will usually be paid a commission on the loans they arrange by the lender. Prior to 2018, some lenders offered these car dealers arranging loans what is called a “flex commission”.

    Flex commissions allowed car dealers to set the interest rate on car loans above an agreed base rate.

    Higher interest rates meant a greater commission for the car dealer, but were not always in the interests of the borrower.

    Banned and heavily criticised

    Flex commissions were formally banned by Australia’s corporate watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), in November 2018.

    ASIC had been concerned that borrowers were paying excessively high interest rates on dealer-arranged car loans, and that the commissions were not fair or transparent.

    The watchdog’s own research found about 15% of customers were being charged an interest rate that was 7% or more above the base rate.

    Their main concern was that many car dealers weren’t increasing rates in line with actual credit risk, but rather opportunistically to target inexperienced or vulnerable consumers.

    Shortly after the ban, the final report of the banking royal commission didn’t mince words. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne noted a lack of transparency and a misplaced trust:

    Many borrowers knew nothing of these arrangements. Lenders did not publicise them; dealers did not reveal them. […] To the borrower, the dealer might have appeared to be acting for the borrower by submitting a loan proposal on behalf of the borrower. The borrower was given no indication that in fact the dealer was looking after its own interests.

    Why were class actions needed?

    Neither ASIC’s ban nor the criticisms of the banking royal commission guaranteed any redress for borrowers subject to loans with flex commissions.

    ASIC suggested flex commissions may have contravened the National Consumer Credit Protection Act by being unfair, or the ASIC Act by being misleading. But it is difficult and expensive for individuals to pursue such claims themselves in court.

    ASIC itself can seek compensation on behalf of borrowers, or require redress to be paid as part of other enforcement action. The watchdog has already gone down this road in some of the especially egregious instances of misconduct identified by the royal commission, such as fees for no service.

    Where individual action is too hard or regulator action lacking, consumers’ best option for redress may lie in a class action – taken on a no-win, no-fee basis. The likelihood of a good result may be increased in instances where the class action “piggybacks” on an adverse report from the regulator.

    Corporations may face increasing scrutiny

    It’s reasonable to ask why upstream lenders are being targeted in “flex commission” class actions when it is the car dealers who allegedly wronged borrowers.

    The ongoing class actions do not allege the lenders themselves misled borrowers or treated them unfairly. However, in this context that may not matter.

    In each of the class actions, Maurice Blackburn has argued the car dealers were acting as the representatives of the lenders, which they say makes the lenders responsible for the car dealers’ alleged misconduct.

    A recent High Court ruling may mean corporations have to take greater responsibility for the systems they oversee.
    Shutterstock

    Moreover, in these and similar cases, a recent High Court ruling that centred on “systemic unconscionable conduct” could make it harder for such upstream entities to argue their distance from alleged wrongdoing in systems they put in place.

    Better access to justice

    There has been a rise in consumer protection class actions in recent years, supported by changes in rules of procedure in several jurisdictions.

    Justice Bernard Murphy of the Federal Court of Australia has argued these changes promote the important value of access to justice:

    The important thing to remember is that class actions are critical in ensuring that people can obtain redress for mass civil wrongs. Laws which are not, in fact, readily capable of enforcement by ordinary Australians are little more than an illusion.

    This trend is important. Dishonest or unfair conduct has long been prohibited in the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, but this hasn’t been used much to date.

    Given the current flex commission actions closely follow the findings of ASIC, we should watch the regulator closely for hints of any future actions in other areas. Many could spark discussions that ultimately lead to stronger protection for consumers.

    But when they are successful, we also need to keep an eye on the actual payout to borrowers and hope it takes place without undue delay.

    Jeannie Marie Paterson has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council, DFAT and the Menzies Foundation.

    – ref. Do recent class actions against ‘flex commission’ car loans mean consumer voices are getting stronger? – https://theconversation.com/do-recent-class-actions-against-flex-commission-car-loans-mean-consumer-voices-are-getting-stronger-240795

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: In Vogue: the 90s was a boom time for Australian fashion and faces. What happened?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sasha Sarago, First Nations Cultural Innovation Lead – Beauty and Technology, Charles Sturt University

    The In Vogue: The 90s series transports audiences back to the glamour and grandeur of a transformative decade for fashion. Set against the backdrop of New York, London and Paris, the series explores the rise of supermodels, designer powerhouses and fashion’s global influence. But the fashion scene in Australia – a country that was also enjoying a meteoric rise in international success at the time – does not crack a mention.

    The 1990s marked a golden era for fashion. Supermodels like Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington became style icons. Designers like Tom Ford, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and John Galliano pushed the boundaries of fashion creating moments that defined the times and influenced everything from pop culture to politics.

    Even though Australia may not have had the runway clout of Paris or New York, the nation was making significant strides in fashion during the same period. Australian designers’ and models’ distinct styles were impressive – giving fashion heavyweights a run for their money.

    So, what went wrong?

    The 90s turned the fashion industry upside down.

    Australian designers, international success

    In the 1990s, Australian designer houses such as Alannah Hill, Collette Dinnigan, Akira Isogawa and Sass & Bide signified Australia’s “coming of age” in fashion, with each designer bringing a unique flair and Australian sensibility to the international market.

    Alannah Hill created a whimsical aesthetic with an edgy twist. Her designs, worn by celebrities Nicole Kidman, Helena Christensen and Courtney Love, earned her a cult following. Business skyrocketed from her Chapel Street boutique in Melbourne to the department stores Selfridges and Browns in London and Bergdorf Goodman and Henri Bendel in Fifth Avenue, New York City.

    In 1996, Collette Dinnigan gained worldwide acclaim as the first Australian designer to showcase her collection at Paris Fashion Week. Dinnigan’s delicate lace dresses and couture craftsmanship found a spotlight at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum’s Fashion in Motion exhibition. Striking while the iron was hot, Dinnigan secured a lingerie collaboration with Marks & Spencer.

    Collette Dinnigan’s designs were celebrated in a 2015 retrospective exhibition.
    4Susie/Shutterstock

    Akira Isogawa, known for his blend of Japanese and Western aesthetics shared his first collection in 1994. He has presented subsequent collections in Paris bi-annually, a legacy sustained since 1998. Innovative from the jump, he turned early constraints to strengths. When the budget for his first big show didn’t stretch to shoes, he sent models down the runway in little red socks. The fashion statement helped him eventually secure more than 50 retail partners.

    Sass & Bide, founded in 1999 by friends Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton, brought a youthful, urban energy from London’s Portobello Road Markets back to Australian shores. Their signature brand quickly gained popularity and was acquired by Myer in a A$42.3 million two-part deal. Australia was no longer a disconnected island but a wild card in the global fashion ecosystem.

    Australian faces and Elaine George’s Vogue cover

    Australian designers weren’t the only superstars gaining fashion fame.

    By the time the supermodel phenomenon etched itself into the fashion zeitgeist, Australian model and businesswoman Elle Macpherson (known then as The Body) was already well known. Australian models Sarah Murdoch, Kristy Hinze, Kate Fisher and Alyssa Sutherland would follow.

    Sarah Murdoch (nee O’Hare, pictured with Anneliese Seubert and Emma Balfour in 1996) graced Australian catwalks in the 90s.
    Patrick Riviere/Getty

    Magazine cover models throughout the 90s showed sun-kissed “girl next door” charm. The exception was Emma Balfour, often touted as Australia’s androgynous counterpart to Kate Moss’s grunge-bohemian look.

    But 1993 produced a turning point in Australia’s beauty paradigm. It was the year Elaine George, Australia’s first Aboriginal fashion model, arrived on the cover of Vogue Australia magazine, making fashion history. Elaine’s presence highlighted the Australian fashion industry’s prioritisation of Eurocentric beauty ideals.

    First Nations beauty and fashion talent urgently needed celebrating. But Vogue’s Australian readers had to wait until October 2000 until Torres Strait Islander singer-songwriter and actress Christine Anu was featured on the cover. The gap showed the stain of underrepresentation and inequity within Australian fashion’s reputation had remained.

    The 2000s, when fashion got much faster

    While the 1990s were a period of optimism and growth for Australian fashion, the momentum failed to continue into the 2000s. Several factors contributed to this decline.

    One of the most significant changes was the rise of fast fashion in the early 2000s. Brands like Zara, H&M and Forever 21 began dominating the global market with affordable, quickly produced garments.

    This shift left many independent designers, including those from Australia, struggling to compete. The slow, meticulous craftsmanship that had defined Australian designers in the 90s could not keep up with the fast-fashion cycle.

    Another challenge was the lack of sustained support for the Australian fashion industry. Unlike New York, London or Paris, which had well-established fashion infrastructures, Australia’s fashion scene was still relatively young. There was no long-term strategy to nurture emerging talent or to promote Australian fashion on a global scale. Many designers either relocated abroad or found it difficult to maintain the same level of success they had achieved in the 90s.

    A new Renaissance?

    The story of Australian fashion in the 1990s is one of promise, yet ultimately missed opportunity. Today, Australia has a chance to enter a new renaissance fuelled by digital innovation and its unique cultures.

    The rise of digital fashion enables Australian designers to break free from the constraints of traditional fashion markets. With virtual clothing (simulated for real wear or digital realms), AI-powered design tools and metaverse runways, Australian creatives can harness technology to showcase their work globally.

    The championing of Indigenous models, designers and multicultural identity is essential. This inclusivity could position Australia as sustainable and ethical fashion innovator and present a compelling alternative to the fast-fashion giants.

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

    – ref. In Vogue: the 90s was a boom time for Australian fashion and faces. What happened? – https://theconversation.com/in-vogue-the-90s-was-a-boom-time-for-australian-fashion-and-faces-what-happened-240784

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Accreditation Updates for October 2024

    Source: International Association of Drilling Contractors – IADC

    Headline: Accreditation Updates for October 2024

    IADC welcomes these 7 newly-accredited training providers who have satisfactorily completed the approval process:

    Basin United

    • Standard Safety & Supply – Odessa, Texas, US
    • TechnipFMC – Odessa, Texas, US
    • Tiger Safety – Houston, Texas, US

    Competence Assurance

    • ChampionX Middle East Services LLC – Muscat, Oman

    RigPass

    • RigSafe Iraq Training Services – Basra, Basra, Iraq 
    • JC Energy Services – Benton, Texas, US

    WellSharp

    • Bro Well Control School – Suez, Egypt

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: WTO Fish Fund Steering Committee meeting focuses on preparing for full operations

    Source: WTO

    Headline: WTO Fish Fund Steering Committee meeting focuses on preparing for full operations

    The meeting brought together key stakeholders working for the operationalization of the Fish Fund in support of developing and least-developed country (LDC) members’ implementation of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies.
    “Last time we gathered in July for the Second Steering Committee meeting, I remarked how impressive it was that this Steering Committee had so quickly achieved tangible results and was about to deliberate on the framework documents that will enable the Fish Fund to begin its operations,” Deputy Director-General Angela Ellard said at the meeting. “Since then, I have been following the Committee’s work very closely, and I can see from today’s full agenda that your remarkable efforts are continuing to deliver results.”
    DDG Ellard reported that the Fund has received close to USD 12 million from donors and has signed contribution agreements for more than USD 3.5 million. The members that have contributed to the Fund thus far are Australia, Canada, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and most recently the United Arab Emirates. The United Kingdom has pledged GBP 1 million.
    “These resources will have a real impact, and members are waiting to put them to good use,” DDG Ellard said.
    The Secretariat updated the Steering Committee that the consulting firm Dalberg was selected through a procurement process to develop the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) framework for the Fish Fund. The Manager of the Fish Fund reported on progress in planning for future calls for project proposals to be supported by the Fund and other updates on strategy, budget, staffing, and communications.
    The meeting also featured a presentation from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) on its Self-Assessment Tool for implementing the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement. Belize shared its experiences using this tool.  The Seychelles Fishing Authority unveiled a project to upgrade its fisheries management system.
    Because the new Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies will involve adjustments and enhancements to WTO members’ legislative and administrative frameworks, their transparency and notification obligations, and their fisheries management policies and practices, Article 7 of the Agreement provides for the creation of a voluntary funding mechanism to provide targeted technical assistance and capacity building to help developing and least developed country members with implementation. For the Agreement to enter into force, two-thirds of members have to deposit their “instruments of acceptance” with the WTO. Eighty-four WTO members have formally accepted the Agreement; twenty-seven more are needed for the Agreement to come into effect. Resources from the WTO Fish Fund will be available to members once they have deposited their instrument of acceptance.
    The list of members that have deposited their instruments of acceptance is available here. More information on the Fund is available here.

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    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Young people representing Australia at international youth forum in Samoa

    Source: Australian Ministers for Education

    Young Australians will have their voices heard on the international stage, with a delegation traveling to Samoa for the Commonwealth Youth Forum 2024.

    Minister for Youth Dr Anne Aly has announced that this month Charlotte and Jet, current members of the Albanese Government’s Youth Steering Committee, will represent Australia at the Forum. 

    “Charlotte and Jet will represent the experiences of young people in Australia at the Forum, with a particular lens on First Nations, disability, regional and LGBTIQ+ youth perspectives,” Dr Aly said.

    “They will also represent Australia at the Forum General Assembly which provides advice to the Commonwealth Youth Council.”

    Charlotte, 18, is an undergraduate student at the Australian National University in the ACT, studying a Bachelor of Advanced Science (Honours), majoring in astronomy and astrophysics. She hopes to also get her Masters in Primary Education to help future generations flourish. 

    Charlotte joined the Youth Steering Committee as a way of paying her successes forward, to help inspire and empower other young people, and is passionate about being a voice for other First Nations people and disabled young people.

    Jet, 18, is from the North-West Coast of Tasmania, and is passionate about social justice, the arts, and supporting diversity. He hopes to bring about change for young people, particularly those in rural and regional areas through representation, and encouraging young people to use their own voices. 

    As a proud member of the queer community, he hopes to contribute to diversity in youth engagement spaces by helping to build safe and collaborative environments.

    “Charlotte and Jet will provide important contributions as the Forum considers global problems and presents recommendations to the leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting,” said Dr Aly.

    The Commonwealth Youth Forum 2024 will be held in Apia, Samoa between 21-22 October. The Forum coincides with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2024 taking place in Apia from 21-26 October.

    The Forum provides an opportunity for the young people of the Commonwealth to build cross-cultural connections and networks, deliberate on youth-led initiatives addressing emerging issues impacting young people, consider perspectives to influence decision makers, and ensure young people have a voice and agency in its future.

    The 2024 Forum theme is ‘Navigating Our Course: Building Resilience for a Common Future’ which reflects the ambitions of our new generation of leaders advocating for an inclusive Commonwealth. 

    At CHOGM 2024 leaders will deliberate on global economic, environmental and security challenges, and discuss how Commonwealth countries can work together to build resilience, boost trade, innovation, growth and empower the Commonwealth’s 1.5 billion young people for a more peaceful and sustainable future.

    This year’s Forum marks the culmination of the Commonwealth Year of Youth.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Kean Visits FY25 Community Project Funding Site in Warren County

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Tom Kean, Jr. (NJ-07)

    (October 9, 2024) WARREN COUNTY, NJ – Today, Congressman Tom Kean, Jr. (NJ-07) met with Dr. William Austin, Warren Community College President, along with students, faculty, and deans, ahead of the FY25 appropriations discussion to gain insight into the critical need for funding to enhance the Agricultural Education and Training Center’s facilities. Congressman Kean requested $978,625 for Warren Community College in this year’s appropriation process. The funding would be used for improvements to the existing Agricultural Education and Training Center’s facilities to serve as a location for training students on vocational agriculture and culinary studies.   

    “Hands-on experience bridges the gap between classroom learning and practical application, providing opportunities that can be transformed into valuable real-world skills,” said Congressman Kean. “This funding would provide students with the necessary resources and training in vocational agriculture and culinary studies, helping to foster skill development and workforce readiness in these fields. I thank President Austin and his team for taking the time to show me the site today and look forward to getting this funding across the finish line.”  

    “We are honored to welcome Congressman Kean to our Robotics research facility, where we reviewed our past work in precision agriculture and discussed our plans to automate food processing,” said Dr. William Austin, President of Warren Community College. “By collaborating with local farmers and the Congressman, we aim to develop a cutting-edge food science innovation center for Northwest New Jersey.” 

    Congressman Kean requested 15 projects in this year’s appropriation process. To view the full list, click HERE.   

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: CORRECTION – HPH Announces Changes to the Board of Directors

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    TGUANGZHOU, China, Oct. 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — he board of directors (the “Board”) of Highest Performances Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: HPH) (“HPH” or the “Company”), today announced a correction to its press release disseminated on October 1, 2024 which announced changes to the board of directors. The original statement regarding the professional experience of the newly appointed Chairperson is entirely replaced and changed to the following: “Since June 2023, Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen has served as the Vice President of WEALTH WILL LIMITED, overseeing operational strategies and driving the company’s capital deployment and growth in multiple emerging markets. Prior to that, from late 2018 until May 2023, she held the position of Sales Director at Trustwell Far East Pte. Ltd., where she was responsible for formulating and executing sales strategies, managing the sales team, analyzing market demands, maintaining customer relationships, and expanding business channels, making significant contributions to the company’s cross-border business. Ms. Nguyen obtained her Bachelor’s degree in International Business from Vietnam National University in 2008 and her Master’s degree in Business Administration from Hanoi University of Science and Technology in 2009.” The rest of the press release remains unchanged. The updated press release follows.

    October 1, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — the board of directors (the “Board”) of Highest Performances Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: HPH) (“HPH” or the “Company”), today announced the appointment of Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen (“Ms. Nguyen”) as the new chairwoman of the Board, effective from September 30, 2024. Ms. Nguyen will succeed Mr. Chin Hua Peh, who will continue to serve as a director of the Company.

    Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen, Director and the Chairwoman of the Board

    Since June 2023, Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen has served as the Vice President of WEALTH WILL LIMITED, overseeing operational strategies and driving the company’s capital deployment and growth in multiple emerging markets. Prior to that, from late 2018 until May 2023, she held the position of Sales Director at Trustwell Far East Pte. Ltd., where she was responsible for formulating and executing sales strategies, managing the sales team, analyzing market demands, maintaining customer relationships, and expanding business channels, making significant contributions to the company’s cross-border business. Ms. Nguyen obtained her Bachelor’s degree in International Business from Vietnam National University in 2008 and her Master’s degree in Business Administration from Hanoi University of Science and Technology in 2009.

    The Board also announces that Mr. Jidong Luo has decided to resign from the Board as director and chairman of the audit committee due to personal reasons, effective from September 30, 2024.

    The Board has also appointed the following individuals to new roles of the Company, effective from September 30, 2024:

    Dr. Lihong Zhai, as independent director and the chairman of the audit committee;

    Ms. Min Zhou, as independent director and the chairwoman of the nominating and governance Committee; and

    Ms. Yingying Li, as independent director and the chairwoman of the compensation committee.

    Ms. Min Zhou, Independent Director and the Chairwoman of the Nominating and Governance Committee

    Ms. Min Zhou has been an executive director of Tian Ruixiang Holdings Ltd (NASDAQ “TIRX”) since April 2024. Prior to this role, Ms. Zhou worked as an investment manager at Huobi Capital from September 2021 to September 2022, where she developing investment plans and agreements for participating in the negotiation and trading of investment projects. She has rich experience in supervising the operation and development of investment projects. From September 2016 to June 2021, Ms. Zhou was the business development manager of Delta Insurance Brokerage Co. , Ltd. Ms. Zhou has extensive experience in ensuring compliance with securities laws and regulations, protecting shareholders’ interests, as well as participating in the formulation of company strategy and supervising management implementation to promote the company’s long-term development and enhance shareholder value. Ms. Zhou graduated from Hunan University with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical automation.

    Ms. Yingying Li, Independent Director and the Chairwoman of the Compensation Committee

    Since 2022, Ms. Yingying Li has served as the OEM cotton product director at Qinshu (Shanghai) Trading Co., Ltd. From July 2021 to October 2022, Ms. Li served as the general manager of the Product Planning Department at Shanghai Metersbonwe Fashion Co., Ltd., where she had extensive experience in leading the planning team to collect, sort, analyze fashion trends, and develop product strategies based on brand positioning and annual business goals. She also had experience in preparing planning proposals, themes, and quarterly development timetables. From October 2017 to June 2021, Ms. Li served as the manager of the Product Planning Department at E-Land Group. She had extensive experience in leading the planning, design, and production teams in conducting product sketch review, sample review at selection meetings, and pricing work to ensure product completion. Ms. Li graduated from Donghua University with a Master’s degree in textile engineering.

    Following the foregoing changes, our Board consists of eight directors, three of which are independent directors, and is chaired by Ms. Nguyen. Our current directors as of the date of this press release are as follows:

    Name   Position
    Hang Suong Nguyen·   Chairwoman of the board
    Yinan Hu   Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
    Youjie Kong   Director
    Yong Ren   Director
    Chin Hua Peh   Director
    Lihong Zhai   Independent Director and the Chairman of Audit Committee
    Min Zhou   Independent Director and the Chairwoman of Nominating and Governance Committee
    Yingying Li   Independent Director and the Chairwoman of Compensation Committee
         

    Mr. Yinan Hu, vice-chairman and chief executive officer of HPH, commented: “We would like to extend our warmest welcome to Ms. Nguyen, our new Chairwoman. Ms. Nguyen brings a wealth of industry experience, outstanding leadership, and sharp market insight. I believe her joining will bring new development ideas and opportunities to the Company. Under her leadership, the Company is sure to make great strides in its journey to transform into an intelligent service provider for families and businesses, achieving our mission and making new leaps forward. At the same time, we sincerely thank the outgoing Board member for his valuable contributions to the Company. Together, we will ensure a smooth transition and maintain the momentum of our growth.”

    Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen, chairwoman of HPH, said: “As HPH embarks on its journey of transforming into an intelligent service provider for families and businesses, I look forward to working closely with the Board and management to actively drive the Company’s innovation. By fully leveraging the power of technology, we will build an AI-driven service platform that offers comprehensive and personalized solutions for families and businesses, while also creating greater value for shareholders.”

    Forward-looking Statements
    This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. When HPH uses words such as “may”, “will”, “intend”, “should”, “believe”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “project”, “estimate” or similar expressions that do not relate solely to historical matters, it is making forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results to differ materially from HPH’s expectations discussed in the forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks including, but not limited to, the following: HPH’s ability to obtain proceeds from the Agreement; HPH’s goals and strategies; HPH’s future business development; product and service demand and acceptance; changes in technology; economic conditions; the growth of the third-party wealth management industry in China; reputation and brand; the impact of competition and pricing; government regulations; fluctuations in general economic and business conditions in China and the international markets HPH serves and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing and other risks contained in reports filed by HPH with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For these reasons, among others, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements in this press release. Additional factors are discussed in HPH’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available for review at http://www.sec.gov. HPH undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date hereof.

    Highest Performances Holdings Inc.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: CORRECTION – Fanhua Announces Changes to the Board of Directors and Management Team

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    GUANGZHOU, China, Oct. 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The board of directors (the “Board”) of Fanhua Inc. (Nasdaq: FANH) (the “Company” or “Fanhua”), a leading independent technology-driven financial services provider in China, today issued an updated press release to correct its press release disseminated on October 1, 2024 which announced changes to its board of directors and management team (the “Original Announcement”). The statement regarding the professional experience of the newly appointed chairperson of the Board in the Original Announcement is hereby replaced with and changed to “Since June 2023, Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen has served as the Vice President of WEALTH WILL LIMITED, overseeing operational strategies and driving the company’s capital deployment and growth in multiple emerging markets. Prior to that, from late 2018 until May 2023, she held the position of Sales Director at Trustwell Far East Pte. Ltd., where she was responsible for formulating and executing sales strategies, managing the sales team, analyzing market demands, maintaining customer relationships, and expanding business channels, making significant contributions to the company’s cross-border business. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in International Business from Vietnam National University in 2008 and her Master’s degree in Business Administration from Hanoi University of Science and Technology in 2009.” Except for the above, there are no other changes to the Original Announcement. The updated press release is as follows.

    GUANGZHOU, China, October 9, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — the board of directors (the “Board”) of Fanhua Inc. (Nasdaq: FANH) (the “Company” or “Fanhua”), a leading independent technology-driven financial services provider in China, today announced that Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen has been appointed as the new Chairperson of the Board, effective September 30, 2024.

    Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen, Chairperson of the Board

    Since June 2023, Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen has served as the Vice President of WEALTH WILL LIMITED, overseeing operational strategies and driving the company’s capital deployment and growth in multiple emerging markets. Prior to that, from late 2018 until May 2023, she held the position of Sales Director at Trustwell Far East Pte. Ltd., where she was responsible for formulating and executing sales strategies, managing the sales team, analyzing market demands, maintaining customer relationships, and expanding business channels, making significant contributions to the company’s cross-border business. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in International Business from Vietnam National University in 2008 and her Master’s degree in Business Administration from Hanoi University of Science and Technology in 2009.

    The Board also announces that incumbent independent directors Mr. Yunxiang Tang and Mr. Allen Lueth, along with incumbent executive director Mr. Ben Lin, have tendered their resignations from the Board due to personal reasons, effective September 30, 2024. Additionally, Mr. Lin has resigned from the position of Chief Strategy Officer.

    The Board has appointed Ms. Jiaxing Shi as Independent Director and the Chair of the Audit Committee and Mr. Changfu Li as Independent Director and the Chair of the Compensation Committee to fill the vacancies left by the departure of Mr. Tang and Mr. Lueth, effective September 30, 2024.

    Ms. Jiaxing Shi, Independent Director and the Chair of Audit Committee

    Ms. Jiaxing Shi has served as the Investment Operations Manager at YD Network Technology Co Ltd. since March 2024, overseeing the company’s investment strategy, and financial due diligence to optimize long-term returns. Prior to this role, she served as senior audit professionals at UHY LLP and Marcum LLP from 2022 to 2024. Prior to that, she served as senior manager position in financial reporting and investor relations role at Aurora Mobile Ltd. (Nasdaq: JG) from 2018 to 2022. She received an MBA Degree in Financial Management from Goldey-Beacom College in 2018 and a Master Degree in Accounting from St. John’s University in 2015. She received Bachelor’s Degree in Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics in 2013.

    Mr. Changfu Li, Independent Director and the Chair of Compensation Committee

    Mr. Changfu Li has over a decade of experience in senior management, with a focus on strategic operations and cost management across various industries. Mr. Li has served as a consulting advisor at Beijing Shanying Legal Consulting Co., Ltd since November 2023. Prior to this, he served as a procurement supervisor at Shanghai Sanqing Industrial Development Co., Ltd. from June 2010 to March 2020, where he managed procurement operations and contributed to sales strategy planning. And later he was promoted to Vice President of Administration and Purchasing Manager at the company’s Guangzhou branch in March 2020. Before that, from 2006 to 2010, Mr. Li held the position of procurement associate at Zhejiang Shalangsi Craft Co., Ltd. Mr. Li earned his bachelor’s degree in International Economics and Trade from Yanbian University in 2006.

    With the appointment and departure of these directors, the composition of the Board will be adjusted accordingly. Below is the updated list of board members:

    Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen, Chairperson of Fanhua Inc.

    Mr. Yinan Hu, Vice Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of Fanhua Inc.

    Mr. Peng Ge, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of Fanhua Inc.

    Mr. Mengbo Yin, Independent Director and Chair of Nominating and Governance Committee of Fanhua Inc.

    Ms. Jiaxing Shi, Independent Director and Chair of Audit Committee of Fanhua Inc.

    Mr. Changfu Li, Independent Director and Chair of Compensation Committee of Fanhua Inc.

    Mr. Yinan Hu, Vice Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of Fanhua, commented: “We are thrilled to announce that Ms. Nguyen has been appointed as our new Chairperson, a decision that signifies a major milestone for the Company’s strategic upgrade towards pursuing growth by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. At the same time, we deeply appreciate the significant contributions that Mr. Yunxiang Tang, Mr. Allen Lueth, and Mr. Ben Lin have made during their tenure. As we look ahead, our commitment to our strategic goals and growth remains unwavering. With Ms. Nguyen at the helm as Chairperson, we are poised to build upon our momentum and achieve even greater heights.”

    Ms. Hang Suong Nguyen, Chairperson of Fanhua, stated: “It is my pleasure to join the Board and take on the role of Fanhua’s Chairperson. I understand the significant responsibility that comes with this position and I am confident in our Company’s future. And I look forward to working with all of Fanhua’s team members to meet challenges and achieve great success together.”

    About Fanhua Inc.

    Driven by its digital technologies and professional expertise in the insurance industry, Fanhua Inc. is the leading independent financial service provider in China, focusing on providing insurance-oriented family asset allocation services that covers customers’ full lifecycle and a one-stop service platform for individual sales agents and independent insurance intermediaries.

    With strategic focus on long-term life insurance products, we offer a broad range of insurance products, claims adjusting services and various value-added services to meet customers’ diverse needs, through an extensive network of digitally empowered sales agents and professional claims adjustors. We also operate Baowang (www.baoxian.com), an online insurance platform that provides customers with a one-stop insurance shopping experience.

    For more information about Fanhua Inc., please visit https://ir.fanhgroup.com.

    Forward-looking Statements

    This press release contains statements of a forward-looking nature. These statements, including the statements relating to the Company’s future financial and operating results, are made under the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these forward-looking statements by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “believes,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “estimates” and similar statements. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about Fanhua and the industry. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to its ability to attract and retain productive agents, especially entrepreneurial agents, its ability to maintain existing and develop new business relationships with insurance companies, its ability to execute its growth strategy, its ability to adapt to the evolving regulatory environment in the Chinese insurance industry, its ability to compete effectively against its competitors, quarterly variations in its operating results caused by factors beyond its control including macroeconomic conditions in China. Except as otherwise indicated, all information provided in this press release speaks as of the date hereof, and Fanhua undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although Fanhua believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that its expectations will turn out to be correct, and investors are cautioned that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. Further information regarding risks and uncertainties faced by Fanhua is included in Fanhua’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 20-F.

    For more information, please contact:

    Fanhua Inc.

    Investor Relations

    Tel: +86 (20) 8388-3191

    Email: ir@fanhgroup.com 

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Business – Fonterra announces changes to Management Team

    Source: Fonterra

    Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd has today announced changes to its Management Team to support the next phase of its strategic delivery.  

    Managing Director Co-operative Affairs Mike Cronin has been leading the potential Consumer divestment process and will dedicate his focus to this critical project full time.  

    Former Fonterra alumni Matt Bolger will return to the Co-op and step into the Managing Director Co-operative Affairs position from March 2025.  

    CEO Miles Hurrell says “exploring options for the potential divestment of our Consumer businesses is one of the most important projects Fonterra has undertaken and has the potential to unlock significant value for our farmer shareholders and unit holders.  

    “As we progress this work, Mike will step away from the Managing Director Co-operative Affairs role to dedicate his time to the potential divestment. He will remain a key member of the Fonterra Management Team.  

    “Mike has been with Fonterra since 2002 and has been involved in a number of key strategic projects for the Co-op, including Trading Amongst Farmers, the Governance and Representation Review, the Co-operative Difference and Flexible Shareholding.  

    “Mike is a highly respected leader and industry figure, holding the Managing Director Co-operative Affairs role since 2014. I personally value his trusted advice and strategic leadership. He will remain with the Co-op until the potential divestment process is concluded.

    “I’m also pleased to announce Matt Bolger’s appointment to the Managing Director Co-operative Affairs role and look forward to welcoming him back to the Co-op on the 5th of March,” says Mr Hurrell.  

    Matt spent more than 18 years with Fonterra in a variety of roles, including General Manager Capital Strategy and Director of Farmer Services, as well as time leading global sales teams offshore.  

    He stepped into his current position as Pro Vice-Chancellor of The University of Waikato Management School in 2020 and is the current Chairman of the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ).

    “As Managing Director Co-operative Affairs, Matt will be responsible for functions including Farm Source, Global Stakeholder Affairs and Trade, Governance, Risk and Audit, Corporate Communications, Legal and Māori Strategy.

    “As we implement our revised strategy, Matt’s knowledge of the Co-op’s farmers, stakeholder relations experience and commercial acumen will serve him well,” says Mr Hurrell.  

    Matt completed his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at Georgetown University in Washington DC, majoring in International Business with Minors in English and Japanese.  

    About Fonterra 

    Fonterra is a co-operative owned and supplied by thousands of farming families across Aotearoa New Zealand. Through the spirit of co-operation and a can-do attitude, Fonterra’s farmers and employees share the goodness of our milk through innovative consumer,foodservice and ingredients brands. Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, and we’re committed to leaving things in a better way than we found them. We are passionate about supporting our communities by Doing Good Together. 

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –